If only the Archers was any good people wouldn't have to talk about Brexit.

It's a serious question. Open to leavers and remainers. (We all know the establishment Brexiters have bought a fook tonne of foreign currency and got EU passports for their children.) 

I haven't done anything.

Lol. 

I have an opinion on Brexit obviously but I always (like with a gen election etc) find myself falling back to "whatever". I never think the impact on my personal situation is particularly profound. 

Brexit impact so far - got a few less Euros when we went to Greece and in the South of France got bantered by a guy in the newsagent who refused to serve me as I was English (jokingly). Cue people telling me I won't be able to visit those places as easily if we leave (I will).

I know the outcome is still unknown but will the direct impact on me personally be huge either way? Probably not. 

Reductive? 

arranged to be out of the country for a big chunk of next year

amassed a war chest of foreign currency for bottom feeding in the property market in the event that it and sterling collapse 

Kept a lot offshore, majority tbh, due to my capacity for happy marriages.  Plenty of foreign currency but a modest stipend income in uk currency which is unlikely to change.

Dont really want to live anywhere else now, dog creates issues. Sod the rest of the family, if any of them really do need help I can and might but tbh they’re all a bit shitty with me so I doubt they’d lower themselves to asking anymore.

They all used to, but of course that suddenly turned into gifts, in their memory and I suspect they’d be too embarrassed to ask again.

I was also pondering this today, but it bums me out to see it written here. I am not in the UK now (but want to come back). My folks are however, so I'm starting to worry for them. If their pension pot gets hammered in a no deal scenario, I can't do much to them help out :(

I think I will just live off the viscera of those who died of hysteria for a bit.

Cheaper than Waitrose innit.

I have moved 90% of my money out of the UK and have persuaded my father to start getting his prescriptions early each time so he can start stockpiling the medication he needs to take. When I'm home at Christmas I will help my parents do an inventory of what long life food they have and what they need to buy to ensure they don't run into difficulties if there are supply chain issues for a while. 

Don't forget the guns!

"I think I will just live off the viscera of those who died of hysteria for a bit."

In terms of a lifestyle choice, it seems kinda offal, Clergs.

Clergs, the pro Brexit government is on about stockpiling food and medicine. 

It actually isn't really.

Feel free ofc, Pfizer and Heinz shareholders will thank you.

This is currently my favourite middle class panic story https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/05/uk-clothing-brand-joules-stocking-up-no-deal-brexit

If it turns out to be unnecessary panicking, the worst that happens is my parents have a lot of tinned food to get through. If it turns out to be necessary, they will be OK when many others won't be. 

I don't believe the UK will leave with no deal, but if it does and the property market collapses I have a small war chest ready and waiting :)

In what currency?

£. LOL @ panic buying foreign currency, especially now

It's time to pile everything into Alpha-Centaurian Meta-Dollars people, don't miss this opportunity.

If we leave with no deal, the pound is only going in one direction.

Maybe at first but none of us can foretell the long term implications. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a mistake, but mays deal would be worse.

Firstly, May's deal doesn't actually exit the eu.  It's a sort of wishy washy compromise that politicians love to do because it is a lot of talk and change but doesn't address the fundamental issue which is that the majority of voters who bothered to turn out voted to leave the eu.

Secondly, because it's such a shite fudge, it will demonstrate to the world that we are weak.  Any trade deals will be seen as us going out with cap in hand.

Thirdly, it will tell foreign politicians that they can be as underhanded as they like in terms of what they say vs what they actually do because they can assume U.K. Politicians will just fix it up to be publicly palatable.

I would far prefer Free Trade (no deal at all) to May's so called deal.

by coincidence I was just trying to set up a euro account and am struck by how difficult it is to do relative to a GBP one

I don't understand why

lol at no deal = "free trade"

This time next week we'll be enjoying pictures of TMPM in Brussels signing the withdrawal agreement after a parliamentary majority of 1 or 2.

I'm busy spending all my money on a pile of wood and steel that decreases in value by the day.

It's a thing I'm trying out.

:-( @ TangentBoy.

More than a Nissan worker in Sunderland at least, I hope.

I am going to buy a lot of currency that is not Sterling.

Teccers will be down the foodbanks like a fooking shot obvs

On a more somber note, I don't know how we will cope TBH.  I help out at two food banks and both of them already run dangerously low every week.  On one hand it may seem terrible but because there are no major employers down here we won't suddenly have an influx of 20,000 factory workers because someone decided to shut something down, but I can't imagine there won't be an increase in usage so we may need to beg from more supermarkets for stuff.

I know you were just being a git, but it does raise a serious point.

Tecco, the danger is that if supply chains are disrupted the supermarkets won't have enough stock for paying customers, let alone stuff going spare that they can donate to food banks.

