No money or payments

First steps

• Find out whether it is just your bank, card payments generally, or everything (shops, fuel, cash machines).
• Use cash for essentials and keep card payments for when they work again.
• Do not withdraw everything or panic-spend. Most payment outages last hours, not weeks.
• Be alert to scams: criminals copy banks during outages. Your bank will never ask you to move money to a "safe account" or give them your PIN or passcode.

Cash

• Keep a cash reserve at home, split between a few places, in small notes and coins.
• A sensible amount covers about a week of essentials: food, fuel and medicines.
• Keep some cash in the van too, hidden.

Spending priorities

1. Water and medicines.
2. Food.
3. Fuel and heating.
4. Anything that keeps the family together and safe.

If the crisis goes on

• Prices may rise fast. Buy only what you need and use what you already have first.
• Local swapping and helping neighbours becomes valuable: skills (first aid, repairs, childcare) as well as goods.
• Keep records of anything you pay for, in case of later claims or refunds.

Personal money crisis (job loss, illness)

• Contact lenders, your landlord or mortgage lender, and energy suppliers early. They have to consider hardship arrangements.
• Free, impartial help: Citizens Advice, StepChange and MoneyHelper.
• Check benefit entitlement with a free online calculator (for example, on the GOV.UK benefits page).
• Pay priority debts first: rent or mortgage, council tax, energy, court fines. Credit cards and loans come after.

Get ready before it happens

• A week of cash at home, in small notes and coins
• Some cash hidden in the van
• Accounts with two different banks, if possible
• A small emergency savings fund, built slowly
• Paper copies of key account numbers and contact numbers, kept with your documents