Checks don’t count, just cold, hard currency. Was it all yours? It doesn’t count having a huge stash in a safe in your house, you have to have ventured out into the world, lugging it in your pocket, briefcase, backpack, suitcase, trunk of your car etc.
Me- $3500.00, all mine that I carried around for a couple days while trying to get a friend to sell me his vehicle.
About $22K one christmas…I was working in a small specialty butchershop in the Netherlands. ATM and credit cards were not accepted in the store at the times. Many people with money drive from far to get their meats from that shop (it supplies quite a few well-known restaurants with meat), and especially around Christmas time it’s not a surprise to see people with $500 worth of meat…
About $20,000. I was running a large field project out in the middle of nowhere with no access to banking facilities. We pay cash per diem so I had to have enough to cover ten people at $100 a day for a month. I, generally, only give out five days worth at a time. I used to give out the whole wad but on seveal occassions had crew members skip town once they got their per diem or go on a three day bender.
I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.
I went to East Coast Music in Cherry Hill, NJ, with about $700.00 in my wallet to buy a Gibson Les Paul in 1978. It was all my money.
$6K, for two blocks from the bank to the post office. To pay for money orders for my current car. After going back and forth with the bank and the post office trying to get them to take it on a debit card linked to my checking account, I just decided to walk it over.
I used to be responsible for taking anywhere from $2-10k to the bank on a daily basis when I was a store manager. Not a single day went by where I didn’t think of the setup in “Empire Records” where Lucas takes the day’s deposit and gambles it all away. I also thought about getting mugged, like the girl who ran the store before I did.
Okinawa has a cash-based society, which kind of drives me nuts, but anyway…when we got our apartment, the rent, deposits, fees, etc had to be paid in cash. It was about $3500.00. If we didn’t use a bill-pay service, all our rent and utilities would have to be paid in cash every month (over $2K). I think that’s the most cash I’ve ever had on me. I miss being able to use VISA checkcards.
$10,000. All mine. That was cool, but never before was I so nervous.
About $10,000.
Back in the 80s I worked for a small company that paid it’s employees in cash every Friday. I was on the signature card at the bank and when the boss was on vacation or just doing something else I used to go to the bank, get the cash and bring it back to the office.
It was about a 20 minute drive form the bank to the office. I was never nervous, but I was never really comfortable with it either.
I walked out of the casino (on my first trip, no less) with about $1100 in cash. Sure, that’s not a ton of money, but a thousand bucks is a thousand bucks.
A little more than $2,000 after I cashed two savings bonds. I only had it long enough to walk over to the ATM to deposit it, but I really wanted to do something crazy.
$1800, in 1986. I was working at my first job after graduating from school, and I had just saved up enough to buy my first computer (an Amiga 1000). My best friend and I drove over to the computer store and got out of the car. I had to grab my stuff, so I handed him the money and he made like he was going to take off… 
Thatès still the largest amount of cash I’ve ever had in my hands at one time.
Maybe $30,000. We were cleaning out the safe after my father died, and cleared out his Y2K, Democrats-get-elected, end-of-the-world money. It made a nice stack of hundreds. We took it straight to the bank, and my sphincter didn’t unpucker until I got the receipt.
When I was in the moving business I once had a guy pay in cash. It was something over 8 grand and on a saturday. I had to carry it around until I could get to a bank and buy a cashier’s check. About 60% was mine, but I had to send the entire amount to the company, where my cut would be credited back.
The most I have ever had on me in cash was only $1080. I was setting out for my first cross country trip from San Diego back to NJ and I had $80 in my wallet and another $1000 in a bank envelope for expenses and emergencies. It was close to every cent I had back then. I broke down and got my first credit card after that trip.
Jim
While it would certainly be easier, not to mention safer, to do transfers electronically like they do with our regular salaries, our company still feels there’s an important symbolic value to handing out year-end bonuses in cash. Among other things, there’s the satisfaction of graduating from ‘envelope’ to ‘lunch bag’.
As a result, I can say from experience that a shopping bag full of hundreds makes a uniquely distinctive thud when placed on a table.
The most I’ve held at one time was about $90,000. All mine. My share of the payment for our new house. The most I’ve been handed at one time is about $30,000.
I used to be the box office manager for a civic arena, so I’d take deposits to the bank after we closed. Once it was something over $12,000 in cash, mostly in small bills. It stands out because it took me so damn long to count and band all those singles.
In better times I frequently had as much as $20,000 USD in a duffel bag in my closet.
I’ve taken $10k in cash to Vegas several times, in my wallet. Thing would barely fold.
$6500. My mom was moving my sisters and my savings from one bank to another, and the first bank wanted $100 to wire the money over, for each account. So instead she withdrew the money, and we drove the 5 miles over to the other bank. It made quite an impression at the time, since I was only in 10th grade and had never seen that much money before at one time.