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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to ask how you’re preparing for Brexit?

999 replies

CircleSquareCircleSquare · 13/03/2018 15:54

There is so much uncertainty surrounding what will happen with trade deals and goodness knows what else, that I’m starting to wonder about making some sensible plans.

We have put a stop to some planned works we wanted to do to our house, we have downsized to one car and we grow a small amount of veg. We keep some stocks of food in the house but we have a large family so I never feel like we’d have enough.
We have discussed not taking a holiday this summer and DH is taking every training course possible at work in order to diversify his skills should his industry go tits up.

I’m wondering what decisions you’re making in your homes for what could possibly be a really uncertain time for a few years.

OP posts:
Whatisthewhatisthewhat · 13/03/2018 17:59

We will be moving abroad this summer for the foreseeable future.

OliviaStabler · 13/03/2018 18:00

I am not changing a thing.

unintentionalthreadkiller · 13/03/2018 18:01

We've just reduced our mortgage for five years instead of the two we usually do.

Apart from that, nothing.

Mookatron · 13/03/2018 18:03

YouCantGetHereFromThere presumably your country has actually worked out travel agreements with EU countries though. There's the difference. You're not speaking from a position of expertise just because you're not in Europe.

IllustriouslyIllogical · 13/03/2018 18:04

Might want to use the time to study basic economics to get a better idea of likely effects of a massive house prices crash.

Still got a smug face thanks - no mortgage here & no desire to sell......

LondonMum8 · 13/03/2018 18:06

@IllustriouslyIllogical

"Still got a smug face thanks - no mortgage here & no desire to sell......"

Ah, so you don't give a flying f... about the rest of the country. Figures, a typical brexiter.

caoraich · 13/03/2018 18:06

We've transferred most of our investments abroad and are planning to move to Ireland once DC is born this year.
DH is Irish and DC will be too and it will be very straightforward for me to get citizenship. We're NHS workers and have both been offered better paying jobs in the public arm of the Irish healthcare system so we're hopeful that it will be a straightforward move. I have extended family in Ireland so am trying to convince my parents it would be a good post-retirement move for them too.

reddressblueshoes · 13/03/2018 18:07

Trying to get DH a job in Ireland- we'd moved home as a trial just before the Brexit vote and it solidified the decision to stay after most of a decade in the UK, but he was able to transfer work to Northern Ireland and we were planning on continuing that indefinitely, with him earning in sterling and commuting across the border l.

Unfortunately, his income has dropped by 25% since the Brexit vote, and the risk of even greater volatility is too much for us - it is entirely possible sterling will fluctuate even more crazily around the actual leave date, so we've sadly decided the best thing to do is cut as many financial ties to the Uk as possible. Plus his current non-existent border commute may become challenging.

The thing people don't seem to realise is how many people have organised their lives in ways that makes them more exposed. I know quite a few people who commute to other European countries for work: in Northern Ireland, it's not that unusual for people to live and work different sides of the border. In London, I knew people who had spouses getting the Eurostar twice a week. Many of my friends are in sectors where there will be hiring freezes until they know which was things are going.

The point is, a rocky year or two won't cripple the country, and it may not effect the people sneering at the OP at all. But for someone who looses their job in that year, their personal finances could take such a battering they never fully recover.

Ireland is likely to be very heavily hit by Brexit - it seems our food exporting will be significantly hit. I'm thankfully not in that sector, but I am in one which could be effected by an overall economic downturn. So for now, I'm not doing much, but I am aware things could get tougher in a few years.

I think viewing Brexit as a potential risk, and then assessing what kind of a risk it poses to you, is fairly sensible. And I also think most people seem to underestimate how many people they know are likely to be directly effected.

IllustriouslyIllogical · 13/03/2018 18:07

Loving the panic on here though, funny how it doesn't translate into real life eh?

That's because it's on Mumsnet & nothing to do with the real world - you know, Mumsnet that was surprised by the Tories beating Labour,
Mumsnet that was surprised by the Brexit vote,

Mumsnet that has it's finger on exactly no pulses, but by God - you like to talk like you've got a clue!! Grin

SleepFreeZone · 13/03/2018 18:09

Looks like Brexit will solve the housing problem then which is something!

IllustriouslyIllogical · 13/03/2018 18:09

Figures, a typical brexiter.

