Stash of Cash?

[jetpack]

Well, I have a few reasons to stash cash, and have a safe for most of it.
From by bank account being a victim, natural disaster, go money, or just being able
to help a friend in need... but I do flip flop on how much of it I want in
the bank working for me.. currently it's at 10k

 

[HadEnuff]

You should always have a comfortable chunk of money close at hand. We have an account at a nearby bank for that very reason, even though our main bank is an internet bank.

For paper cash in your house, make sure you have a hundred or so in each small denomination -- $1, $5, $10, $20. In a SHTF scenario, you don't want to have to pay a chainsaw guy $20 but only have $100 bills. Instead of getting $80 back, your tree removal will suddenly be a $100 job.

ahh...good point. I have a bit, but all "C" notes.

Also, if it's internet paralysis you are concerned about, you can keep a bit in a local safe deposit box, I suppose.

 

[HadEnuff]

More important that the wine cellar is full!

Being an amateur home winemaker, myself, I'm good for a lengthy siege on that ledger.

 

[jollystomper]

Googling "most common places to hide cash" returns as first result:

1. In an envelope taped to the bottom of a kitchen shelf
2. In a watertight plastic bottle or jar in the tank on the back of your toilet
3. In an envelope at the bottom of your child’s toybox
4. In a plastic baggie in the freezer
5. Inside of an old sock in the bottom of your sock drawer
6. In an empty aspirin bottle in the bathroom (bundled up with a rubber band around it)
7. In the pocket of a particular shirt in your closet
8. In a “random” folder in your filing cabinet
9. In an envelope taped to the bottom of your cat’s litter box
10. In an envelope taped to the back of a wall decoration
11. In between several pages in a random book or two on your bookshelf
12. Buried in a jar in the back yard (my grandfather, incidentally, did this very thing)
13. In an envelope in the glove compartment of your car
14. Underneath a potted plant (or even buried in a small jar in the soil)
15. In an envelope taped to the bottom of a dresser drawer (so you can reach it from the
inside of the dresser below it)
16. Inside of a big coffee cup in the back of a cupboard
17. Inside your Christmas decoration box
18. Inside of an empty bottle of Guinness in the back of the fridge with the cap seemingly in place (smash it to get the cash)
19. In a plastic baggie inside of a flour or coffee container
20. In an envelope inside of a DVD case

If you think you're being clever by using one of these hiding places. Well, maybe not.

In my view, someone who breaks into your house looking for cash is not going to have time going through ALL of those locations... so perhaps the odds are still with you.

This something I haven't done - rarely have more than $50 in cash on me - but perhaps should look into. Finding a hiding place not on that list would be the challenge, but I think I could figure out something.

 

[MichaelB]

This thread brings back memories of Y2K fears and preps. Many things "might" happen, but very few will, and we should not let those fears get in the way of living, and enjoying, life.

For the record, I agree with Harley. Some cash stashed away, and awareness that the biggest risk might be having to use it with store cashiers that can't make change.

 

[REWahoo]

Some cash stashed away, and awareness that the biggest risk might be having to use it with store cashiers that can't make change.

+1

For this reason I advise not having the stash all in large denomination bills.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I'm thinking "WTF is this guy talking about?" lol

Seriously, I noticed no impact from any DDOS yesterday. Neither did any of our users at work. I'm in I.T., so I would know about that if it had happened.

So think about that. Most people and web sites were never impacted by this. I can't imagine why having more cash on hand would be useful.

It didn't impact me, either, but the fact remains that it IS a threat and it WAS a fairly large outage. I give quite a bit of credence to Brian Krebs and his opinion on the subject so I would like to be prepared. He isn't the only one that has concern about how the proliferation of "Internet of Things" (DVRs, WiFi Cams, etc.) from China that are easily hacked and as a consumer, there is NOTHING you can do about it (changing the admin password is often a worthless venture) except unplug them...and guess what? Folks aren't going to do that. How big of an area did this effect? Take a look at the map. For those that might be more interested in the background of this latest attack you can visit: Krebs on Security

Anyway, the point of the question remains. This can apply to anything from a large scale IT disruption to natural disaster, to...well...you get it.

This thread brings back memories of Y2K fears and preps. Many things "might" happen, but very few will, and we should not let those fears get in the way of living, and enjoying, life.

I personally will probably add to my stash (at the house) but I don't see the value of having more than a few thousand stashed. In my opinion, it's nothing more than a risk mitigation tool. And no...I am not fearful of it (especially since there is ZERO I can about it), but that doesn't mean I don't want to be prepared.

 

[Lsbcal]

We keep around $500 on hand, mostly in $20's.

Around here earthquakes are a concern. Anyway, it's just for peace of mind. I rarely need much cash but do use cash for local fill ups at Arco (cheapest gas on west coast). Also tend to travel with a few hundred on road trips.

 

[mpeirce]

It's pretty hard to figure out what the NEXT threat will be.

We humans are good at protecting against the LAST threat, e.g. people who lived through the great depression not trusting banks or even people who lived through the 70's high inflation environment continuing to worry about run-away inflation when it is currently "near" zero in the US.

Pretty much the best we an do is build personal financials that are as resilient as possible. Things like practicing reasonable diversification, keeping some cash around, [-]buying lots of lottery tickets[/-], and most important, don't panic.

