Yeah, that used to happen to me a lot when I was still working. I’d put some money in my pocket and walk down to the cafeteria for a snack (we didn’t have vending machines in the work area in the last building I worked in). I’d just put the change in my pocket. If it was in a jacket that I’d wear several times before cleaning, it could be months before I found it. It wasn’t “free money” but it felt like it and always put me in a good mood.
A few years back, a member of my parish died, and a bunch of her stuff ended up donated to the church rummage sale. Pretty much everything that could have money in it, did: Coat pockets, purses, books, whatever. We (the volunteers setting up the rummage sale) found hundreds of dollars, and I’m sure some items made it out onto the floor with a pleasant surprise for whoever bought them for a dollar.
How big and heavy is this safe? Could a few guys lift it and walk out the door? If a burglar sees a safe, it’s a good bet there is something in it worth stealing.
Honestly the idea that my home (apartment, actually) was broken into would bother me more than losing $1500.
I stash some money in between the pages of a chick lit book that would never interest my husband, so he doesn’t know it’s there. I add a little to it every week or so and when I’ve accumulated a couple of hundred dollars, I put it in my Schwab account. Eventually there’s enough there to help buy conservative index funds.
My husband hates the idea of saving money, so this is my way of doing it on the sly.
But accumulating a large emergency cache? Nope. But you guys talking about ATMs maybe being unavailable during an emergency makes me rethink this.
This. I’d be much more worried about what happened to our cats than if anyone was able to defeat our safe. (Which is not only too heavy to easily carry around, it is also bolted to the foundation.)
That is about what we keep in a fire-proof envelope.
This has happened twice to our are in the last five years. ATMs, any sort of electronic payments, interwebz and most cell services were affected. The outages lasted less than a day each time, but it was still inconvenient enough to make most folks keep cash around just to be able to pay for gas and food for a couple of days.
Ha, now I’m trying to imagine how it would look if someone decided to steal my safe–first off, they’d have to find it and it’s not in an easily scoped out location, then they’d have to try to get it out from underneath a whole bunch of stacked up stuff and get a handtruck to get it out the door–all while three dogs are going absolutely batshit and the neighbor dogs are chiming in until my neighbors come out with handguns to figure out what the ruckus is at my usually quiet abode. This is after trying to figure out my schedule–I’m mostly home. I subscribe to the theory that you don’t have to be impregnable, just more of a pain in the ass than the next guy in line.
Well played. Sounds like you don’t have anything to worry about.
My valuable documents are locked in my gun safe, bolted to the floor in my home office. It would be theoretically possible to get it out of my house, but not worth the effort. Plus, I have a barky dog and a whole house alarm system that is very loud, so the neighbors would come over fully armed.
I’m not sure I can wrap my mind around this - what is his objection? Is this an Ant and Grasshopper thing?
Some people simply cannot stand seeing a resource go unused–if there is money around they simply MUST spend it, even if they have to think up some ridiculous thing to go spend it on. I think it feels like privation to them even though by any reasonable definition of the term it’s nothing of the sort and the security of having some cushion doesn’t seem valuable to them. My horrible ex was like that, could NOT save money no matter how dire the need, he’d just piss it away. Even when he was using the threat of moving out as an abuse tactic the only way he could make it seem possible would be to go buy money orders saying it was savings for a security deposit on an apartment. I’d notice, though, that he’d decide to go honeymoon phase on me and he’d cash those things and fritter them away then have to go do it over again, lather rinse repeat. I found it pretty hilarious as an empty threat and of course when I threw him out he didn’t have that stack of money orders and had to go couch surfing. Typical.
I hide cash in the owner’s manual of my wife’s car. Trust me, it’ll never be found.
I do this routinely. I call them “loss leaders”. Shiny toolbox in the truck bed (filled with bricks) and the real tools behind the seat. Once when moving, I slid the guns under a wooden pallet in the bed, then piled everything (including fridge) on top of that. The gun safe was in the uhaul trailer, but contained only concrete blocks.
A thief entering* our house will quickly find the jewelry boxes (worthless trinkets) the laptops (old, drives removed), and a spiffy handgun safe with a cheesy little cable anchor (with a brick inside). He probably won’t find the high UL-rated safe behind the false wall, anchored to the foundation, nor the other hidden stuff.
*Even this is highly unlikely. The last one that tried wore himself out, prying away almost 3 feet of the doorjamb, torquing the deadbolts in their frames, bending and warping the (steel) door and tearing away part of the threshold at the bottom. ‘A’ for effort I guess, but not even close to getting in.
I have $100 (well, 10,000 Yen note) hidden in a book in my bookcase, just in case something comes to the door and needs paying for, and a few small (5g) gold bars hidden away that I consider ‘cash’, for emergencies.
Why the mini-bars instead of just coins (e.g they make 1/4 ℥ and 1/10 ℥ mini-Krugerrands)? Are they especially designed for hiding?
to DPRK - I have a gold/silver coin collection and they are not for sale. The bars are not collectable in any way (except by maker I guess) so they are more fungible. Krugerrands are dated and not 999 pure gold. If I had one I would keep it in my collection.
Yes, that’s the case. Had he ever found a money stash, he would have immediately started to think about what item of high-priced audiophile equipment he could turn it into.
But nowadays he’s much more on board with saving money, mainly because we’re about six months away from retirement. I don’t think I’ll hide cash between now and then.
I read once about a good hidey-hole for money: bore a hole down through the top of a door, big enough that you could roll up several bills and put them in there. Contrive a “cork” out of wood and plug the hole.
I have a couple of clients who like to pay me in cash.
It’s actually more of an annoyance than a plus.
So, I have 10 $100 bills stuck in my stamps envelop. If I ever remember to go by the bank, I’ll deposit them.
Mr VOW doesn’t hide money.
He hides chocolate.
~VOW
What a monster!!! 