Is Anyone preparing/hunkering down for 'after the budget'

[IsUnemploymentRising]

The news is today seems to be full of headlines such as unemployment is going up, housing markets are softening, budget is make or break.

Lots of people such as Andrew Bailey quoting things like markets could crash due to debt and AI bubble etc

I just don't see how RR or anyone else for that matter can get us out of our current situation without considerable cutbacks and pain.

Raise Taxes - lots of people think this is maxed out now with rich leaving and businesses already hit (thus rising unemployment)

Cut Benefits - will they try this again. If so what will all the people on benefits actually do to live. Will they all get jobs. Is there jobs?

So are you hunkering down?

Me personally I wish they would just get on with it. I hope to move house in next few years and whilst I'm still committed to it I can see another frozen housing market coming where only forced sellers sell and everyone else sits tight.

I'm retired (although not getting any pensions yet as too young) and definately worried about pension values (ie stock markets, bonds etc). It's very difficult to plan when your pensions are dependant on things outwith your control. (not applicable to those with final salary/defined benefit schemes of course)

State pension is a good 14 years away for me (I'm fully paid up) but I worry it will be eroded when I have built it into my calculations for retirement not to mention the freezing of tax brackets which means we are all getting taxed more each year by stealth.

I'm probably in a better position that many to weather the storm as no mortgage or debts and holding cash etc but even then I worry about our currency being worth nothing soon if they go down the route of printing money again.

Am I being overly pesimestic. I mean how are they actually going to get us out of this. For those on benefits (apart from worrying, being scared etc) how will you actually cope if your benefits are cut.

Spot on.

i stand with you OP.

People giving you grief over your curiosity about how parents safeguard their disabled dc future, and other personal circumstances - what on earth is that about? Everyone should be thinking how to protect the future for them and theirs.

i fear for the future, there will be no public purse at some stage. In truth, I wish I could go back 30 years and plan for my future situation which I only did to a certain extent. Now would be reaping the benefits instead of worrying about a downturn in the economy.

what we are doing:- We have about £50k left on mortgage and are paying it off asap. An adult dc living at home to save costs for him, and he contributes a bit to us. Our beloved last dog died in the summer, we won’t be getting another. I have an admin NHS job which I could theoretically still do after retirement age. Our biggest worry is no private pension for DH, and no full state pension. Therefore relying on downsizing and living off capital - appreciate we are lucky to have this option.

in all honestly, we aren’t as financially secure as we’d like to be in a severe economic downturn.

No we can’t rely on economic growth for ever - like any other growth it’s can’t happen forever with finite resources

we need a new way of thinking about the economy

Growth is quite hard though when we have the most expensive energy in the world and infrastructure somehow costs billions just in the planning before a single spade goes in the ground!

well as I have said I have only know one child who had downs and her parents set up a trust fund for her which paid for her private care home after they died. So it's not so strange that I would think that other parents would do this too.

I've learned today that some can't afford it and I'm always happy to learn new things although of course that's a shame for the child.

Labour has messed it up as usual. They should have tightened up the rules on PIP but they chickened out. Now they've got to raise even more money for benefits. Sorry I voted for them. I won't be again.

I understand you being very upset re disabled people especially if you had a family member who was impaired.

I don't think it's just a case of disabled children not getting the right treatment and everyone else is having a great time. There was a thread on here last about about lack of GP appointments and having to pay private.

The point I am trying to make is our NHS can't cope with what it is being expected to. Sooner or later that means they will have to change it or scrap it.

That will be painful for everybody. Some more than others I acknowledge.

However how can the country get out of this mess if even saying out loud that we can't afford things like our benefits bill creates a narrative where the person who has said it is a monster.

You can feel really sorry for people with a disabled child whilst also acknowledging that the country can't go on forever going into debt to pay bills we clearly can no longer afford.

Inflation has gone up, but so have wages and, crucially growth. Inflation without growth is indeed something to be wary of - but that's not happening yet. Effectively if you want growth and wage rises you will have some inflation. The tricky part is if wages rise above inflation. Which has happened this year. Some of the inflation was caused by wage growth.
The other part of inflation that isn't talked about is that it brings down debt. So worrying about inflation AND worrying about the debt is a bit contradictory. If national debt was your main concern then some inflation is actually a good thing. (So long as it isn't so much that it causes other issues).
Even bond yields (the interest we pay on the debt) are mixed because a lot of those bonds are held as pension portfolios. So the interest paid is going to you if you are retired.
I'm not like "yay inflation". But it's good and bad. If there was no inflation we would be fucked. If there was too much inflation (above wage growth) we would be fucked.

Yes my parents were very old school and kept hundred of thousands in the bank so over the period from 2008 to 2019 they would have earned very little in interest.

It makes me weep when I see what they did but that was up to them of course.

