to ask your opinion on Brexit damage limitation?

[FuzzyEyes]

I feel overwhelmed by what is happening - and have the strong desire to DO SOMETHING to protect myself/family/international peace and prosperity/etc. AIBU to ask all you clever mumsnetters what positive steps you/we can actually take as individuals in the coming days and months to limit potential chaos and loss caused by Brexit?
This includes anything personal, financial, political, etc.

(I am worried about international relations, the rise of the far right, my children's future, our finances, freedom of movement, the protection of human rights and workers rights, social cohesion, the potential of Tories winning every election if Scotland leaves the UK, etc, etc.)

I am running around scrubbing and cleaning whilst fretting. I've signed the petition for a second referendum, I would welcome any suggestions to give me something I can DO!
I don't want to hurt the economy by asking this question so please don't explicitly state intentions that could lead to 'mumsnet suggests low consumer confidence in UK, etc' many thanks

We did a financial audit this morning. Just in case DP looses his job, (he works in a HEI, about 40% of thier research funding comes from the EU) . Have cancelled planning a holiday, new kitchen. This is how recessions start. 😞

Sorry, I just realised this is not the type of suggestion you were after. Feel free to ignore, but I have to say, no amount of cleaning will make this go away.

Start saving, goods imported to this country will get more expensive.

Skill you're self up until you are untouchable.

for the responses so far - indeed cleaning is futile.

Personally, just saving money, no unneccessary expenditure as my job could be at risk.

My city voted remain but I know a lot of my friends from other countries (both EU and non-EU) have been really unnerved by the tone of the debate and are feeling that they aren't welcome here so I've just been trying to make the point that that isn't the case where we live and that a lot of us do welcome them, their friendship and the role they play in our local community.

In between, I've been drinking lots of vodka and alternating between anger, sadness, anxiety and just trying to ignore the whole thing. Maybe I should take your approach and at least have a spotless home to fret in!

Analyse all your finances and try to plan for various contingencies
Concentrate on building up savings to tide you over for as long as possible to cope with disasters like job loss, major hours cut, mortgage interest hikes
Put off buying any large ticket item that is not essential, including holidays abroad
Cut out any waste right now and see where you can save on current expenditure

Well one thing the UK will have to do quickly is stop ignoring the situation in NI. It's alarming how little attention is being paid to it. Barely a cursory mention on the UK news programmes.

Declaring dual-citizenship and applying for another passport, registering my children for dual-citizenship. Need to see if my husband can as well as eu grandparents. Praying our BTL flat sale does not fall through (contracts are exchanging/completing on Friday so not long). the home we live in is rented so I think we are ok there but holding off any hope to buy for the next 2 years incase of house price crash. Otherwise not a lot. I've just been offered a new job which I'm pretty sure is safe but always have a plan b. I'm not too worried yet

Oh please, quite a few of the funds my DH is invested in have gone up a couple of percent. FTSE closed up on the week's start. Stop talking yourselves down. Sieze this opportunity. This drama, panic and wallowing is truly pathetic. The British people have spoken, suck it up!

Hiro "Sieze this opportunity"

I am all ears - what do you suggest?

How will Brexit affect your finances?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36537906

Other things you could do,
join a political party,
start an export business.
OR
Go and do something nice today OP, try and forget about it. It's out of our hands now.

Thanks for the link Empress
agree about NI abbie
glad you aren't too worried tea
Big Choc my DHs job is probably safe because it is an overseas employer and I think it will be tough to save much if prices are going up - but yes, thanks.
wannabe I found that booze can help temporarily - but then I wake up... It would be nice to be able to send out a message to people who are not from this country that they are welcome and we are not hostile.

Community cohesion: Look up community events in your area and go and join in. There are a lot of people who feel frightened and unwanted and need reassurance. It's summer and it's Eid soon, there will be loads on (and the food is bril ).

Politics: Join the Labour Party. They are needed more than ever to stand up for workers' rights and protections for society's most vulnerable.

Financial: Check your financial exposure. Can you start overpaying on debt repayments? If you have a mortgage, is it fixed? Interest rates are low now and may well go down again over the next few weeks as the BoE seeks to stop consumer confidence crashing. Get a fixed rate deal.

Personal preparedness: how's your CV? Do you have transferable skills? Is there a course you could take to bolster them? The Open University's FutureLearn platform is just about to start two free courses on management that lead to a recognised qualification, or there are loads of other courses on there that are only 2-4 hours a week, completely free and can be documented with a certificate that you can choose to buy for £20. That's a start.

Write to you MP. I'm feeling all ranty and have a lot of questions, it's all very well ranting on MN, but I actually want someone to give me some answers.

This is a petition to protect workers' rights under the new legislation:

campaign.goingtowork.org.uk/petitions/don-t-cut-a-single-workers-right-in-uk-law?source=email

If you are in a teachable mortgage try and get a fixed term one.

The problem with all this don't overspend, start saving and cancelling planned expenditure is exactly what will cause the problems to escalate. As someone else alluded to, this is what causes recessions because people adopt a more cautious approach to spending. It hits the likes of your local self employed tradesman, your kitchen companies, car dealers, builders, travel companies. It's a slow ripple effect. It happened from 2008/2009 and took a lot of government intervention to restore confidence that is still fragile 8 years later.

What needs to happen is Europe and the UK need to work very quickly to get this process started. Cameron hanging around until October is not going to help.

People need to continue as normally as possible and some of the older generation who frankly hord cash like WW3 is about to happen need to help the economy by spending or helping kids out so they can reduce debt and have more disposable income to help keep spending up.

The comment about the FTSE related to the FTSE100 only which is made up largely of companies with global exposure and many who have earnings in US dollars which of course helped them yesterday as the pound fell. The FTSE250 fell 7% yesterday and even the FTSE100 is down by 13% from last years peak.

Become a lawyer - they are (as always) the winners in this as so many treaties need to be re-drawn ....

Getting dual citizenship passports for me and the dc
Sadly in the middle of decorating but after that - no more spending except on necessities
Saving as much as we can
It's all very scary

Mine is:

Save as much money as possible
Declutter as much as possible
Decorate house (in case need to sell it)
Prepare to move abroad.

Never been a consideration for me before.

Luckily we are just in the middle of decorating so the House will look amazing if we have to sell
My dh doesn't seem too worried but hen again he is not someone who is very political
But he works for a manufacturer
Brexit WILL affect his company
I think he is in denial tbh....

We'll be cutting back and saving I think. All very well to say that will cause problems but we're in a bit of a dicey position with our mortgage and job position isn't great so what else can we do? Pretending it can't happen would be daft.