I hope most people here have read (or at least heard of):

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb​

 

[W2R]

Googling "most common places to hide cash" returns as first result:
[...]
3. In an envelope at the bottom of your child’s toybox

Can you imagine finding THAT as a kid? I can just imagine the kid riding his bike over to the nearest store with all that cash, and lugging a backpack full of candy and comics home to hide (in his toybox?).

If you think you're being clever by using one of these hiding places. Well, maybe not.

It didn't even include the most common one that I recall from movies and TV - - taping an envelope to the back of a painting.

 

[dand76]

I've got around $1k stashed away at the house. Bought a small fireproof/waterproof safe rated to protect flash drives. Keep my computer backup in there also.

 

[FIREd]

Last time we had a week-long power outage, the grocery store still took credit cards. They just used one of those old carbon copy swipers. We ended up not using much of our cash stash at all.

 

[mpeirce]

Last time we had a week-long power outage, the grocery store still took credit cards. They just used one of those old carbon copy swipers. We ended up not using much of our cash stash at all.

When I got my new Citi/Costco Visa I noticed how much easier it is to read the account numbers on it. That was because it was flat - first one I had that couldn't be imprinted.

 

[mickeyd]

Current events, and the wisdom of you alert folks, has made me aware that I do not have but <$100 stashed in the house. I think that I need to reevaluate my emergency cash plan.


Thanks for shaking me up on this issue.

 

[dixonge]

Potential for large scale state sponsored cyber attacks seems like a reasonable rationale to me.

You mean like this?

There is still an open discussion, however, about when cyberweapons should be used for “offense,” such as carrying out attacks against a group or foreign country.

“You can tell we are at the tipping point now,” Adm. Rogers said. “The capacity and the capability are starting to come online [and] really starting to pay off in some really tangible capabilities that you will start to see us apply in a broader and broader way.”

NSA Chief Says U.S. at ‘Tipping Point’ on Cyberweapons - WSJ

not to mention this...

Do we steal economic information? Of course we do: precursor chemicals, dual-use equipment... money laundering. But we do not do it for commercial advantage.

NSA is world's best hacker thief, says former director - Jan. 12, 2016

I am suspicious about the 'commercial advantage' part, but there's no doubt that the NSA brags at being the #1 cyber-hacker in the world. They're the ones to fear, IMHO.

 

[GrayHare]

In my view, someone who breaks into your house looking for cash is not going to have time going through ALL of those locations... so perhaps the odds are still with you.

+1 However the squirrel approach of using many places means some will be forgotten. My mom passed decades ago yet roughly every year I still find $20 or so hidden by her in a book or other old item of hers I have. Brings fond memories.

 

[wmc1000]

We only keep a few hundred, <$500, counting what we carry or have in house, would tide us over for a couple of weeks.

 

[dixonge]

Anyway, the point of the question remains. This can apply to anything from a large scale IT disruption to natural disaster, to...well...you get it.

Yeah, I get it. You're pretty concerned.

I'm not.

I'm not that concerned because there are too many ways to work around any problems that may arise. We have multiple clouds, multiple caching backbones, etc. Traffic gets rerouted. IP's get banned. Most of this is automatic.

I read Krebs' thoughts on this before I first responded, but I am not too impressed. I guess I've fully recovered from my old tin-foil hat days. Y2K helped open my eyes a lot...

 

[Sue J]

The first time I deliberately stashed some cash was for Y2K. Seems kind of silly now but at the time I figured it couldn't hurt to have some cash at hand.

I have quite a lot on hand in recent years because we plan our cash use every month and if we don't use it it tends to accumulate. No clever hiding places. If we hear tornado sirens I grab the cash along with the radio and flashlight when we head to the basement. I don't want it scattered in the wind if the house blows away!

I keep $40 in the car for unplanned stops at the grocery store, etc. And I usually have $45 to $50 in my wallet so that covers most things.

 

[Gotadimple]

A couple hundred in a special wallet in the house. Around here, if there is a major windstorm that takes down transmission lines, it could be 2-3 days in the urban/suburban areas until electricity is restored. Grocery stores will operate on generators, but ATMs/card readers don't work. SO . . . cash for gas and groceries is King!

 

[Koogie]

More important that the wine cellar is full!

Or the liquor cabinet

We keep about a months worth of cash on hand.

For those without safes, can I recommend at the very least the following (I am paranoid about fire burning the cash):

U.S. Patrol JB5076 Fire Resistant Document Bag - $7.88
https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Patrol-J...162?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4ZF3RQ2VHR771GEETK37


Of course there are better ones for more money.

 

[Another Reader]

The funny thing is that I'm a big believer in having cash on hand because of earthquakes and fires, but we never seem to have it. It's difficult for me to take $100 out of the ATM (that's SO MUCH MONEY...) and cash laying around here tends to get spent. Right now I have some change in my wallet and no folding money. Guess it's time to make and execute a plan...

 

[RobbieB]

Three grand in the safe.

 

[Senator]

I am not worried about denial of service attacks, at all. Having said that, I have plenty of firearms, and enough ammo that I could shoot for a while if I had to. If chaos breaks out, for any reason, I am ready to deal with it.

As far as cash, it is in the $25K range mostly. The high point was over $90K. It seems like I accumulate cash, and my bank charges me money to deposit over $2,500 a month.

I have a large fireproof safe.

 

[RockyMtn]

I don't pay for much with cash but do keep about $500 around the house for golf gambling, tips, etc. Really no need to use a lot of cash these days. It only leads to coins as change and I hate coins!