Cash could be king in a crisis
Keeping some cash on hand for an emergency is something we’ve talked about from time to time. An emergency situation could shut down financial institutions for a few days, meaning stores would not be able to process debit or credit card purchases.
ATM machines would be shut down, and even if some remained functioning, they would see huge lines and run out of cash before too long.
Having enough cash for two or three days would probably be enough to keep yourself and your family in a good spot until things return to normal. But what if the crisis is much more severe and banks stay closed for a week or two or three? It has happened in Greece and other countries, and someday it could happen here.
My suggestion is to gather enough cash to hold you and your family over for at least one month. This would be a great time to dip into your stockpiled food, water and other essentials, so you wouldn’t have to spend cash on them.
But you may find yourself in need of medicine and other items if you encounter some unforeseen circumstances, and you’ll need cash for that.
Now, telling someone to gather a month’s worth of cash and actually being able to put that much money aside are two different things. Especially if you’re already living paycheck to paycheck. On the other hand, financial institutions are probably not going to shut down today, so go at it a little bit at a time.
Start by putting aside one day’s worth of cash, then two, then three, until you are able to build up to a week. As your situation permits, you can build it up from there.
It might take a little sacrifice, but having that cash reserve will give you peace of mind. You’ll know that even if financial institutions were to shut down for a period of time, you’d have the cash to get through the crisis.
While you’re building your cash stockpile, come up with some creative ways to hide it. The odds may be against your home being burglarized, but you just never know when it might happen. Don’t make it easy for the robber by keeping cash in obvious places.
Care to share some of the places you’d recommend for hiding cash and other valuable items? Our readers would appreciate hearing about them, and you can keep them anonymous.
My Dad used to keep a couple thousand dollars in the freezer. He referred to it as his “frozen assets”. After he died my brother found another 2K in the back of a drawer in his filing cabinet. It was a great help to my Mom at the time.
Having a greenhouse, livestock, cash hidden in safe places, great items to barter, fishing lures, etc. is not going to matter as someone or gangs of desperate people will kill you to survive. Better to prepare for the salvation of your soul than to worry about what man can do to you as your life is going to go by like a twinkling of an eye.
If things were restricted to cash only I’m not sure I’d want to being strolling into a store and pulling cash out of my pocket. That would probably be a good way to get beaten and robbed by those who hadn’t planned better.
I have no cash, every paycheck I spend on “stuff” that can be used for barter. One suggestion that I do make is instead of cash, get “forever” stamps from the post office. This way if hyper-inflation takes off you have something of value, yet in the meantime I am sure everyone would take them without a problem.
For those with a vacuum food sealer, these bags are heavy duty and the vacuum greatly reduces the volume of your bills whatever their denomination.
One thing to keep in mind. There is really no way you can completely protect your preps from fire, or tornadoes if it is above ground. Not even a fire resistant safe. Our house burned down, and I got to realize the errors I had made in storage before it was a situation that I didn’t get a do over on. No matter how well you think you have prepared to protect your family it is difficult at best to account for everything.
I’m not going to keep as much cash on hand as I had before even though I know better what not to do. I have gasoline, and a greenhouse, and small livestock that we use in day to day life, as well as we are rebuilding our barter items.
Burying things in your garden is very innocuous, just be careful about burying ferrous metals,and make sure it’s deep enough that your tiller doesn’t get into what you’ve buried.
P.S. this is am amazing company that really does care about their customers. I know that without question because of what they did for my family after we lost everything. Frank, I can’t thank you enough for what you do.
If you intend to bury ANYTHING, and you live in a climate that experiences freeze/thaw weather, remember that you might have to dig up your stash during the winter months when the ground is frozen solid! That might be a very difficult thing to do, I suggest that you don’t bury anything unless the ground is accessible year round. Maybe you have a crawl space, a cellar floor, or outbuilding that has a dirt floor? Protected areas of open ground may not freeze in wintertime? In cases such as these, below ground burials might not present a problem?
“Shovel banks” — they are practically free too! My favorite is to take some 2″ or 3″ PVC pipe, glue an end cap on one end and a screw-open cap on the other end. Put bills in a baggie and then in another one and then in the PVC pipe (just over a foot long is great … you can get two lengths of US bills in that length). Screw in the end and then seal the top of the threads with wax … then bury it. Ideal if you garden … people think you are tending to the garden when you bury it or dig it up. Can’t be discovered with a metal detector. Also burying $50 in coins in the garden — maybe in a couple of places — or other spot is a great idea … even if found, they’ll think they’ve found your stash. “Shovel banks are great!” Impervious to fire, rain, hail, tornadoes, generally even floods (once the water has receded) and earthquakes unless it is a REALLY big one! Also … I’ve found dozens of other great hiding places by looking on YouTube — you may want to use the idea but in a different place than they say — criminals can read too!
I was once told by a house robber, that you look for 100 places to hide something, and then don’t use any of them, but find one or two more to use. One other thing to think of, is how do you keep the retrieval secret? and how do you handle the fact that you are paying in cash, when supposedly you have none?
Most Americans have a dishwasher. It is sealed and waterproof. Living in Florida, I have always stores my important papers and other valuables in it. We never use it as a dishwasher but as a safe no burglar or other will get into.
THEY WILL NOW MIKE. U JUST TOLD THEM WHERE TO LOOK.
My wife and I started collecting 5 dollar bills as we receive them in change. In no time you can have an emergency fund or vacation stash put away. Just make an effort to set each 5 dollar bill aside when you get change. It’s magic!
