How much cash (actual greenbacks) do you keep on hand and why?

[F-One]

Then I hooked up with a gal whose Dad actually used to bury money in the back yard. I only thought i was goal oriented - she's the real deal.

We must have married the same woman, DW's dad not only buried money (depression era fear), but he lost about 20-30K in early 1960's. Their family had gone on vacation just before they were to buy a house they were having built. He took the money with him and buried it near their camp site. When packing to go back home he misplaced it, actually remembers having the coffee can in his hand and placed it somewhere. When it hit him that he didn't reclaim it, the shock made him forget where he had temporarily stashed it. Tried, but never did get it back.

Sad part is he developed dementia (many years later) and his wife never thought she located all the money he had buried. Lesson to learn is make sure spouse knows where everything (investments) are located.

To answer the question: usually between 100-200

 

[Gumby]

Less than a Benjamin, although the great power outage of 2003 should have taught me better. I was stuck in the City with everyone else. A guy with a limo offered to take me back home to CT for $200 cash. I didn't have it and the ATM machines did not work. I was forced to wait for the trains to start running the next day.

 

[kaudrey]

I withdraw $100 at a time if I go to an ATM, so I rarely have more than that. Usually I'll just use my debit card at the grocery store or CVS and get $20 out of the account.

Karen

 

[happy2bretired]

Right now I have about $700 in the house. It's for our vacation but it also gives me some security just knowing I can get to some cash quickly.

 

[Outtahere]

I carry about $50 to $100 on me most times, dh on the other hand carries no less than a couple hundred and keeps a "coffee can" with $2k to $4k just in case... in case he needs it. I guess if he keeps it there it's not like he's taking it out of the bank (which he hates to do). I on the other hand see lost interest.

 

[KB]

I keep $300 in my safe, but recently decided to up it to $500.

I usually get $200 when I get low on cash, so always at least $100 to 200 in my wallet.

 

[nfs]

A couple of hundred usually. When we lived in Seoul in the mid 90s, we kept ten grand in the escape pack.

I've noticed something strange about today's teenagers though. They don't seem to carry any cash at all. They buy packs of gum with a debit card. What's up with that?

 

[Mwsinron]

A couple of hundred usually. When we lived in Seoul in the mid 90s, we kept ten grand in the escape pack.

I've noticed something strange about today's teenagers though. They don't seem to carry any cash at all. They buy packs of gum with a debit card. What's up with that?

I do too. Since I get money back for using a credit card. Its free money.

 

[Nords]

I've noticed something strange about today's teenagers though. They don't seem to carry any cash at all. They buy packs of gum with a debit card. What's up with that?

The schools discourage kids from carrying cash and debit cards are "easier" than credit cards. Don't get me wrong, though, I think debit cards have a slew of drawbacks designed to suck all sorts of money out of one's checking account.

Our kid developed her own system. She keeps a $20 tucked away in her wallet for "emergencies". It cuts down on her impulse spending (soda machines) and the other kids know that it's useless to ask to borrow money from her because she never has dollar bills. Using a credit card makes it easier for her to track her purchases.

Imagine if soda machines had credit-card readers...

 

[d]

generally have about $120 with me ... use (reward) credit cards for most purchases, but do need cash on occasion.

 

[riskadverse]

If I have less than $20, I start to feel like I might run out. If I have more than $60, I feel like I'm going to be real upset if someone robs me. My wife has a little lower minimum and a little higher maximum, which makes me a good source when she runs low, and her a good source when I run low.

 

[BUM]

Hi runchman!

Good luck in the wash/dry biz. My neighbor owned the local laundramat and always bragged what a cash cow it was. He was temporarily shut down after an IRS audit. He said they got him by comparing a few years of his stated income with his water usage... His only defense was, "I musta had a leak".

 

[SecondCor521]

Imagine if soda machines had credit-card readers...

No need to imagine:

http://digg.com/gadgets/Use_your_credit_card_at_the_Coke_machine

I usually carry less than $20 in cash. Nearly everyone takes debit cards.

To those who have more than a few hundred in cash, when have you actually needed it? And in those cases, what would have been the impact if you had not?

In my case, I can imagine scenarios where not having cash would be a drawback, but never a serious emergency. For example, if the stores were only taking cash because of a disaster, I have food at home that would last me a few weeks, which is "long enough" in my opinion. I have also never seen a purchase situation where I needed a few hundred in cash that I couldn't get from the bank or write a check instead.

2Cor521

 

[runchman]

How solid is the ROI on your laundromat? And what were some of your experiences setting that up?

The ROI is pretty stable, it's a business that doesn't fluctuate much. My ROI is, ballpark, maybe 15 to 20%. This is a small laundromat, probably about as small as they come. My thoughts:

1. To put up new is very expensive. Buying an existing one makes more sense if you are starting out.
2. You have to have mechanical aptitude. There is a steady stream of equipment problems, most of them minor (broken belts, jammed coinslots, ...). If you have to hire all this out, you aren't going to make squat. At least with a small laundromat anyway
3. If you finance a lot of the purchase (I didn't) your cashflow will be minimal.
4. It's nice to be able to write off some of your auto expenses

The one thing I haven't figured out is how to upgrade equipment - i.e. how much money to filter back into the business to prevent things from becoming obsolete. When you are netting 1200 or so per month, it's hard to get excited about replacing dryers at $5k per stacked dryer.

