Cash in the house

I suppose it’s because none of us know when a cyber glitch might happen and ‘card payments’ might not be accepted for a couple of days or more Doodledog. 🤷‍♀️

Are you addressing me? If so, I'm not suggesting it is obligatory . I am wondering whether or not it is a good idea to have an emergency supply and if so, what sort of emergencies it would cover. I understand people using cash out of their purse as and when, but that is not the same as keeping it for non-spending purposes in the house.

It is not obligatory to keep cash.

If you havent been convinced by any of these posts, then maybe it is not for you.

I'm not really asking about how people use cash and cards though - more about the purpose of keeping a stash of cash in the house in case of emergency. We can all pay with cash if the cashpoints are working, and having a few quid to pay the window cleaner is not the same as a few hundred in a box under the bed 'in case of emergency'.

As I have said on other threads, I definitely use cash. Whilst I am happy to pay direct debit or whatever for bills like electricity etc, I want to have the choice. Choice being the operative word. If you live in a city or large town you may have excellent broadband and can use your card for everything. However if you live in the country or smaller places, and are also affected by the quality of signals you would indeed be very stupid to only have cards to pay with. In fact higher up in the dales and in other areas you would definitely be better paying with cash. Also I choose to pay cash on the market. We want to keep our open markets who have fresh and good variety of things for sale. They have to pay a cost if you use a card and ultimately that will increase the cost to everyone in the end. I definitely want to encourage local business and having a genuine contact with people who get to know you as a regular and I think I have much more choice that what the supermarkets decide we should have and it is ecologically sound too. There are many people who for various reasons do not have a bank card and as the banks are closing branches left right and centre , cash will not be going out of fashion here.

I withdraw one or two hundred and use it to
Pay the man who
Mows the lawns, the man who cleans the windows and the woman who cleans my house - they’re all fortnightly . I get more cash when it’s used up
In small shops I ask if they want cash or card. Most want card

I keep enough cash in my purse for a bag of shopping, to last a couple of days. I considered getting a safe with a padlock, to keep cash in at home, but don't think it would deter a determined burglar. I've started to keep the car filled up and I've got enough emergency food for a few days. I haven't built up a big enough supply of water yet though. I agree with Silverbrooks that we'd probably need an alternative way of cooking and heating water in an emergency situation.

I think I have about £300 left in the house, the thread has reminded me to get some more cash tomorrow. I used cash in three different shops these two days. They all take cash in my little town. It is safe in my safe home

Doodledog

Norah

We keep cash, locked in our home.

Cleaners, exterior window cleaner, garden workers, hair stylist, yard workers (apart from the gardens). However, if banks weren't working I suppose most of the cash we'd need would be for food and petrol.

We'd make do cleaning our home, windows, mowing etc.

Yes, in the sort of extended emergency that required cash for any length of time, I don't suppose clean windows would be top of the priority list

Indeed.

I'd prefer to eat and feed our grandchildren - rather than exterior of the windows washed. Or the interior of the house cleaned, come to that.

We spend cash hoping to be able to hold cash for emergency.

Yes I do. Hate the fact that I totally rely on cards.

If you have an alarm, neighbors like ours with cameras all over the place, plus neighbor hood watch, I think most thieves would be in & out in a flash.

Labradora

It's six and half a dozen.
I can see the argument for keeping some cash at home in case the banking system fails.
On the other hand we returned from holiday(our valuable documents and jewellry were with us) to find that our house had been burgled.Our French Doors had been broken to gain access. Nothing had been taken however , our elderly second hand computers and an elderley Iphone had all been ignored.
All the drawers were rifled, fruitlessly because there were no valuables.
Cops said that thieves were looking for jewellry....... and cash.

We bought a Patlock from Amazon to put on the French doors. We now leave that on all the time.

Norah

We keep cash, locked in our home.

Cleaners, exterior window cleaner, garden workers, hair stylist, yard workers (apart from the gardens). However, if banks weren't working I suppose most of the cash we'd need would be for food and petrol.

We'd make do cleaning our home, windows, mowing etc.

Yes, in the sort of extended emergency that required cash for any length of time, I don't suppose clean windows would be top of the priority list

Window cleaner, lawn man, etc all ask for payment by BACS now.

fancythat

I cant see the electric company wanting cash. Or car insurance.

But food, yes.
You could buy from neighbours?
Old fashioned barter[limited idea I always think].
Burst pipe so can pay a plumber?