Well how about some old fashion hiding places. If you have a lot of books on shelves put some bills between the pages, just remember to check them before you throw them out. Also like old times put some cash under the mattress , if you have drop ceilings stash some cash on top of them, think how much time it would take to tear a ceiling out and then try to leave. Even hide cash in record albums, but don’t forget to check them out before you sell them.
You can get a surprising amount of cash in old prescription bottles, or even OTC containers like for aspirin or Vitamins. I bury them at easily-found locations, right next to certain bricks in the sidewalk. Since they’re small, you can bury them only a few inches below the surface, which is a lot easier than burying a Mason jar.
I wrap each container in a couple of layers of Saran Wrap, then a wrap or two of tinfoil, held tightly by duct tape, which should hold things for a couple of years anyhow.
I don’t really worry much about burglars, because of all my large dogs, but I wanted to try this method of stashing cash, just in case.
We always keep four or five hundred in cash in the house, mostly in case our firewood guy suddenly calls with a load of oak, or if we need a sudden car repair (we pay our mechanic cash only). However, since we have a number of large dogs in the house (we do dog rescue), we don’t bother to seriously hide anything. We’re here, and well armed, except for one short weekly trip to town for supplies, but no one is likely to get past two Pit Bulls, a Doberman, a Boxer, and a dozen or two medium-to-smaller dogs.
Frankly, I don’t think cash will be all that important except for rather short emergencies, so we stockpile a number of trade goods like Bic lighters, Zippo fuel & flints, 20 cartons of cigarettes, and coffee. I keep almost 60 Bic lighters (bought in bulk on eBay), figuring that most people are lousy at making fire, and it’s going to be essential for their survival. That 85-cent Bic lighter is going to be worth a LOT of trade, so I really have no upper limit on how many we will eventually stockpile.
Another thing I’m considering as trade goods — fishing lures, since you can get Chinese ones on eBay now for about 50 cents a pop (compared to $5 to $7 for most US-made ones. Most people will be able to scrounge a pole & reel from the garage, but when you’re fishing for daily food, those lures will go quickly from snags, etc. I bought a couple of batches of 30 lures each for myself, then got another mostly for trade. Will probably pick up a lot of line & hooks, too, since they are cheap & easy to store. If someone can fish to keep his family alive, he’s less likely to try to steal my food and get shot for his trouble.
Cash is fine (and essential) for the short term, but consider other alternative for barter if the zombie apocalypse turns into a very long adventure.
Dear Frank,
As always, a great topic and observation on your part.
Just as we instruct those on a tight budget (in our book Survival 101) how to build their family BOB’s over time, the same is true for building up a stash of emergency cash. You may not need it tomorrow, next month or even next year, but you will eventually need it!
“How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time!”
You need at least a couple hundred bucks to go with your urban workplace GHB (Get-Home-Bag) and an additional $50 or less in small bills to keep in your “Dummy Wallet” just in case you are confronted by outlaws while trying to make it home on foot, during a crisis.
You will obviously need even more cash on hand when a major natural disaster trashes your whole world and makes access to your banking funds impossible for perhaps weeks.
Each individual family will have to determine what amount of “stash cash” is appropriate, but they best have some hidden away when things go down!
Seriously, we go old school, just as our grand parents and great grandparents did … we strategically bury our stash in Mason jars!
God Bless,
Orrin
I keep just enough cash in a large piggy bank to make a burgular think he found all my money. The rest I keep in a empty paint can.
I rarely have much cash on hand, but you are correct that it would probably be wise to have some available for emergencies. However, I will not tell the public where I would hide it. The only advice I will give is to look at all of the places others have suggested to hide money and other valuables, and do not keep it in one of those. Look around your home and property, and be creative. My only word of caution is to be sure your stash will be accessible to a trusted friend or family member, in the event that you become incapacitated or worse. My plan is not to even tell them directly where the money is, but to write the location(s) on a document in a sealed envelope kept with other important papers or some other place where they will know to look.
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT…. i.e, BOOK. OR UNDER A FALSE BOTTOM IN A DRAWER. TWO GOOD AREA’S TO HIDE CASH.
In USA, we have came close to bank holidays 2 times in my life time, but with velocity of money (VoM) somewhere around 5 to 7 at that time enough money was put out to stop bank holidays from happening here. Now VoM is about 1.2 and large amounts of cash are being taken out of our system. No one knows where its going, could be out of country, in mattress, in box under beds or in safes in homes. But what is know is without credit cards or debit cards there is not enough cash for our daily living and paying bills. And there is talks going on about gov taking cash from our saving, checking, 401s and IRAs at any time.
— Wife and I started about 5 years ago paying ourselves 10% of our paychecks ( no matter where it comes from ) in cash and putting it in safe place. This cash is all in bills under $50. As for idea of safe place could be in a safe in garage. in a water proof container in yard, in a wall safe in home, in a safe in home, in a water proof box in freezer or in chicken pen feed barrel. Safe place in your home is something each of us will need to work out for ourselves.
— If this thing happens yes many bartering items can be used for cash and cash is one of them.
— We have been canning for many years so food supply is good, Working on a system now to make gasoline for trucks from wood and making water for air without electricity.
— Have been adding uncoated aspirin in a certain way to each fillup on my 1997 chev truck and MPG has went form 12 to 16. so taking cash savings from this and adding to my 10% payday cash to keep.
Alcohol, cigarettes, and Candy are also great currency (bartering items) that you can use when the cash runs out.