Are you doing anything to prepare for Brexit?

[Jazzybeats]

It’s looking more and more likely that we will crash out without a deal. The government has stepped up no deal planning.

My question is, are you doing anything personally to prepare for leaving?

I am:

• looking for jobs in companies that have businesses outside of the EU/exploring working abroad
• paying down my mortgage as much as possible
• not entering any new debt agreements eg credit cards

I hope we will all see sense. When even JRM says we will only see the upside of Brexit in 50 years you know we are fucked.

No. But I'm as cross as a bag of cats about what's happening. Who in God's name thought that this was a risk worth taking on such a narrow vote?

Decided not to move to a larger house; fixed our mortgage. Apprehensive about next spring to say the least!

No cos its all going to be fiiiiiine. Better than fine. Amazing, beautiful.

I'm developing terrible anxiety over this that I can't talk to DH about as he's taking the head in sand approach.

We've postponed moving and fixed our mortgage. Trying to save as much as possible and reassess spending.

I feel helpless other than that, DH hasn't been in his job that long and his company has just been taken over so his position feels quite precarious.

I just think it's criminal that the government has put us in a position where in such a short amount of time there is a huge question mark - nobody knows what will happen yet after 29 March.

Add to that the reports about stockpile food and medicine, and now today's stories about the army being drafted in and i am beyond angry that they are allowing us to get into this situation and the impact of getting us all to prepare for this.

Of course people are going to fill in the gaps when nothing is certain and I've noticed over the past few days a lot more posts about Brexit worries and there is a sense of a greater number of people waking up and worrying.

Yes we are moving out of the UK sooner than we had thought we would. Originally dh and I said we'd wait and see what Brexit would look like.

We leave for good tomorrow. We had always planned to go but felt it was now better to do it sooner rather than later.

Makes sense to reduce debt and secure jobs considering the economic forecasts are iffy.

What else?

Moving abroad is very difficult - not least figuring out where you would go. Considering the states but that has its own challenges...

Trying to be pragmatic - we can protest but that won’t achieve much, no one will put a vote of no confidence in Theresa since no one wants their name on this shit show.

So truly trying to be pragmatic about what is in my control

Protesting does make a difference. It shows the government what the people are thinking.

There's another anti-Brexit march on 20 October.

I moved abroad a year ago. Considering moving the rest of my money out of the UK now just in case.

Effectively a run on the banks, then?

Yes - I’ve moved abroad!

ADarkandStormyKnight

I suppose so, but you’d need to have a foreign currency account or some other way of getting money out of the UK, which most people don’t.

I'm a prepper. It's just another thing to think about.
I'm on a lot of these threads encouraging people to plan for a three day hiccup if there are food distribution problems. Don't want my advice? Think I'm a loon? You're on your own.
Hope to be wrong.

Im going to ensure we have a good larder stocked as sensible anyhow. Plan on contributing more to food banks basically when i buy my cans etc will also get one for food banks..we usually contribute nice stuff , sanitary towels and nappies. Our mortgage fix ends in May /june so will need to save for that . Will look into buying euros..it may be better to get now rather than next summer.

Stepping away from social media a bit as it all gets heightened , people start spouting racist stuff or talking about 'loony lefty' remainers or sneering at brexiteers I just cant stand it all to be honest..no reasoned debate to be had

Sensible to freeze some perishables in advance, I agree, since that’s what will be hit most if there is customs chaos.

Maybe 1 weeks perishables and 3 days of non perishable stuff?

I like the idea of also giving more to food banks. That is a lovely thought.

Consider shifting some of your savings into foreign currency, the pound could be a bit dicey until things settle down.

Mainly job seeking and looking for ways to retrain. I work in aviation and am likely to be out of a job next year.

No idea what I should be retraining as though.

Twitter thread by Jack Monroe about stockpiling.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1023137015930519557.html

How do you shift your savings into foreign currency?

Well @ADarkandStormyKnight I don't find that convincing.

Nope

I moved abroad a year ago. Considering moving the rest of my money out of the UK now just in case.

I think that might be very sensible, given that we saw a 10% drop in the pound after the referendum, and that the same might happen again early next year. I also think that we are uniquely badly placed to absorb an economic shock at the moment, in part due to factors that have nothing to do with Brexit.

I've already moved about half our capital abroad.

How do you shift your savings into foreign currency?

It used to be very easy - Citi Bank had Euro and Dollar denominated current and savings accounts based at Canary Wharf, and they were free. But, strangely, Citi decide to close all of those accounts last year (except, I think for those for high net worth individuals), and they closed their retail banking thing in London. You could try Barclays in the UK, but they charge. We have an address abroad and accounts there.

Good luck.

HSBC allow you to open foreign currency accounts. (They don't pay any interest though. So you would be betting on sterling falling against the currency you chose by enough to offset not earning any interest on it.)

Here's a tip: my HSBC online banking allows me to move money directly from my sterling current account to my euro currency account with one click. But the exchange rate is terrible and it's cheaper to transfer from one to the other via TransferWise.