your bank account

[Devonian]

the trouble is you can only stuff so much under the mattress before it gets lumpy and uncomfortable arent our bank deposits supposed to be "guaranteed" to a certain limit(forget off hand what that is)?

Exactly.

And only so much you can spend it on.

You are protected from the banks 'failing' of up to £85K per bank, but bear in mind that some banks operate a single licence as they are part of a group like NatWest/RBS/Ulster Bank etc, and so you are only protected against one lot of £85K, not three lots etc...

But this is different to TPTB deciding to cream of say 10% from all accounts, or if they become suspicious of where your funds have come from etc...