Prepping: What happens if there's no power or the banks close?

[Bruce Banner]

11 minutes ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

I have a couple still floating about too. What do you plan on doing with them when they end ?

Im sat on a cash pile at the moment and I;m sad to say the only place it's going into now is a house.

Cash has out performed house prices by about 30% so far since 2007 and wages are going to catch up now.

I personally think it's time to buy a house and make sure you pay off the mortgage because the currency collapses in 10 years.

Not sure what I'll do when they end, but with cash I can be nimble.

Yes, the BJ government is going for inflation which they call "levelling up".

I have a little house which I bought with some of my "cash pile" in 2017 and that's all the property I want, a roof over my head.

Currency crash in 10 years? Possibly, but the kids are well set up and I probably won't be around to enjoy it.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Bruce Banner

[crash-and-burn]

1 hour ago, Warlord said:

I have physical gold but I won't be swapping them for groceries.

If it were full on apocalyptic where you were literally starving, then I bet you would. You can't eat gold.

[Warlord]

24 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

I still have some long term fixed rate accounts.

£85K worth £45K? if they print.... of course, but at least it's not a 100% loss and what is everything else worth?

I'd buy physical gold like I did. Inflation will erode that cash. Check out Chards superb company to deal with

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

14 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Not sure what I'll do when they end, but with cash I can be nimble.

Yes, the BJ government is going for inflation which they call "levelling up".

I have a little house which I bought with some of my "cash pile" in 2017 and that's all the property I want, a roof over my head.

Currency crash in 10 years? Possibly, but the kids are well set up and I probably won't be around to enjoy it.

That's what I effectively did, bought a smaller house than I actually was going to to hedge against the market going up.

Probably helped that I was paying more money to store my gear than I was getting in interest on the cash I used to buy the house !

The only downside of this is that the real hpi is to be found in the larger more desirable properties. Smaller houses round my way are more static in price.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Gigantic Purple Slug

[TheCountOfNowhere]

21 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Not sure what I'll do when they end, but with cash I can be nimble.

Yes, the BJ government is going for inflation which they call "levelling up".

I have a little house which I bought with some of my "cash pile" in 2017 and that's all the property I want, a roof over my head.

Currency crash in 10 years? Possibly, but the kids are well set up and I probably won't be around to enjoy it.

I think you bought at the right time Bruce.  Maximised your cash returns via bonds, had a nice time living abroad then got the bottom of the real price chart.

Bruce, you won.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

10 minutes ago, Warlord said:

I'd buy physical gold like I did. Inflation will erode that cash. Check out Chards superb company to deal with

My golds down 20% this year  

[Riedquat]

Agree with the "precious metals will be useless" people. They're only any use when things haven't collapsed. If it all goes Mad Max then only things of practical use will have value.

Anyway it's unlikely enough that it enters "couldn't give a sh1t about it, any precautions, even trivial ones, are an absurd over-reaction" territory and I roll my eyes at is as much as all the other over-cautious cotton-wool wrapping nonsense we're all expected to take seriously these days even though so much of it is in the absurd (and those are in things not laughed at by the mainstream).

[Warlord]

13 minutes ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

My golds down 20% this year  

Short term. Does seem cheap right now. Over the long term you'll be fine w/ gold it does seem to hold its value quite well 

[Pop321]

39 minutes ago, crash-and-burn said:

If it were full on apocalyptic where you were literally starving, then I bet you would. You can't eat gold.

Again my disclosure is I am not a gold holder, but I did reference I was surprised how cheap it was. For me the argument isn’t that gold is used in a time of apocalyptic crisis to buy food at the supermarket. Token, coins and trinkets I could imagine being worthless.

Gold is to hold, hide and store your wealth for afterwards….it’s not to cling into to save your life, it doesn’t help survival rather it’s there in case you make it through.   

So it’s not about having gold and no tins of beans….it’s about where do I put the wealth that’s in my bank after I have bought the provisions. 

[Ah-so]

Dwight Shrute of the American office has this covered:

 

[Patfig]

So if you wanted to live a more "preppy" lifestyle, try go off grid build a wooden cabin / house and forage / hunt draw your own bore water etc where can you actually achieve that? Not in Nimby Britain I doubt.

[PeanutButter]

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/preppers

[Locke]

9 hours ago, crash-and-burn said:

Someone in this forum gave me a link to a YouTube video of channel 4's 'Blackout', about the chaos that ensued a prolonged power failure. One of the characters was a middle class, London prepper, who had much of the gear - let's just say it didn't end well for him!

You know that Channel 4 is pure Statist propaganda right? If people know you're a prepper, you're not a very good one.

[Greater Fool]

3 hours ago, Patfig said:

So if you wanted to live a more "preppy" lifestyle, try go off grid build a wooden cabin / house and forage / hunt draw your own bore water etc where can you actually achieve that? Not in Nimby Britain I doubt.