Hence the stockpiling.  Unfortunately, we have little stock to err pile.  We are supposed to be able to give a nutritionally balanced three day supply to someone with a coupon.  There has been talk that we may need to lower it to fewer calories to make it go around.

I have purchased several dozen UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns to place at strategic entry points to my property. I also have half a dozen M56 Smart Guns for each member of my family.

Also on the way are several miles of concertina wire and several lorry loads of concrete.

When the gammons come begging/robbing they will be met with overwhelming force.

By the way Tecco, while we're on the subject of no deal Brexit literally causing people to starve, did you know that your mate Priti Patel has today threatened the Irish with "Potato Famine II" if they don't roll over and accommodate us on the border issue?

I actually like her in person but it feels a bit like saying Adolph hitler was an ok guy once he'd had a few drinks inside of him. 

Some of her views are proper bonkers.

The Gammons mostly come at night, mostly

Please don't use that word, it's hate speech.

I want to live like gammon people,
I want to do whatever gammon people do

H8r

Hitler didn't drink at all. Not very German of him.

I am most certainly a bear with a very small brain.

what do you guys mean by miving your money offshore? Do you mean an offshore bank account which a) doesnt have £85k uk protection, b) might pay a bit more interest than in uk now but perhaps not once uk interest rates rise in wake of hard brexit , c) admin nightmare?

moving non cash assets offshore...surely that ship has sailed already?  and with corbyn and mcdonnell likely to make all sorts of assumptions about illegality and bestow punitive tax to anything with offshore in its name( because they are d1cks and play to the gallery)

or is there something easy and obvious I hadnt thought of?

i have actually been thinking about an offshore bond, as rec by my ifa, bu mostly as a means of diversifying my investments rather than a hedge against brexit/corbyn. Diversification simply being that it will have different tax treatment to uk share fund, which might come in handy if there is some mental witch hunt. (Not to hide money or avoid tax, faod).

Buying Dollars or Euros now that the pound has at least some value, then when everything goes tits up buying back the pounds when they are worth half as much.

Minkie: basically yes to a,b,c.

Non cash assets were offshored a v long time ago, before I'd even met my second wife.

My IFA mentioned about offshore bonds last month, it must be a hot topic for management fees or something at the moment.  I have no intentions to go in that direction because as I've stated previously, my personal income in the U.K. Is little more than a stipend so it's not really an issue,

@Minkie: If you simply want to change cash out of sterling and keep it in another currency, several UK banks offer foreign currency accounts. I have an HSBC euro account because I had a specific reason for wanting to hold money in euro. It doesn't earn any interest but it protects my money against the pound crashing. If you don't need euros specifically you could get an account in US dollars.

Unless you need money in a foreign currency for a particular reason then it's probably not worth doing unless you effectively want to bet on hard/no deal Brexit and the pound continuing to fall, so you'd forego the interest to hold money in a foreign currency for however long and then change it back into sterling once you think the pound has hit rock bottom.

If you do want to open a foreign currency account, most of the major banks will require you to have a current account with them in order to do so. It's also worth remembering that the exchange rate that they will give you to just move money directly from your sterling account to your currency account will be crap, so even if it's a straightforward move from one account to another with the same bank, you'll get a much better rate using TransferWise or similar as an intermediary.

Also, I assume the £85,000 compensation limit is enshrined in UK law and will continue to apply after we leave the EU? (Given that I think it is an EU law requirement.) Can anyone confirm?

i believe the protection will continue, anna, and might cause a massive scandal if not. Not a bigger scandal than the other issues of brexit but one which the voting public will actually care about.

i have my cash savings with nsi and happy to keep them as is, I think. They are there to pay tax when it falls due, neat to have my tax reserve kept with hmrc’s first cousin!

And thank you very much for the full explanation about overseas bank accounts, most helpful, and apologies, I should have said that in prev post.

tec, re the offshore bond fashion, its just a wrapper.

my ifa is of opinion that there has been too much of a corporation tax give away which very likely be reversed by corbyns lot and an offshore bond wrapper might lift you out of any increase. So as I said diversification of tax treatment. The actual underlying investment likely be the same. He says though its a massive arseache to set up and tbh I have not even opened his info pack which i got last week, it is massive. 

I meant I assume it has been properly implemented in the UK and we are not relying on directly effective EU law (which would fall away in its entirety at 11pm on 29th March if there is no deal).

 A quick google on this issue inplies that schemes already in place will continue ( underwritten by the regulatory country, ie the uk in case of domestic accts) as they are and would actually require legislation to remove or alter the level of protection.

but if as a brit you have money in an EU bank then you might lose that protection and need to keep an eye on it. I dont know how status of overseas eu banks operating here work, are they british or are they not, dont know, and i d9nt jnow anything about passporting.

