How much money do you have laying around your house?

[swamp]

if the phone lines are down, the power is probably out too.  and the gas pumps don't work.  but why do I need cash when I have about 20 gallons of gas at home?  and I can siphon about 15 gallons out of the jet skis if things are that bad?

[wvugurl26]

Perhaps it is area specific. I've been in an area where the electric was off for days and 75 was the overnight low. It is nice to be able to buy ice and stuff in that situation. The stores only took cash.

A lot of the times when I go into DC, I end parking in a cash only lot or garage. The snack bars and post office at work only accept cash. One of my favorite lunch places is cash only. On the flip side, I fill up my car at the Sam's Club station a lot and they do not accept cash, only cards.

I won't have $500-1000 in my house somewhere but in my life for where I go and what I do, sometimes I do need cash so having $20-40 on me or so has saved me.

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2013 13:26:45 GMT -5 swamp said:

if the phone lines are down, the power is probably out too.  and the gas pumps don't work.  but why do I need cash when I have about 20 gallons of gas at home?  and I can siphon about 15 gallons out of the jet skis if things are that bad?

If things are that bad leave the gas in the jet skis and get the hell to Canada.

[wvugurl26]

In my hometown last summer, the gas stations had generators that supplied power to the pumps but it was cash only. Other areas may vary.

[swamp]

Jul 18, 2013 13:29:18 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Jul 18, 2013 13:26:45 GMT -5 swamp said:

if the phone lines are down, the power is probably out too.  and the gas pumps don't work.  but why do I need cash when I have about 20 gallons of gas at home?  and I can siphon about 15 gallons out of the jet skis if things are that bad?

If things are that bad leave the gas in the jet skis and get the hell to Canada.

good point.

[muttleynfelix]

We have about $150 in grocery money in cash in the house. (Hubby does our grocery shopping and does better if he has cash rather than plastic).

We have about $100 in date night envelope.  I have an extra $20 from my allowance that I didn't spend earlier this year tucked away. And I tucked away an extra $100 after my last bonus, but didn't put it in the date night envelope since DH raids that if he goes over on groceries or if he runs out of cash for cigarettes and I wanted to keep that $100 for someday when we are able to go on a date again.

I have $6 left for my allowance until Friday. DH has $2 left of his allowance and I keep an extra $20 tucked into my wallet hidden for JIC moments (need a cab or gas and no CC, etc). 

The only time I've been short on cash was when we went on vacation and we had toll roads and I forgot to plan for them.  I've been without power for 2 weeks and cash wasn't that big of a deal,  Other places had power - the truck stop near us can run on a generator (they are also our propane suppliers) and most phone lines around here are underground.  Places that didn't have power were closed.  Having a supply of gasoline or propane was much more important than having cash when we didn't have power, but if the store selling those didn't have power, then they couldn't dispense it.

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2013 13:32:34 GMT -5 Ratchets said:

Jul 18, 2013 12:56:01 GMT -5 swamp said:

If it's going to be a good long apocalypse, I'd loot water, tampons, diapers, soap, and toilet paper.   Those are going to be worth some cash on the black market.

Please ladies, don't ask your husbands to loot tampons for you though  !!

So embarrassing.  Maybe if you stick it in between the cases of beer that you are taking no one will notice.

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2013 11:48:52 GMT -5 Ratchets said:

<Makes a list of houses AND cars to hit up> 

We have $16 and 60 Euros.  So nothing to see here...keep moving along haha

There is a coin collection too, and I need ot think about getting a deposit box or something at the bank for it...the chavs in this neighborhood will steal about anything that isn't bolted down  !!

CHAVS!!! That's the word I was thinking of yesterday when I posted Choades. Ah well.....

[Deleted]

I think ruffians or scallywags sounds better.

[swamp]

how about yobs? 

[Deleted]

... or hooligans.... or rubes....

[trytofindbalance]

I haven't read all the posts, but it looks like we are in the minority.  We keep a fairly large amount of cash in the house.  DH does a lot of buying/selling on the side and needs access to cash quickly if a "deal" comes up.  We also pay for everything we can in cash.  I'm going to say we probably have about $10,000 in the house at any given time (in several places).  We also keep gold, silver and other valuables in the safe.

A robber wouldn't have an easy time finding any of it, besides the HUGE jugs of change that DH keeps in his office, but he'd have a helluva time getting them out of the house (they are super heavy) and the 80lb pitbull on his tail would probably deter most people from even trying

[trytofindbalance]

Jul 18, 2013 11:49:48 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

but lets say terrorists somehow got access to our electrical grid and shut it down

no atms, no banks, no access to accounts

i am not saying it will happen.....

but what if.....do you have access to enough cash to weather a small storm like that (say it lasts a week)

What would you need cash for?  All the stores would be closed.  Gas pumps don't work without power.  Neither do cash registers. 