Like you I will be glad for entirely personal reasons if rates go up (and like you I think they might due to inflation).

The thing is you say "it will be painful for everyone" but you don't mean painful for you. You mean painful for the people on disability, or those needing health care but on low incomes. You can talk about necessary cuts because you don't think they will affect you. They will, because the economy is a very complex thing and even those low income people are helping to run it. Even if you are living of your savings (investments) then the only reason those investments are worth anything at all is because other people are working and consuming. Your pension is only growing because other people are working and consuming. Your pension relies in part on the government paying interest on the bonds your pension is invested in. If you have a heart attack at the age of 60 many of the people.looking after you will be low paid. If you live to 80 you will be around for decades, being looked after and having your pension investments kept healthy by the work of other people. Many of them poorly paid
Should they not have health care themselves? Should they not be able to house their children? Should their children be left to rot of they have disabilities?
If anything happened to affect your plans, I suspect the pain would suddenly be too great.

thanks for your support. Yes most people in my class seemed to be 17 or 18 so I guess they might have stayed on for 6th year at school or just had birthdays earlier in the year.

I probably was one of the younger ones there but just an ordinary kid who grew up on a council estate with working class parents and went to a regular school.

I was lucky in so far as I got a grant (because my parents were not well off) and I didn't have to pay fees which I think perhaps youngsters do nowadays.

I am disabled, to the point a stranger would look at me and say ‘she’s unwell’. I’m not worried about harsh measures which are necessary to save our country. I’m worried about our continual slide into the economic abyss where everything being ‘free’ is a loan shark scheme by which more borrowing follows more borrowing. We can’t live like this. France, Germany are experiencing the same. Leaders in despair as the public fight any measures they try.

If you are so certain that Labour policies are driving up the cost of government borrowing the sensible thing is to buy bonds. Since then those terrifyingly high interest rates will be going straight to your pocket (at least some of them). But if you had a lot invested in bonds, the next complaint would be that yields weren't high enough...

I read some other replies of yours, and you are lying about your parents having hundreds of thousands. (just as i may have been about being peed off😆)

thanks for your post. I appreciate your support. Like you i wish I could go back 30 years and make better decisions. However we must remember we were young then and didn't know what we do now.

Yes the state pension being taken away in some form is a real worry. My emergency plan is lodgers, downsizing or equity release. None of these things are really what I want to do but if the state pension totally disappeared and I was on the breadline........

Yes my beloved dog is getting old and I have to admit my head is telling me not to get another partly because he has been alot of work and partly because the costs have been eye watering. Whether I will be too lonely without a wee furry companion is another matter though so we will have to see.

Oh I see. You were being nasty. Right oh. That went right over my head so well done you.

But the people who get the most "free stuff" are retirees who have,.arguably, worked their lives to earn it. They may well deserve it but pointing at disability payments in general or the use of the NHS in general as the problem hides the fact that the growing welfare burden is caused by the aging generation. But most of the people talking about "hard choices" seem to be those past pension age, or those who like the OP have taken early retirement. And notably the hard choices they discuss don't seem to involve going back to work, a cut in their own pensions, a restriction on their own use of the NHS. I am not saying any of those things are morally justified. But cutting benefits for younger families/removing free at the point of use NHS care isn't morally justified either and won't fix anything. Particularly because I assume those with pensions would qualify for paid health insurance/fee health care in this brave new world. So the biggest strain on NHS resources would remain.

You already have a situation where, as the OP said, older generations got University grants etc which aren't possible now. I think most younger people understand this isn't sustainable anymore. And probably in 20/30 years the retirement age will be much higher. Most people my age understand this to. But you have quite wealthy older people, who benefitted from the welfare state growing up, who benefited from free tuition, who benefitted from NHS care when they had their own children, who were able to take early retirement themselves who now shake their heads sadly and suggest that "the population" don't understand sacrifices will have to be made. But aren't sticking their hands in their own pocket to help out (they need that money for their own children to inherit). Instead it's always someone else who has to pay and those people are entitled for asking for far less than they themselves had. Maybe the call is coming from inside the house?

I definately was not lying about my parents who came from very poor backgrounds having saved up hundreds of thousands of pounds.

How do you think they paid me for 6 years to look after them.
How do you think there was still money for an inheritance after that.

They could have made alot of money with that kind of cash sitting about when house prices were rock bottom and the stock market had crashed but my dad liked the security of having it in the bank and so that is where it was.

Yes I didn't vote for them but would have been quite happy to have them in power for a while if they just made decisive decisions and stuck to them.

They lost all credibility when they started reversing their decisions.

Nobody expected them to fix the economy in one year. What I did expect was baby steps towards a better economy and of course the complete opposite has happened.

yes you make some very valid points and I was aware that my pensions will no doubt have some UK bonds in them.

