Cold Hard Cash

[KB]

I keep $300 in small bills around in a small safe....just in case.
You never know when you'll need it.

 

[astromeria]

I would be consumed with $5,000 cash in the house on a permanent basis... checking on it...talking about it... talking to it... fondling it ... getting paranoid about visitors... maybe I'd turn into Dobbsy (Treasure of the Sierra Madre)!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

$12,500.

Sold a car for cash.

Squirrelled it away in my nightstand and paid all the non-mailed bills and expenses out of it. Took almost a year.

Before anyone asks, my bank was on the other side of the country, no local atms, and no way to deposit cash. I'd have had to open a new local bank account...and I didnt wanna.

I havent used an ATM machine in millenia...I always just get cash back at the stores I shop in. No fees.

I always keep a couple of hundred around, a few down phone lines would make all atm purchases a little bit problematic.

ATM daily limits are usually a function of what your bank allows, what the owner of the machine allows and what the particular cash exchange network allows per day. Most are around $400. I've done some pretty large atm transactions while holding my breath a little and never had one rejected. Some banks allow you to ask for a larger daily limit.

Five bucks says that larger limit request puts you on the federal homeland security probable coke user watch list.

 

[LOL!]

You never know when you'll need it. 

Actually, you do know when you'll need it. For all the hurricane storytellers, it's pretty obvious when a hurricane has a chance of hitting your area, so that's when you get some cash. You don't need it before then; you don't need it after.

Lately, I've been to Europe, Asian, Africa, North America with less than US$20 in my wallet. Everywhere you could use credit cards or the ATM card. It's true, I wasn't staying in dumps, but nevertheless, the world is flat and cash is really not needed anymore.

Here's my hurricane story: I survived Katrina and Rita and I didn't have any cash.

 

[CybrMike]

Currently about $6K in a safe. Want to get it up to $30K. Never know when you might have to make a mad dash for mexico with cash strapped in your underwear.

 

[astromeria]

Never know when you might have to make a mad dash for mexico with cash strapped in your underwear.

But that's the first place they'll look :

 

[BUM]

Ever take a cruise? Stop at Grand Cayman? Notice the people walking funny getting off the ship? Its not Montezuma's revenge...its cash going to Barclay's

 

[Danny]

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who has been seeking to raise money for the financially strapped government, returned to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday with a suitcase full of cash, Palestinians officials said.

An official said Zahar was believed to be carrying up to $20 million.

Last month, a Hamas official was caught as he tried to smuggle about $800,000 into Gaza. The money was seized, but later returned to the government. Normal travelers must declare all sums over $2,000 and explain their origin.

 

[tryan]

A contractor I used to build a house gave a 10% discount for cash payments. Soooo needless to say I would carry payments ranging from 20-30k the day the payment was due. Learned you have to complete a 1 page form to exit a bank with anything more than 10k.

I am quessing the IRS will be contacting me to determine where all the dough went ... we'll see.

 

[rw86347]

I have always wanted to keep cold hard cash (~$5000-$10000) sitting in my safe. But the left side of my brain keeps telling me that inflation will eat it away!

 

[riskadverse]

I used to buy and sell silver in the 80's. It wasn't unusual for me to have 16 to 20K in cash. What was funny was trying to be nonchalant hauling thousand dollar face value bags of silver dimes into the bank to stash in safety deposit boxes.

 

[rw86347]

I used to buy and sell silver in the 80's. It wasn't unusual for me to have 16 to 20K in cash. What was funny was trying to be nonchalant hauling thousand dollar face value bags of silver dimes into the bank to stash in safety deposit boxes.

I might be carrying 1K-3K on me for work, and for that reason I also carry a .357 Mag under my shirt.

 

[mathjak107]

i remember in the 80's cashing in my gold coin collection..i had to go into manhattan to do it so we put 15,000 in gold coins in my daughters barbie doll backpack and my daughter and i rode the nyc subway system in to the city

 

[thefed]

About 20k. Until I was 20, I didnt believe in banks.

I then took it in to a few banks 9k at a time because writing money orders got old fast!

 

[ladelfina]

Over €200,000 for part of our house purchase. It seemed like monopoly money.
I took a picture.

Needless to say we were fairly nervous on the way to the closing.

 

[justin]

Over €200,000 for part of our house purchase.

A glass of water, a pack of smokes, and 200k in cash? You sure you aren't involved in some other money-making enterprise?

 

[REWahoo]

Water? With that kind of jack on the table, it better be vodka!

 

[Martha]

I might be carrying 1K-3K on me for work, and for that reason I also carry a .357 Mag under my shirt.

Moving money or product for your boss, ladelfina?

 

[AltaRed]

Over  €200,000 for part of our house purchase. It seemed like monopoly money.

Why would anyone take cash to a closing? Bank draft maybe......

 

[Enuff2Eat]

back in the old county in asia, our parents got tons of cash around the house, nobody at that time trust the bank or the government. my parents limits themself to about 2 trunk of cash then convert them to gold...

well, gold continues to increase in values and cash declines fast. i don't see that much changes since we came here in the US.

for us, we got around 5 to 10k around the house... oopss i better not tell u where we live.

enuff

 

[d]

as was not uncommon back then, my MIL used to put cash in the walls both for "safe" keeping and for insulation ... don't imagine it worked well for either purpose.

 

[tryan]

Too funny .... there was a case in NH where 3 MA roofing contractors found a stash of antique bills in a barn. Reports pegged the find ~$100k due to the age and condition of the bills. Landed them all in jail as they tried to keep the stash.

Guess many didn't trust the early banks.

 

[Enuff2Eat]

got a question for all u folks that trust the bank in the USA.

back in the old country, in the old days, our banking system also had something similar like" FDIC" that guarantte a certain amount of your money if the bank ever went bankrupt, almost like the USA, however when the whole country collapsed and the government "all meshed up" like Iraq, NOBODY gets anything period.


for example, (stupid example) company X guarantee flood insurance for a particular house at address B, it's all nice and dandy when your house is only house that got flooded and the insurance will pay for the damages BUT what happens when the entire county and the next 12 neighboring counties in my state got flooded then WHO paid... you're NOT the only "sad" story in town. there are 100,000 thousand houses in the same situation... then What?? oh, BTW company X just filed "bankruptcy".

this is why the Asian people DO NOT trust the bank and i guess it's in my blood a little bit too. it happened to my parents in a "solid" government situation. who to say something like that will not happened in the USA

enuff

 

[d]

who to say something like that will not happened in the USA

it could, but i judge it to be unlikely. were it to happen, any currency would likely be worthless, so it makes no sense to keep currency.  gold might hold its value, but in severe circumstances i'm not overly confident you could easily trade or sell it.  holding cash is not without significant risk, nor is holding gold. indeed, i suspect there is no riskless asset.

 

[unclemick]

Hmmm

Call me provincial but I trust the American financial system vis a vis the rest of the world. (even with Depression era parents).

BUT - here is the biggie - the American dollar trades openly on the world market along with other currencies. So - if you are planning to spend time abroad or for plain old diversification reasons - formulating a defense might be in order.

Gold is the classic historical defense. Foriegn stock, some of the newer commodity related (PCRIX Type stuff) products produced by Wall Street, etc have been proposed.

I don't have the answer - but were I to move overseas, I would be much more internationally diversified than I am now.

heh heh heh -?