How can a person protect his savings against a country default?
The default of the country will affect the country obligations and what's tied to it. If you have treasury bonds, for example - they'll get hit. If you have cash currency - it will get hit. If you're invested in the stock market, however, it may plunge, but will recover, and in the long run you won't get hit. If you're invested in foreign countries (through foreign currency or foreign stocks that you hold), then the default of your local government may have less affect there, if at all. What you should not, in my humble opinion, be doing is digging holes in the ground or probably not exchange all your cash for gold (although it is considered  a safe anchor in case of monetary crisis, so may be worth considering some diversifying your portfolio with some gold). Splitting between banks might not make any difference at all because the value won't change, unless you think that one of the banks will fail (then just close the account there). The bottom line is that the key is diversifying, and you don't have to be a seasoned investor for that. I'm sure there are mutual funds in Greece, just pick several different funds (from several different companies) that provide diversified investment, and put your money there. "These have the potential to become ""end-of-the-world"" scenarios, so I'll keep this very clear. If you start to feel that any particular investment may suddenly become worthless then it is wise to liquidate that asset and transfer your wealth somewhere else. If your wealth happens to be invested in cash then transferring that wealth into something else is still valid.  Digging a hole in the ground isn't useful and running for the border probably won't be necessary. Consider countries that have suffered actual currency collapse and debt default.  Take Zimbabwe, for example.  Even as inflation went into the millions of percent, the Zimbabwe stock exchange soared as investors were prepared to spend ever-more of their devaluing currency to buy stable stocks in a small number of locally listed companies. Even if the Euro were to suffer a critical fall, European companies would probably be ok. If you didn't panic and dig caches in the back garden over the fall of dotcom, there is no need to panic over the decline of certain currencies.  Just diversify your risk and buy non-cash (or euro) assets. Update: A few ideas re diversification: The problem for Greece isn't really a euro problem; it is local. Local property, local companies ... these can be affected by default because no-one believes in the entirety of the Greek economy, not just the currency it happens to be using - so diversification really means buying things that are outside Greece." "Since you are going to be experiencing a liquidity crisis that even owning physical gold wouldn't solve, may I suggest bitcoins? You will still be liquid and people anywhere will be able to trade it. This is different from precious metals, whereas even if you ""invested"" in gold you would waste considerable resources on storage, security and actually making it divisible for trade. You would be illiquid. Do note that the bitcoin currency is currently more volatile than a Greek government bond."
Foreclosure is at a high level the bank declaring that the debtor cannot pay their promissory note (their debt).  This is shortly followed by default, which is the removal of debtors rights to the property.  After the debtor has defaulted, he either chooses to voluntarily remove himself and his belongings from the property, or is forcibly evicted.  In the US eviction is carried out by local law enforcement, such as the sheriff's office.   The bank is now the sole owner of the property, and proceeds to sell it, in an attempt to recoup their investment.  If the bank cannot recoup their investment by selling the house, the rest may be converted to unsecured debt against the debtor.  If the bank chooses to forgive the remaining debt, the debtor may have a tax liability for cancellation of debt.  Also the debtor may also be liable for any appreciation the house did before it was sold, but this likely to be nontaxable if the house in question is the debtor's primary residence.  They also send the credit bureaus the notice of foreclosure, which is how your credit score is hurt. Private Mortgage Insurance or Lenders Mortgage Insurance will pay the lender some amount back to cover their losses. See Also: Sometimes hedging is used if you have a position and you feel the market is going against your position, so one would hedge that position in order to protect their capital and possible profits instead of closing the position and incurring capital gains tax. Personally if the market was going against a position I had open I would get out of that position and protect my capital/profits instead of using more capital to hedge against my position. I would rather take a profit and pay some capital gains tax than watch my profits turn into a loss or use up more capital to try and protect a bad position. Hedging can be useful in certain circumstances but I think if you feel the market is going against your position/s for the medium to long term you should just get out of your positions instead of hedging against them. Then the USA can respond by pulling troops out of these countries and NATO. Think of all the carbon we will save not sending all those planes and tanks and people in other countries. They can spend some of their budgets on protection then, maybe the French can make a green Jet to defend their country. It depends on the loan contract if this is even possible, and also if it is the default.  Banks of course prefer to use those extra payments against ‘future payments’, meaning you are giving them interest-free money upfront, to apply against your next requirement payment. That is of course very bad for you, as you do not only save no interst, but also lose the cash-flow. Most (but not all) contracts do allow prepayments, but many require you to explicitly specify that you want the extra applied against the principal. "The default scenario that we're talking about in the Summer of 2011 is a discretionary situation where the government refuses to borrow money over a certain level and thus becomes insolvent. That's an important distinction, because the US has the best credit in the world and still carries enormous borrowing power -- so much so that the massive increases in borrowing over the last decade of war and malaise have not affected the nation's ability to borrow additional money. From a personal finance point of view, my guess is that after the ""drop dead date"" disclosed by the Treasury, you'd have a period of chaos and increasing liquidity issues after government runs out of gimmicks like ""borrowing"" from various internal accounts and ""selling"" assets to government authorities.  I don't think the markets believe that the Democrats and Republicans are really willing to destroy the country. If they are, the market doesn't like surprises." Tackling your last point, all banks in the EU should be covered to around €100,000. The exact figure varies slightly between countries, and generally only private deposits are covered. In the UK it's the FSCS that covers private deposits, to a value of £85,000, see this for more information on what's covered. In France (for a euro denominated example), there's coverage up to €100,000 provided by Fonds de Garantie des Dépôts, see this (in French) for full details. There's a fairly good Wikipedia Article that covers all this too. I'll let someone else chime in on the mechanics of opening something covered by the schemes though! Bank and most Credit Union deposit accounts (including CDs) are guaranteed by the Federal government by the FDIC and NCUA, respectively.  Some state-chartered credit unions use private insurance, you'll want to be careful about storing lots of money in those institutions. Compound interest is your friend. For such a low amount of cash, just pop it into savings accounts or deposits. When you reach about 1.500€ buy one very defensive stock that pays high dividends. With deposits, you don't risk anything, with one stock, you can lose 100% of the investment. That's why it's important to buy defensive stock (food, pharma, ...). Every time you hit 1.500€ after, buy another stock until you have about 10 different stock in different sectors, in different countries. Then buy more stock of the ones you have in portfolio. You're own strategy is pretty good also.