Cash!!!

[poppypiesdad]

Dollars , Euro's, Kroner, gold and silver along with English Bank Notes . Just in case . After all you never know what might happen.

J

[Holomon]

Placing a levy on bank accounts has already almost happened. During the Cypriot banking crisis savers were to lose 6.7% of balances upto 100,000 euros and 10% on balances above this.

In the past when the United States went bust they confiscated all privately held gold bullion and bullion coins, (the 1930's). Today they'd most likely just skim your bank account.

Just a quick question. What constitutes cash? Obviously notes and coins in Pounds Sterling does but does anyone hold US Dollars or Euros or even gold?

I have a small amount of all three, not sure I'll ever need it but then again I'm not sure I'll ever need any of my prep's, they're there just in case.

My fear would be that your bank account would be locked up like they did in Cyprus for a period of time, and then as you say an amount of it would get skimmed away (or "involuntarily contributed" to the Government).
I have sterling, US dollars and euros in reasonable amounts at home, but I use it when I travel so it goes up and down a bit between trips. I'm not sure you'd need to hoard US dollars physically, as it'd be very unlikely that the economies of the UK and Europe all crash and the Dollar becomes our currency. Euros might be a good idea to hold in case you had to flee to mainland Europe I suppose.

What I'd suggest to prepare for something like the seizure of private funds is to use an offshore account, which can also be dual currency. You could, for example, open an account in Jersey through one of the main banks like Barclays, HSBC or Santander which would give you protection from any UK shenanigans. They're not expensive to set up, but do usually have a recurring fee.
The other option is having a Swiss bank account, which can be expensive if you're not a resident. Switzerland does a good job of being the world's bank and so *should* be one of the safest places to have your money even if war broke out on a global scale.

One other thing, take a look at the pound coin version of the gold sovereign. They look like pound coins, but have about 400 times the value. There's a premium for buying them as I'm not sure the Mint does them anymore, but they could be scuffed up a bit and disguised if you wanted to be able to carry some 22k gold bargaining chips.

[Vespa]

Placing a levy on bank accounts has already almost happened. During the Cypriot banking crisis savers were to lose 6.7% of balances upto 100,000 euros and 10% on balances above this.

In the past when the United States went bust they confiscated all privately held gold bullion and bullion coins, (the 1930's). Today they'd most likely just skim your bank account.

Just a quick question. What constitutes cash? Obviously notes and coins in Pounds Sterling does but does anyone hold US Dollars or Euros or even gold?

I have a small amount of all three, not sure I'll ever need it but then again I'm not sure I'll ever need any of my prep's, they're there just in case.

My fear would be that your bank account would be locked up like they did in Cyprus for a period of time, and then as you say an amount of it would get skimmed away (or "involuntarily contributed" to the Government).
I have sterling, US dollars and euros in reasonable amounts at home, but I use it when I travel so it goes up and down a bit between trips. I'm not sure you'd need to hoard US dollars physically, as it'd be very unlikely that the economies of the UK and Europe all crash and the Dollar becomes our currency. Euros might be a good idea to hold in case you had to flee to mainland Europe I suppose.

What I'd suggest to prepare for something like the seizure of private funds is to use an offshore account, which can also be dual currency. You could, for example, open an account in Jersey through one of the main banks like Barclays, HSBC or Santander which would give you protection from any UK shenanigans. They're not expensive to set up, but do usually have a recurring fee.
The other option is having a Swiss bank account, which can be expensive if you're not a resident. Switzerland does a good job of being the world's bank and so *should* be one of the safest places to have your money even if war broke out on a global scale.

One other thing, take a look at the pound coin version of the gold sovereign. They look like pound coins, but have about 400 times the value. There's a premium for buying them as I'm not sure the Mint does them anymore, but they could be scuffed up a bit and disguised if you wanted to be able to carry some 22k gold bargaining chips.

I'd never thought of a gold pound coin, but for the £70 premium on them they'd be fantastic.

I have a few Sovereigns and half Sovereigns but no Silver. One advantage of British gold coins is that should the price of gold rise and you sell them for a profit later then there would be no capital gains tax to pay as they are British legal tender, unlike Krugerrands and other foreign coins which do attract CGT.

You can also bury gold coins and they will not tarnish.