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I’m not a doom monger, in fact, I’m pretty much a techno-optimist. That said, it seems to me the internet isn’t as stable as it used to be. I keep hearing reports of data centers going down and chunks of the web having issues, which knocks out various consumer-facing applications. Some outages are trivial, social media going dark for a few hours, but others are more serious, like payment system failures.
In my day-to-day life, I simply don’t use cash. It’s a bit of a hassle, honestly. Digital payments are simple and far more convenient. I used to keep a $20 bill tucked under my phone case for the rare retailer that didn’t take cards. But with what seems like an uptick in payment issues, I’ve increased this “just in case” stash to $50.
On the home front, I’ve always kept a few hundred dollars in the safe, it just seemed prudent. Recently, though, I’ve thrown caution to the wind and upped our cash reserve to cover a full month of spending. Maybe a bit excessive, but it’s not costing much in growth potential, and I look at it as a premium for short-term disaster insurance.
I’m definitely not a prepper, but the small opportunity cost seems like a reasonable hedge against what appears to be increasing structural instability in online systems. So what do you think, am I being a little over the top?
I always keep some cash stashed at home. Having lived through Hurricane Fran back in 1996, when power was out for a week, I put together an emergency stash containing 50 ones, 30 fives, 20 tens, and 5 twenties. I also keep some larger bills on hand for paying the few things that still call for cash, and I replenish this when it gets down to a few hundred. The smaller bills come in handy if your power is out for a week. It is good to have close t correct change if whoever is selling does not have change. It is also good to have at least 100 miles or so worth of gas in the car, because gas pumps don’t work when the power is out.
Good idea, my cash is all 20s or larger; I’ll rectify that.
This reminded me of an old customer of ours, apologising that the cash he paid with was wet. He didn’t believe in banks, so had all his money buried around his property. Unfortunately he had recently been flooded.
(Side note – in Australia, and we use plastic notes that aren’t affected by water).
I hope he had a good memory 😁
Interesting topic. Doesn’t sound over the top to me. We always have a little cash in the house; definitely carry a few days worth when traveling. To me an interesting related topic is whether it’s wise to centralize all financial accounts at a single financial institution. I happened to recently h