I can remember watching a thing on TV where a private light aircraft pilot spotted a couple living in a cabin in some woods.  The rotten sod took it upon himself to report them to the local council and a clipboard wielding official was promptly dispatched to force them into a "proper dwelling". They protested that they didn't want to live in a horrible council flat but they were legally forced out.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Tiger131

[winkie]

This thread reminds me of the months preceding the last great global banking crisis 2008.......we are still sitting here today, Gordon couldn't fix it only shore it up, been doing that ever since......the banks are closing branches everywhere, nothing new there.....what brand names could we lose?

Really do hope all will be well.

[crash-and-burn]

32 minutes ago, Locke said:

You know that Channel 4 is pure Statist propaganda right? If people know you're a prepper, you're not a very good one.

To be fair it was his young daughter who dropped him in it, and it's hard to hide the sound of a diesel generator. 

[PeanutButter]

Let's have a preppers thread (this feeds into my climate chaos mitigation strategy). 

 

[PeanutButter]

https://www.solarpowersupply.co.uk/

[hotblack42]

10 hours ago, TheCountOfNowhere said:

I have a couple still floating about too. What do you plan on doing with them when they end ?

Im sat on a cash pile at the moment and I;m sad to say the only place it's going into now is a house.

Cash has out performed house prices by about 30% so far since 2007 and wages are going to catch up now.

I personally think it's time to buy a house and make sure you pay off the mortgage because the currency collapses in 10 years.

I'm curious, why pay off the mortgage?

Recently we've ended up with a bungalow and a house for boring, complicated reasons.  Do you think we'd be better off to keep both, or sell the house and pay off the modest mortgage in the Bungalow?
I had thought we'd invest a lot of money in sectors that can pass on inflated input costs to consumers - energy and food, renewable energy and energy security, but the social and political situation is so unpredictable at the moment.  

Its hard to know what to do for the best, so many conflicting views, especially on here!

 

[TheCountOfNowhere]

13 minutes ago, hotblack42 said:

I'm curious, why pay off the mortgage?

Recently we've ended up with a bungalow and a house for boring, complicated reasons.  Do you think we'd be better off to keep both, or sell the house and pay off the modest mortgage in the Bungalow?
I had thought we'd invest a lot of money in sectors that can pass on inflated input costs to consumers - energy and food, renewable energy and energy security, but the social and political situation is so unpredictable at the moment.  

Its hard to know what to do for the best, so many conflicting views, especially on here!

 

If you work out what to do, please tell us

 

Worth remembering tho, having no debt is a very good thing 

[TheCountOfNowhere]

And worth remembering house prices are extremely high right now, paying off one while you can and enjoying/investing the money from the other might be worthwhile. 

 

[Nationalist]

The UK will never run out of money - the govt owns the printers.

The problem is the inflation that comes from creating every more money. To fight inflation they must raise interest rates, but they cannot because of the massive indebtedness. It's clear the govt will not fight inflation - in two ways (1) they use a measure of inflation which does not reflect what people actually need (houses, food, etc) and (2) they will relax the allowable bounds - atm the target is 2% CPI, but they do nothing when it exceeds 3%. Expect a more generous target, 5%.

[Locke]

37 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

The problem is the inflation that comes from creating every more money

Why do you think that?

[IMHAL]

30 minutes ago, Locke said:

Why do you think that?

Actually he's right, but it's not as simple as that. There is a latency in the whole system that is hard to predict. The simple answer is more money/easy debt fuels demand therefore increases prices, but that is not apparent when supply outstrips demand...until that is not the case that is...as is now the case. Housing is a good case where the supply of easy money translated fairly instantly into inceased prices....

They can't hide it now. Increased money supply will translate into increased prices and inflation.

[LetsBuild]

I think the likely hood of the power going out at least intermittently this winter are very high. Therefore I am preparing accordingly. I stockpiled petrol in August (legal limit obviously) just before E10 became a thing to fuel my generator, so felt a little ahead of the curve on that one  . Generator is primarily for the freezers and lights. I have water butts so I can fill the cisterns of the toilet and keep flushing all that bog roll. I have just refilled all the patio heater gas bottles just last week and this week i'm loading up on coal. I have an independent method of cooking all the food I have (not excessive amounts mind) and keeping the house at least somewhat warm during the coldest days. I also have some cash to hand, I know some households have none and I think that is a mental risk if you do have any spare in the bank.

I do shoot as a hobby and have a good collection of firearms but I really don't think that will be a thing if i'm honest, think they would get confiscated asap if they did get that bad. I just think back to when I was a kid in the 90's and what was really annoying or didn't realise wouldn't work - I remember the landline always working when nothing else did lol.