Future Proofing - what are your plans?

[Enb76]

I'm not particularly worried about any imminent danger but with regards to climate change, rising sea levels etc... I do believe that, in the not incredibly distant future, political instability, mass immigration of displaced persons, (due to more areas of the world becoming inhospitable for farming, water shortages and war etc...) will be a massive problem and they'll be looking to come to places that are reasonably better off.

I'm not sure how one preps for this or rather future proofs.

I'm trying to future proof my children more than myself - I imagine I will be old or dead. Money and a house (with a garden) seem the most obvious ways, also living where there is little risk (no flood plains for me) and a reasonably stable economy regardless of the rest of the country. Nowhere currently overly populated - I think a big city would be disastrous in the long term.

Can you think of other things that will enable you to future proof for your children?

Very interesting point. And I seem to be failing on most of them! (Inner city flat living near a river...)

Good topic, OP!

It’s an interesting one really as things like location etc may help massively, but might turn out irrelevant if your DC decide to move miles away! :D I’d certainly try and get them thinking about flood risk etc wherever they end up.

From a prepping point of view, I’d like to make my DC’s childhood similar to my own - go camping, encourage outdoor activities, Cubs, scouts etc. Teach them resilience and some basic first aid skills that way. I don’t want to have them worry about the world but there are ways of making them prepared for emergencies without panicking them - teach them how and when to call 999, teach them their phone number and address, helping them be organised. (Cue all the experienced parents laughing at my optimism!)

I was of the generation that was encouraged to “study what you love”, then graduated uni at the height of the recession to discover that actually, there were no jobs available doing what we loved! I’m not sure if it’s any different now 8 years on, or what things will look like by the time my DC are that age but my advice for a career would be certainly study what you enjoy, but perhaps steer them to something vocational that leads to more certainty about a career - e.g nursing, healthcare, law, accounting.

If they don’t want to go to Uni that’s fine, but i’d Like them to have an idea of what to do instead. An apprenticeship etc? If they want to be an artist/dancer/singer that’s fine too; but i’d encourage them to have a concrete plan - are they going to set up an Etsy shop/YouTube channel (or whatever’s around by then!).

I’m trying to think of savings plans or how I can structure my own mortgage so I can help them out as much as possible when they’re wanting to buy a house etc. I certainly don’t want them to worry about how they’re going to pay our care costs/funeral fees etc.

We live in a “village” within a greater city area (luckily our position in the area is high and away from rivers) but we are looking to move somewhere more remote.

Our skills are in demand everywhere, so we have that to our advantage. We would be looking to move in about 6/7 years as there is a gap there between our older children finishing secondary school and our younger children starting. I don’t think we want to move just as Brexit happens, so hopefully that time scale will work for us.

We are giving our children extra lessons in languages, maths and coding and as we camp a lot throughout the year we are teaching them skills like starting fires and foraging.
Our eldest seems to have a skill for carpentry which we are fostering.

We have “powerless” evenings every week, with no screen time, lit without electricity. They think it is fun now and hopefully it is teaching them to deal with being bored. We garden, play board games, read, play sports and get mucky.
I feel like there could come a time where electricity isn’t an all day every day thing. I think coping without it every now and then does them good and hopefully provides them with the ability to cope should life become more difficult in that sense. It wasn’t the reason we started it (I got sick of talking to the back of an iPad) but I’m more and more glad we did.

We have made some financial provisions for the future of our children but I think we will have to wait until we are the other side of Brexit to see how that works out.

Become a billionaire and buy a small holding in New Zealand with solar panels and own spring.

Ok, the billionaire and NZ bit are facetious, but try to replicate that here in the UK... we have quite a large garden and we have a spring fed pond, so putting in a hand pump shouldn't be too much of an issue. Have solar panels, but they're on-grid, so stop functioning in a power cut. Research how to divert them to battery unit.

Main thing I'm concerned about is civil unrest - we're a 52:48 divided country, we can't pull together around a common enemy like in the blitz. So NI DH is getting an Irish passport as a back up emergency exit.

I want to teach mine the skills to be self sufficient.

Teach them basic car mechanics, woodworking, welding. All tradeable skills.

If sea levels rise a lot I'd advise DC to move to Scotland.

England is sinking, Scotland is already higher and is rising.

in terms of future proofing your child's uni/career choice make sure you take into acount how much technology is beginning to take over. No point in studying and finding out a few years down the line a computer or robot can do your job.