Are you taking any steps because of the Ukraine situation?

[DetailMouse]

The situation for those in the country is heartbreaking, I've sobbed at several news stories this morning and my heart aches for a Ukrainian friend whose family is still there.

On a far more selfish, practical level have you "done" anything to protect yourself and your own situation? If nothing else I can see an impending deepening of the financial crisis. A friend has taken all her money out of the bank, for example, but it's true she's prone to a bit of drama. Gas supply worries me a lot.

Is there anything we should be doing now to help a bit if the situation is prolonged or worsens?

I suspect your friend’s disposition is a much bigger threat to her well being than Russia will ever be.

And then? When you’ve eaten the sheep and pigs, slaughtered the chickens and picked the carrots. Then what?

For goodness sake, no one's saying any of these options help in a real doomsday situation, but they would help for a few days or weeks while the country tried to get things sorted.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

I think MNHQ needs to set up a Putin's Propaganda board on here, so all these threads can be shovelled in there where they belong, as a historical archive.

My thoughts exactly. Or excellent grammar for a Ruski.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

There's a government scheme that guarantees the first £75k (it may have gone up) of money in a bank.

Well, that’s me covered. But for many, that’s peanuts.

Don’t be daft. You and your ‘friend’

You have, you've always got enough in to have "stocks" for any crisis. Some people here want you to believe that's selfish

I honestly think your anxiety is causing you confusion. Unless money is extremely tight most people will have food in their freezer and food in their cupboards. These people aren’t planning for WW3, they have gone shopping. The accusation of being selfish is the people I saw during covid stockpiling anything from hand gel to toilet rolls and sticking it in their garage this leaving the shelves bare for other ordinary folks trying to shop as normal.

The peepers board has people buying one extra can and one extra packet of pasta. Sounds okay doesn’t it? Until everyone does the same and then the shelves are bare. So if you want to help anyone at all then the key is to carry on as normal until such a time that we hear the bombs whistling overhead.

• preppers

Yes we're getting our finances in order, making sure my husband's will is up to date, making sure we have all the documents needed for our remortgage in a couple of months and that our savings are moved into my name. However, this is because he is being deployed to Estonia. If he weren't military we would be doing nothing differently

So if you want to help anyone at all then the key is to carry on as normal until such a time that we hear the bombs whistling overhead.

When it's too late and people who haven't planned ahead will be the ones panic buying.

@USaYwHatNow

Yes we're getting our finances in order, making sure my husband's will is up to date, making sure we have all the documents needed for our remortgage in a couple of months and that our savings are moved into my name. However, this is because he is being deployed to Estonia. If he weren't military we would be doing nothing differently

Oh that is a cause for Genuine concern, having a partner in Military. Sincerely hope you and other Servicemen/Women will be safe.

@MostIneptThatEverStepped

Although...will it be one of those things where if everyone takes out £100 cash that will have some destabilising effect on the banks (financial equivalent of everyone buying one extra pack of pasta)?

I have absolutely no idea.

If the banking system can't cope with people having £100 in cash then we really are in trouble. Imo.

Mind you, we’ve had pestilence followed by war, famine is obviously next, then we all die (well a quarter of the world anyway) -source the Revelation of St John the Divine (who may or may not have been tripping out of his mind on magic mushrooms).

as some others, we've got 500 out for the basics, for what I (and those working in banking) consider highly likely event that the banks encounter several cyber attacks, which takes 1 day to a couple of weeks to resolve.

other than that - nothing.

If the banking system can't cope with people having £100 in cash then we really are in trouble. Imo.

The banking system absolutely couldn't cope if everyone went to get £100 today. That's just fact. It would sort it out within a day or two, but the cash wouldn't be there if everyone wanted it today.

@GallopingHighRoad

Runs on banks - no reason for that to happen. This is not a banking crisis and there is huge demand across the world to expand economies.

Now selling crypto - that’s something to do. Nations will move against crypto now because it’s a way to circumvent financial sanctions.

My OH sold his crypto a bit over a week ago because of this.

I think taking a bit of cash out is wise in case of a cyber attack crashing the banks for a few days. I can't afford to do this at the moment though as money needs to be in the account to pay bills, hopefully next pay day I can.

@Im2022

No, the £85k is the protection amount

What does that mean? Is there more?

its the amount that the banks have to refund every customer if they (the bank) get a problem and loses their reserves.

If nothing else Covid showed us how fragile our supply chains are, whatever the reason for a bit of additional pressure is

Or you could see it as a lesson in Just In Time supply economics that was of benefit to us all in building resilience.

@JaniieJones

We can but hope that mainstream media don't start whipping people into a frenzy like they did in Feb 2020 saying food and grain supplies may be affected or that'll be it. We'll be queueing round tesco's car park again.

I really, really hope the media show some sense.

The world really has turned upside down, because I agree with you jj!

Scaremongering threads like this are not helpful either.

[quote HalfTermHell]@ancientgran that's a good point, although like someone else pointed out if things got that bad there'd be looting and probably not much left for you standing nicely in a line with your £50 cash! My only worry really is for those on very low incomes that are already living on the breadline and the price of basic things (food, fuel) going up even more.[/quote]
Yes if it went on things would start breaking down, I was thinking more of going for your weekly shop and getting to the checkout as the electric or their computer system goes down. It was all very good natured when it happened on my weekly shop, people seemed to be being very reasonable about guessing how much their shopping should be and loved getting the discount.

@DetailMouse

So if you want to help anyone at all then the key is to carry on as normal until such a time that we hear the bombs whistling overhead.

When it's too late and people who haven't planned ahead will be the ones panic buying.

Honestly by the time the bombs start arriving it won’t matter as you’ll be on the move or worse and you won’t be dragging your freezer behind you.

@oakleaffy and if that's peanuts, I imagine people will have diversified their wealth under professional guidance. For most people, having £85k in one financial institution would be doing very well and therefore, their money is protected in all but a very grim set of circumstances.

Actually maybe the thing to do if you really want to do something is purchase some of those dehydrated food supplies that people take on mountain expeditions. At least those would fit in a bag abd have a huge amount of calories.

I'm stocking up on toilet roll. You never know - would be glad if internet went down for a day or so. Stop bloody emails into my work inbox !

I remember a quote I read, not sure if it was accurate but it was Napoleon saying he'd rather have lucky Generals than good ones.

Well I don't think Johnson is particularly good but he certainly isn't lucky is he. What have we had since he was elected? Pandemic, him getting covid, rocketing cost of living and now the threat of war. Can we have a lucky PM please.

I've started learning russian on Duolingo. Just in case I need to plead for my life to invading forces. Plus I'll be able to read war and peace in the original if there is no invasion. Win-win.