Ah, the standard response of the Left - aggressive attacks or insults......

Spend less time panicking and more time living your life - you'll look back on this in 20 years time & regret that you spend a year or two shitting your pants rather than enjoying yourself...

Mookatron · 13/03/2018 18:10

'Mumsnet' is not an organism. It is a collection of different people. 'Mumsnet' doesn't get surprised by anything.

In real life people are very very pissed off indeed and your 'I'm all right Jack' comment doesn't help IllustriouslyIllogical. As LondonMum8 said, typical Brexiter opinion.

mrsreynolds · 13/03/2018 18:11

Getting me and the dc our Irish passports

Doing the last of the decorating so the house is saleable condition

Starting to save

What else can I do?

And to answer other posters:
Yes. I think leaving the biggest and most successful trading bloc in the world is a really really bad idea.
The other 127 countries are hardly G7 economies. Venezuela???
The US won't come to our aid.
That leaves Russia. Who are poisoning UK citizens on our soil.
Putin must be wetting his pants over brexit
But the Russian interference in both the eu ref and the US election are the elephants in the room arent they?

Who wants brexit?

And WHY???

Idontmeanto · 13/03/2018 18:11

Investigating claiming kiwi citizenship so we/the kids have options, although not in the EU. Paying off debts, withdrawing dh’s pension while we are happy with it’s value. Also signing every petition I see that lets the government know I think it’s insane and we need a second referendum/to cancel it.

MillyChantilly · 13/03/2018 18:12

you like to talk like you've got a clue!!

And you? The idiot who's cheering for a housing crash without having a clue what that implies.

vandrew4 · 13/03/2018 18:13

In real life people are very very pissed off indeed
well, the ones who didn't want to leave are. the slight majority who wanted to leave are quite happy,

MillyChantilly · 13/03/2018 18:15

the slight majority who wanted to leave are quite happy

No one with an IQ in the double digits can possibly be 'happy' with the way Brexit is being executed.

MillyChantilly · 13/03/2018 18:16

This is what I mean by an ideology. People who think things are progressing well are just zealots who refuse to face the facts. It's an utter shambles and the government is woefully unprepared and does not seem to care. But that's a-okay.

lakeshoreliving · 13/03/2018 18:18

A housing crash is an unusual thing to wish for even if you are not impacted immediately. My memory of previous ones was that they were accompanied by an economic downturn, fewer jobs and fewer opportunities for younger people. It has never happened in a vacuum.

ForalltheSaints · 13/03/2018 18:20

I might avoid a holiday abroad in the first month or so afterwards, or during the school holidays in 2019, as I am sure that the Borders Agency will not manage any changes well and passport queues will be longer.

YouCantGetHereFromThere · 13/03/2018 18:23

YouCantGetHereFromThere presumably your country has actually worked out travel agreements with EU countries though. There's the difference. You're not speaking from a position of expertise just because you're not in Europe.

I guess it is just impossible that the UK might actually negotiate travel agreements. It being such an impossible thing for any country to ever manage.

sunnypatio · 13/03/2018 18:24

CruCru I wasn't allowed to vote last time, having been gone over 15 years, despite it having a rather large effect on me, like removing my automatic right to live in the place I've been for nearly twenty years.

Mookatron · 13/03/2018 18:27

The thing I find most galling is that the people who voted leave ought to be telling those who voted remain it's going to be all right AND WHY, if it's really going to be all right. I'd be happy to be wrong frankly if someone could give a rational, well thought out and evidence based way this is going to work.

It was supposed to be better, not just ok.

Instead they're basically calling remainers pussies and to stop panicking. And expecting people to accept that as enough and stop complaining in the name of 'democracy'.

I won't be shut up on the subject. The path we're taking is fucking lunacy.

Mookatron · 13/03/2018 18:28

YouCantGetHereFromThere yes but they haven't. And we leave in a year.

HungerOfThePine · 13/03/2018 18:30

Not really doing anything but bracing myself for it. It has given me a kick up the rear to go back to fulltime education to try and improve future prospects as the worst case scenario the poorest/least educated will suffer from lack of funding/welfare atleast for a time and I want a head start.
Don't believe it will entirely disappear.

Things are uncertain but the country won't collapse into anarchy.