Although joint accts are double.

You sure?  We moved 75k which was the limit at the time, out of HSBC into Lloyd's because we were told it was only per institution and that was on an HSBC premier acct.

Is Lady P - Anna?

Sounds like it. 

Anyway, we are not have a no deal brexit. That will never happen. 

Yes we will. I look forward to it.

Leave won because the campaign to remain was led by a former public school boy (famous for fooking a dead pig) whose party had spent the last few years blaming the EU for their failure to do anything to improve the standard of living of ordinary people. 

Which party would I join? 

The fact people think not protecting £85k of savings would be a massive scandal really explains why we have Brexit actually. A  quarter of British people do not have a single penny of savings at all. they will certainly not be at all concerned in rich citizens lost all their £85ks.

"Roman Catholic fanatics driving the Brexit nonsense"

Typical bigoted Remoaner. 

For myself, from next month I am moving out of the country for 3 years so hopefully by the time I move back things will have sorted themselves out a bit or at least some direction be found. 

I get a bit tired of reading the news these days as I just don't feel there is anything I can do about it. 

Lydia, whilst you may have a point, I don't think it's the point you thought you were making.

If the protection against bank failure was taken away and then a bank collapsed, all the bank's customers could potentially lose their savings, whether their savings amount to £85k or £850. The person who only has £850 is less likely to have other bank accounts or other assets they can sell for cash to stay afloat.

The more pertinent point is that many people have no savings at all.

That is why they voted for brexit. If you have nothing to lose then voting for change just might mean things get better (they won't of course and I voted Remain but I can see why those with nothing might have voted to leave)

Yes, well hold onto your hats, people. Because when people who think they have nothing to lose vote for Brexit and then end up even worse off than they were before, things get nasty.

That's why it's so disingenuous to say there will be civil unrest if we don't leave the EU. Yeah OK, maybe. And when we do? Then what?

fook Cameron and the fooking Tories. They have destroyed the country.

What Lydia said. It's not so much that they have nothing, almost everyone in a first world country like the UK has quite a lot to lose if only (or perhaps particularly) their current state benefits.  The problem is they feel they and their families are locked out of opportunity and aren't being treated fairly (and for the most part they are right). If you are willing to back yourself (or your kids) it's actually quite rational in some ways to vote the country into temporary chaos if you think you might end up doing better out of that chaos.  The person with no mortgage now may well be better off than the person who had a home but loses it. The person with only a really sh1t job now might get a better one if there are fewer skilled foreigners to take them etc.

The vote to 'burn it down' is not entirely irrational.

I meant the person who *owned* a home but loses it. 

1. Me, wife and child all have got our EU passports sorted out

2. Half my savings in USD

3. Limited exposure to UK equities.

The person with the mortgage now is your typical taxpayer who stops the public purse from emptying out (as opposed to the person paying little or no taxes because they are on a low income or the rich person who can afford to buy their home for cash and employ an accountant to avoid as much tax as possible.

The person with the shit job now may well find that these better jobs just disappear after Brexit, rather than falling into their lap.

God, the whole thing is just such a mess.

I have guns and quite a lot of ammunition. I live on a farm in the country.

If it comes to it, when the Zombie Apocalypse hits, I think we can survive for quite a long time on what we can grow and shoot but we are a bit close to London and 9M hungry people for my liking.

Brexit will be a damp squib. A year afterwards, we will be wondering what all the fuss was about... businesses will keep running and everyone will adapt a bit. Politicians will continue to try to score points off each other

I wish that were the case, but unfortunately the UK will start to lag behind the rest of Europe, just like it did before we joined. The only real question is how fast the decline will be.

I have to say I am not so sure Britain will lag behind the rest of Europe. It will be poorer than it would have been had it stayed in for sure but the structural problems in a lot of Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Greece (still)) look extremely difficult to deal with and without the financial and political support of the UK it will become increasingly difficult for the Germans to deal with them.  The Germans are losing their institutional war guilt rapidly.  It is going to be harder and harder for German leaders to justify propping up the rest of the EU.  I appreciate it doesn't quite work like that and the Germans do very well out of the EU  but their politics are getting more populist as well and the refusal of beneficiary states to help with the migrant crisis (and the general increasing tendency of the new member states to take the p1ss/not play by the rules while still taking a lot of cash) is going to make it harder and harder for the German people to stomach 'footing the bill'.  

Brexit won't just damage the UK, it risks de-stabilizing the European post cold war settlement which is a lot more fragile than it sometimes looks. 

Oddly perhaps, I agree with Donnie. 

The UK economy is one of the soundest in Europe. We're deserting the Germans to be saddled with Greece, Spain, Italy et alia.

I doubt they will be happy with us a year after we have exited.