Burst pipe so can pay a plumber?
That could require a bank loan!

We keep cash, locked in our home.

Cleaners, exterior window cleaner, garden workers, hair stylist, yard workers (apart from the gardens). However, if banks weren't working I suppose most of the cash we'd need would be for food and petrol.

We'd make do cleaning our home, windows, mowing etc.

If we are reduced to looting and survival of the fittest I'd sooner keep a gun in the house than a box of cash.

I've always kept emergency supplies, and probably always will, but they are food, batteries and so on, not cash. I'm looking at supplementing the emergency box with cash though, on a 'just in case' basis. It's the 'in case of what?' question that I'm struggling with though.

Goodness, what a bleak world you portray. We would probably be looking at an outage of a few days at the most. I don’t see the UK descending into the state you portray in that timescale. We’re all different though, and must all do what we’re comfortable with. I take the advice, and just do what I think is sensible.

People would steal and loot and find the means to obtain the food and utilities they need. People already bypass meters to steal energy because they say they can't afford to pay for it. We already have energy theft on an industrial scale by criminal gangs running cannabis factories and other illegal activities. We know people fill up cars and drive off without paying (although in an emergency the pumps would soon be shut off). We know people steal food from allotments. I think society has moved far past the time when housewives queued politely to buy wartime and postwar rations. Which is why I say it's more sensible to have enough simple non-perishable food in the house to last a few weeks than worry about cash.

It's six and half a dozen.
I can see the argument for keeping some cash at home in case the banking system fails.
On the other hand we returned from holiday(our valuable documents and jewellry were with us) to find that our house had been burgled.Our French Doors had been broken to gain access. Nothing had been taken however , our elderly second hand computers and an elderley Iphone had all been ignored.
All the drawers were rifled, fruitlessly because there were no valuables.
Cops said that thieves were looking for jewellry....... and cash.

I used to empty my purse of any £1 (and then £2 when they came in) coins and put them into a coin purse. It stopped my main purse from stretching out of shape and in the days when I paid bus fares to work every day and bought lunches etc with cash it soon mounted up. It was handy when the children needed money for various things, but wouldn't last long as a source of funding if I couldn't get to the bank.

I don't have any at all.
I used to "siphon off" small notes from my wallet when the children were small. I kept is separately for emergencies (or treats). Not exactly hidden but where I'd be the only person going there. It was a way of saving without having to go anywhere or do anything much.
Sadly no dividends or interest.

I don’t agree Silverbrooks, because a cyber attack is actually quite likely, and people can’t strip the shelves (or run the petrol stations dry) if they don’t have a means of paying in those circumstances. Once the cash is put aside you don’t need to think about it except in those unfortunate circumstances. Europeans have been formally advised to do this already.

Having an alternate source for heating (including boiling) water and cooking is sensible.

I can see how some cash might be handy for a very temporary failure but nothing longer term. In any major banking failure it would be of little use. People use the expression cash is king but that only really applies to the cash flow in a business, most of which nowadays isn’t cash.

Our most basic needs are shelter, water and food to see us through a short-term disaster of some kind. Assuming we have shelter and fresh water kept flowing, all we would need is food but, as I said upthread, in a panic, people strip shelves and resort to looting. If the people responsible for the supply chain can’t be paid, or are unable to transport food as nobody could buy bulk fuel, the chain would quickly break down.

Tesco’s annual turnover - what they are taking for goods purchased - is 68 billion or 186 million a day. The vast majority of that is in card transactions. They are by far the largest supermarket but other chains have huge turnovers too. Sainbury’s annual turnover 33 billion or 90 million a day. Add in other chains and, assuming the shelves were stocked, think about the sheer amount of money having to be physically moved to secure locations if the banking system had failed and everybody resorted to cash. Where would all the extra secure vehicles and vetted security staff to transport this cash suddenly come from and where could it be kept securely? It would be a criminal free for all.

A more apt expression would be money makes the world go around. If the banking system failed, so would everything else with it. We’d very soon be in a dystopian nightmare. It wouldn’t have to be Armageddon. Base human nature would preempt that as we saw in the early days of the pandemic - a small number of people buying up everything while nurses went hungry.

£100 kept in a teapot isn’t going to be much use.

Interestingly dd called in for some of ours a couple of days ago when ww outage on.
Very pleased we could oblige.