However my understanding from watching the update from the IMF was the UK had the highest inflation and very little growth compared to other countries. (I was only watching it yesterday so you might not have seen it yet)

Also I am a bit sceptical of what the growth is that the UK is having. Is it house prices have gone up a bit more so we are all 'wealthier'. To me that is not real growth at all.

your post makes no sense. I am worried about my future in so far as I can see the state pension being taken away. That will certainly be painful for me. I am also already being impacted by the NHS and having to pay for medical things privately that I had not anticipated. Thus why I am 'hunkering down' on my frugal budget which has enabled me to retire early.

If I didn't think any of this was going to impact me I wouldn't be worried would I.

I'm also impacted by rising prices (food, vet bills etc) and if the economy tanks the value of private pensions tanks as well.

There is nobody who will escape the pain of this.

No.i get it that it wont just be disabled people and families who will suffer if services collapse and hot off the press ...they already are! V little access to physio and OT services now and nigh on impossible to get an NHS wheelchair . Like many families we are paying for more and more equipment and services already because otherwise your child is stuck. You wouldn't believe the amount of children stuck at home as they have no.usable wheelchair. I know of one child who has just passed away after waiting 4 yrs for a moulded chair. They died waiting!
They are not alone Many people have been waiting years. We are one such family. One child's chair took 20 months to be delivered. He was in an unsuitable wheelchair that was broken for years before that such are the wait times. Our other child has been waiting 18 months for a moulded wheelchair and we have had to give up.and spent 10 grand to get it ourselves.
But here's the rub...the NHS has paid AJM healthcare to deliver that service on their behalf so someone is making a big fat profit whilst not delivering anything like a service.
For context the turn around is supposed to be 18 weeks max.for a wheelchair ! And that is just one example .
And then daily in the media we are having to put up.with seeing our vulnerable kids castigated for requiring some sort of education and services to enable them to have some sort of quality of life.

And the final nail in the coffin is then being glibly being told that asylums are on the way back.because we are unreasonable in our expectations !

And all of that brings me back.to my original point.All services need to be taken back.under government control to stop.the gravy train that sees private companies making huge profits at the expense of the tax payers. That would be a v good place to.start in sorting out this mess. The savings could be collosal.

Thank you for your support although of course I'm sorry you are disabled.

There is clearly alot of frightened, angry people on this thread which is understandable.

You are half right.
We have the second highest growth in the G7. Now, thats mitigated by the fact that lots of economies in the G7 (and elsewhere) aren't doing that great. So second best growth out of not great growth doesn't mean everything's fine. And it could all go horribly wrong of course- what happens in other countries could affect growth here. Especially with the unpredictability of American tariffs etc. But I would say that growth is a lot better in the UK than it could be given the economic headwinds. So we have more inflation than some other countries. But we have more growth compared to other countries as well. And growth, wage rises, inflation and debt are all linked in complex ways
Eg. Raising the minimum wage put pressure on businesses (slows growth) but also.raised wages, and put more money in consumers pockets (increases growth). But higher wages raised inflation (not as much as some expected) but that can also help shrink the national debt. When Politicians talk about "growing out of debt" it's because the increased tax revenues compared to the debt mean they can pay it back faster but that's directly linked to inflation because the fact there is more money floating around in total is how there's more tax revenue. You sort of need some inflation to grow your way out of debt. There are very irresponsible ways of trying to do that (deliberately devaluing your own currency which some suspect is Trump's plan is a terrible idea). But I don't think anyone thinks that's what the UK government is doing. Or the IMF would be shouting a lot which they aren't.

Charging in chainsaw style and slashing everything without thought won't deliver the benefits people think it will. See Argentina.

The last place I would put my money just now is in UK goverment bonds. In fact I have already moved money away from the UK into global growth.

If they carry on the way they are going their bonds are not going to be worth anything (ie when they start defaulting on them)

Nearly everyone on this thread will be invested in some way in goverment bonds whether they like it or not.

Even people with defined benefit salaries will have their pensions invested partly in them. The only difference is the employer bears the risk of the markets rather than the employee.

As our bonds fall due for repayment the goverment borrows again to fill the gap. The bonds they are repaying are at lower interest rates and the new ones are at higher interest rates. The worst case scenario is they stop being able to raise finance this way at all.

I've already said I will be impacted by the state pension and I'm worried about it. I've also said I've had to start paying for medical stuff (no insurance) because the NHS can't cope.
I've also said private pensions will fall if the economy tanks.
All these things affect me plus the people who are retired.

Yes we were lucky that we got some things for free. I fully admit that.

So in short both the young and the old have things to worry about and in short both are going to be impacted by things.

I think they will need to cut most benefits - that includes pensions, welfare, PIP, NHS. Nobody is escaping.