- John

 

[Nords]

To those who have more than a few hundred in cash, when have you actually needed it? And in those cases, what would have been the impact if you had not?

My PILs used to stash emergency cash inside the whirlpool tub enclosure. (Other than a Ziploc bag, no contingencies were taken for plumbing leaks or cockroaches. After they moved out of the house, we spent a good hour checking for any other emergency stashes they may have forgotten about.) For these people who strongly preferred cash over IRS-traceable checks or Internet transactions, it was just a convenient way to minimize trips to the bank. I think the risks far outweighed the convenience but it helped them sleep at night.

We used to pile up a few hundred bucks in cash in our house, too, between trips to deposit it into an ATM. The same $20 would travel a 20-mile loop over a couple months without earning any interest, but I could never get them comfortable with letting EFT electrons do the work.

When we were hot on the trail of a Craigslist acquisition we used to keep a few hundred in the house to be ready to race after a purchase. But a no-fee ATM is available five minutes from the house now so it's not an issue anymore.

Here's a downside to hiding cash. One of our family legends is a grandmother who found $35K cash stuffed in a sewing-machine case cleverly hidden in a stairwell in the 1940s. (Current value: over $250K. They bought a grocery store.) One of the Bronx apartment's previous (deceased) tenants was a public employee in an occupation eminently suited for bribery. He must have kept the secret well-- especially from his family.

 

[Lusitan]

We keep $200 in 5-dollar bills in the house for emergency access to cash.

Other than that, I typically walk around with no cash in my wallet, although my wife probably usually has $20 or so on her most of the time.

 

[CybrMike]

No less than $15K. Never know when you might have to cut & run or pay someone to get out of the blast radius.

 

[Moemg]

I usually keep about $150.00 in cash .During hurrricane season I usually up that to $500.00.

 

[aenlighten]

I use limits of $100 and $400. Charge everything over $10, pay cash for the rest. Usually lasts 3-4 months between trips to the ATM. Never use any ATM other than my own, never pay a fee, and don't waste time, energy, and gas using them more frequently.

 

[free4now]

$200 in my wallet everytime I go to the ATM
$100 hidden in my car for emergencies
$200 in the safe at home

 

[LOL!]

I would like to explore the reason for cash some more as well. I've lived through a tornado and hurricanes and just never needed cash. Some folks have said they needed cash when their illegally parked car was towed.

For hurricanes, you need water, gas in the cars, battery powered radio, flashlights, a gas outdoor grill, some random food, some roof repair supplies, maybe a gas-powered chainsaw, but you don't need cash.

 

[bbuzzard]

I have a big floor safe at my house. I keep all my cash in the safe in 1 dollar bills so that I can go swimming every morning and evening in my money. Very therapeutic.

 

[samclem]

I would like to explore the reason for cash some more as well. I've lived through a tornado and hurricanes and just never needed cash. Some folks have said they needed cash when their illegally parked car was towed.

For hurricanes, you need water, gas in the cars, battery powered radio, flashlights, a gas outdoor grill, some random food, some roof repair supplies, maybe a gas-powered chainsaw, but you don't need cash.

If power and phone lines were down (reducing the ability to sell things using credit cards), I suppose there might be some businesses that would sell things for cash. Still, when I've been in such situations, the folks at the registers don't know how to make change, and the owners generaly just find it best to shut their doors rather than try to conduct business.
BTW--when's the last time anyone saw one of those manual credit card-inprinter thingees?

If there were some type of huge cyber of physical attack on the US financial/banking system, I suppose it is possible electronic banking/credit card transactions/ATM functioning, etc might be shut down while companies tried to figure things out and assure that all the account balances etc were correct before coming back up. Having a few hundred bucks in cash could be handy at a time like that, but there would be far bigger problems to deal with than running out of groceries.

 

[youbet]

To those who have more than a few hundred in cash, when have you actually needed it? And in those cases, what would have been the impact if you had not?

Frankly, there haven't been very many recent situations where having a kilobuck or so cash in the house has bailed me out of a liquidity jam. On the other hand, if it wasn't here, it would probably be in the checking account which pays only about 1%. That's about $10/yr pretax, not much of an opportunity cost.

Because we're conservative folks and plan ahead pretty well, there's only been a couple of times over the years where being able to reach into that stash has helped us or the immediate family avoid a sticky situation. But those two times were impactful enough that they have an "urban legend" status amongst those who know about the incidents. Convenience-wise, since we bring the stash along when traveling, having it here at home saves us a lot of in-and-out transactions at the bank/ATM at minimal expense.

And there is the peace of mind (justified or not) I have when I watch events like 911, Katrina, etc., where having a little stash at home might possibly help.

Because the ease of using credit cards or checks has increased a lot in the past decade, if either the cost or the risk of having cash at home was high, I wouldn't do it.

 

[LiveWell]

LOL!, I'm not much of a "stay home and try to survive" kind of person. Both DH and I are small people and we'd be easily overpowered by a mob. In the case of an emergency (I'm thinking Katrina) I'd rather get out of town. To that end, we always keep about $1000 cash on hand. About $400 of that is spending money in our wallets and the rest is in a small locked and fire proof box that is bolted to a closet shelf. The car has a good supply of emergency gear and I'm confident we could pack a week worth of food, supplies, clothes, and important documents in about 10 min and be on the road. As far as missing the interest on $1000 bucks... meh.. it is a tiny percentage of our networth so I'd rather have the emergency peace of mind.