Hi Dark, actually gas pumps do work and some stores will be open, even without power.  Many stations here have generators that keep the pumps going, as well as lights and refrigerators in stores. I know first hand, since we had no power for 10 days during Hurricane Sandy (some places were out even longer).  Most of the grocery stores were open (although some did not sell refridgerated items) and many of the gas stations were open too, as long as they had generators, they were in business.  However, banks and ATM machines were out.  Some stores were operating on a cash only basis.  I was happy that we had cash on hand.  We had to buy gas several times to keep our generator running for that long period of time.  Thankfully I had gone food shopping before hand and we didn't have to go the grocery store, where lines were long and I heard they stunk from spoiling food.

[greeniis10]

I think it's important to keep cash on hand (in the truck and at home).  I don't have much but I have it hidden in a very weird place because DH has a bad habit of forgetting to look the doors when he leaves!    We have had a couple of robberies in our neighborhood recently (several over the past few years) and I'm overly watchful but I can't seem to get DH to be as concerned as I am.  Thankfully, he is retired and his schedule is erratic, so it would be hard to time a day robbery, which is what they all are around here.

The comment upthread about a restaurant (I believe it was) operating as cash only is interesting.  Wouldn't bother me, but boy, it would be a huge target around here!  Once people knew they had cash on site it would only be a matter of time before they were hit.  We're even having trouble with garage sales and estate sales: big huge target to theives that says, "We have cash! Come rob us!"

Anyway, that was off topic.  Regardless of where you are I think it's a good idea to have some sort of cash safety-net with you.

[Deleted]

Minimum $1k, but we sold some things lately and it is $3k

[Deleted]

I never have money.  I was buying two items off the Facebook site today so I wrote/cashed a $23 check.  Then I bought something else on it so I added $10 to a grocery trip.  Then DH reminded me I needed $10 worth of quarters for one of our grandkids' birthday gifts (we are giving photo banks, which have been fun because I get to choose the pix).  That was another trip to the bank, but he gave me the $10 to have turned into quarters.

I NEVER have more than what's left from a $20 in my purse.  I usually don't have that because it gets spent.  DH has about $100 because he went on a trip about two months ago and hasn't spent any of it (except for giving me $10).

We don't do cash much.

ETA:  We have canned food, toilet paper, soap, candles, etc.  I also have a water bottle that we drop spare change into.  So we probably have enough for a tank of gas if the guy accepts quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.  If he doesn't . . . well, I hate to say this . . . DH has a gun, ammo, and could probably negotiate for him to accept it. 

[ZaireinHD]

Jul 18, 2013 9:17:51 GMT -5 @gdgyva said:

for those of you with little to no cash available at your house

do you have contingency plans if we have a banking crisis, and you cant access your accounts for a week or so?

What would you do in a case like that....or in your mind is it so remote a chance, that you arent worried about it?

i have girls in my office that dont even carry a $ 20 bill for emergencies

My DW carries a minimum of $ 200 cash at all times, as i do

And we have enough at the house to where in the no access to banks scenario, we would have no issue for a month or two

my pocket money is $100 per week - but that's pocket money different from $$ at home.
1- bounce checks
2- borrow from family (provided they don't have a banking error)
3- there really isn't something I would need until banks are back up and running (OH gas for the car?)
4- get down to bad? Hmmmm.....

[lurkyloo]

We had about $30 in empty soda cans a few weeks ago

Our housemate reimburses me for the gas/electric bills in cash.  I didn't much do cash for a while so I'd often have a few hundred stashed.  However I've become a lot more thoughtful about what purchases I want private and what I don't mind having tracked, so I've been paying cash a lot more lately.  Especially anything baby-related; that's pretty much been all cash and gift cards.  Recently I probably have up to $200-300 in bills (plus an ungodly amount of change scattered around) at any given time.  I hit the ATM when I get below $40 or so.

Gift cards are a different story.  Those things have been the gift of choice in DH's family this year.  We have $200 at least left over from Christmas and I've bought a number of things at BRU that I didn't need and only sort of wanted bc MIL felt a $200 gift card was necessary to celebrate the birth of her grandchild.  I'd feel a lot better about that if I thought they could afford it

[ktunes]

i always have cash on hand...

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2013 12:30:36 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

I actually DID live without power for about 6 1/2 days after the Northridge earthquake. I also know a bunch of folks that got thwacked by Sandy lived without power for longer than that! And you're right - cash is useless in SOME places.

That was a real problem with Sandy. A friend in the area was posting a lot on FB about long lines at the gas station when they were finally up and running- and it was cash only. I also remember being in a department store after Hurricane Floyd on the East Coast- they were open and had power but the telecommunications systems were still down and they weren't taking credit cards. Even if they had the old-fashioned manual credit-card processors, those are really clumsy for a place that does hundreds of transactions a day and they don't instantly validate the cards. That's a good reason to keep cash around, and far more likely than the apocalypse scenario. We now live in Tornado Alley, too.