to think savings will be worthless?

[HopelessLayout]

So governments are printing money hand over fist to cover all the Covid bailouts. Isn't this going to cause hyperinflation when it is all over?
I have modest savings put away for my retirement in a few years' time, but perhaps I should just blow the lot now.

Please tell me if I am misunderstanding the situation.

I've reported that post. Hopefully HQ take it down.

Womanily

That would be all most ours savings into mortgage and leave us with around £50k buffer for emergencies etc.

We are 40/43 and have two kids 3/5. Husband is high earning in oil and gas industry which has just collapsed and he will likely be made redundant in next few months with little chance of returning to the industry for a number of years because it's on its knees

We thought along the lines of get mortgage paid off to lift some stress then he could maybe get a van/lorry driving type job and we should be ok as not big spenders in life anyway and with no mortgage just bills to find

I work part time in oil but also at a school, expecting my oil job to go soon so that will leave me with low income part time wage too

With no mortgage we thought it would be easiest to survive on lower wages And with no interest on our savings really thought leaving it in the bank was now becoming pointless.

We are not sure what to do

Keep savings or use for mortgage pay off

We have the same worries. We have about £40k in savings and no pension - mainly because we have our own business rather than being employees, and because we need to either extend our house or move in the next year or so, so we are saving for that and need to have access to as much of it as possible.

I don’t care about interest rates right now - I’m just worried about it all being worth much less. DH has always been in and out of crypto - we got back into bitcoin about a month ago with very good returns already but we are leaving it in for at least a year as expecting better results then.

We've put all our savings (previously in ISA's) into premium bonds and just won £50 more than any interest we would get currently!

Salene please remember I am only a person with an opinion not a financial advisor. I would personally work hard at finding new jobs before making a big decision and using all your money to pay down a mortgage. You still need income and until you have new jobs then you will need savings to live on. You can play with various mortgage payment calculators online to see if a partial paydown of your mortgage would make your monthly payment a lot more manageable. If you have to find jobs in completely new industries could it even be possible that you have to move? It seems like with so much uncertainty you could need cash for all sorts of unseen things right now. Where do you live? Are you in a part of the country where many jobs are in oil/gas and so your whole local economy could be affected or is that not the case? I do like your idea of radically cutting your bills, but as I mentioned will there be enough work locally? What if noone wants a "man with a van" anytime soon? Would you be OK staying put for 10+ years? Do you have family and friends and a support system plus good schools? Is your DH thinking he would chase the driving week around the country if necessary? At least you did a great job having an emergency fund!

Yeah we live in NE Scotland which is driven by oil , it's going to be hard hit. My husband is a very hard worker, ex trawler man then offshore driller , used to weeks away in crap conditions so he would basically do any job he could find. He was thinking of leaving oil and gas once mortgage paid off and £150k savings , and doing something less stressful. We are now £100 short of that idea as it's been forced with current situation. He is very worried about the future , thinks covid is going to push so many people out of work there might not be any jobs to get.

Yeah we are very fortunate in the fact we have decent savings , we have until next May to decide what to do as stuck in mortgage to then anyway as don't want penalties and we also have redundancy insurance too so that will give us a year of payments also to consider what to do.

I think we will ride the next year out and see what the after effects of covid do to the country before making any final choices.

Such worrying times, what the future will hold post Coronavirus.

P.s. like how close you are to paying off your mortgage. I would still find new jobs and then maybe pay it off once more established in the new position. Say after 6 months. I would practice living on a lower income now so you make sure you're not being unrealistic about your budget. If your mortgage was paid off you could throw all your money into investments for retirement and could even potentially retire early if you both were saving at a very high rate. You might want to read about FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) as you could be in a good position with a paid off house and 2 incomes. If your DH is still working start living super frugally now and save as much as possible so you have already made the psychological transition away from his high income if he loses his job. Are you financially organized? Do you use Quicken, Mint, Banktivity or similar? If not, invest in that now so you know where every penny is going. You must be good with money to be able to pay your house off in your early 40s.

Salene I cross posted and wrote another reply and it seems to have disappeared ....
What does your DH do? Has he got transferable skills such as in IT or management?

Are you near Aberdeen?

He is a driller and no transferable skills, yes Aberdeen. I've not heard of any of those things you have mentioned I will look them up. We are not at all financially organised in fact we have zero clue about anything to do with money , apart from being decent at saving. I think we need to up our game.

Sorry I was only trying to be helpful. I wasn’t meant to offend anyone.

Yep start with getting financially organized, you will immediately feel less out of control. You sound like you have all the makings of a very financially secure couple into the future. You are doing all the right things. If you use PC try Quicken, Banktivity is for Mac. You can immediately see where all your money is and what your net worth is on a daily basis. There are other apps for organization, these are just the two that I like. You can try either for 30 days free to see which you prefer. With both you can sync with your bank accounts (and credit cards, etc.) so that they feed straight into the app and help you know what you're spending when. The info is encrypted at both ends so very safe. I am in the US so check its the same in the UK but here there is a one time fee for the software and then an annual fee to get all the info sent directly from your bank. You can have it on your desk top, lap top, iPad and iPhone.

There are also simpler forms and other options, but with these you are able to see where you may be leaking cash for various things. It helps you plan really accurately. (Depends how much of a financial nerd you are hoping to become).

I think a more obvious threat to Sterling is the UK leaving the EU. Especially as the British government has not handled COVID well (as bad as the USA, both were very complacent) it has affected confidence. Once outside the EU which is the biggest single market in the world, there's a pretty high chance that Sterling will lose value.

This article is back from Pre-COVID days centuries ago ....August 2019
www.npr.org/2019/08/29/755014398/like-the-empire-itself-the-british-pound-is-not-what-it-used-to-be

Now there is so much uncertainty it's really hard to know what will happen with currencies. If the UK had used its geographical advantage as a nation to prevent the spread of COVID like New Zealand and Australia I think that could have really increased confidence in the UK economy. Unfortunately Germany, a country on the continent with about 7 borders and also a huge number of international flights was able to bring the virus under control much more decisively.

Womanily thank you for your input it's been very helpful

If I thought I was going to lose my job soon and I had the option of paying off a mortgage I would.

Having a "free" roof over your head makes a massive difference if you fall on hard times. Yes there are other bills, and you have to eat, but it's much easier to cope. We are fortunate not to have a mortgage and it has made this time much less stressful. As long as we can pay the bills and eat we can deal with, in our case, reduced hours at work.

Also I don't know anything about the benefit system in the Uk anymore. How does it stand if you have paid your mortgage? I hope you aren't ever expected to sell your house to claim unemployment or other benefits? Would it be a disadvantage to have too much cash?

Thanks Salene I still have so much to learn. There has never been a more uncertain economic time.

This is obviously for an American audience but hopefully will wake us all up to the fact that we should take control of our financial lives as much as we are able.
www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/women-investing-clubs-retirement.html?smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&smtyp=cur