Well, there we have it. Britain has spoken and it has voted to leave the EU, triggering the resignation of David Cameron.
What happens next is pretty unclear, although we do have one indicator of the way things could go – the value of the pound has taken a dive Tom Daley would be proud of.
The FTSE100 – the UK’s financial index – has lost around £135 billion, reaching its lowest level since 1985, the BBC reports.
But how will this affect our personal finances? Well, to be honest, it doesn’t sound great…
The Pound
The weakening pound means a few things – buying goods and services from abroad will become more expensive.
This, in turn, means inflation will be higher and prices will rise as goods being sold to other countries become cheaper for foreign buyers and sellers are forced to raise domestic prices to cover the shortfall.
In short, we’ll probably have to pay more for stuff.
Housing
Not good news for anyone really.
To combat inflation, the Bank of England is likely to raise interest rates making mortgages and loans more expensive to pay back.
As costs for landlords increase (rents would also be likely to rise), it will leave – you guessed it – the young and the poor even worse off.
Wages
According to the BBC, a number of experts think the economic shock of leaving will cause unemployment to rise.
Falling employment reduces the pressure for wages to increase and the Treasury estimates the typical worker will be at least £780 a year worse off.
Great…
Holidays
It’s also incredibly likely that holidays to EU countries will be more expensive, as a weak pound forces us to pay more for accommodation and services priced in euros.
The cost of flights would depend on individual airlines, however most airlines were strongly in favour of Remain with both Easyjet and Ryanair saying flights will now become more expensive, due to more restrictive aviation rules.
On top of that, we’ll have to queue for hours in the Non-EU line now. Oh, and the icing on the shitty cake – both BT and Vodafone have said they may drop EU caps on mobile roaming charges.
But, to be fair, we probably won’t be able to afford to go abroad in the first place.
