Keeping “emergency” cash at home…

[slinxy]

Hi all

Do you still keep any cash at home in case of “emergencies”?

Back in the days I would keep a reasonable amount at home in case I couldn’t get to a cash point and needed more cash than I have in my wallet for such things like;

Taxi home,
An unplanned take away,
Birthday/festive gifts,
Buying the odd second hand item locally, going to carboots,
Paying people back,
Cheeky visit to the casino, bookies or even the pub.
Food shop in case I lose my wallet and cards..

It’s just for safety in mind but it seems that i’ve not needed to dip into this pot now for years, as people/shops/services are more willing to take digital transfers more and more and I’m tempted just to bank a large chunk of it and reduce the amount I have “just in case”..

Anyone else have a reasonable amount at home or do people tend to rely on the electronic payment systems now?

 

[slinxy]

We probably have a couple of hundred pounds knocking about in a tin.

You've just reminded me, I should check to see if the notes are the new ones!

Yeah.. I used to keep a grand or two just in case, but that amount has been reduced to a few hundreds now after spending it, mainly on wedding/birth gifts and not re-topping it up.

The only time I need a larger than normal amount is at Chinese new year, and I think the parents would rather have the cash transferred than have to visit the post office or bank to deposit the amount in their kids account.

It was the new King Charles notes that got me thinking about it.

Some banks are thinking about limiting the amount of cash people are allowed to pay in. So even if you gave them cash, they may have the issue of getting it into their account.

On the flip side, my bank has limited the amount I can take out to £500 per day for while now, but anything in that region or more I would prefer to have an electronic record of it.

 

[slinxy]

When you retire and the govt means test your savings to reduce your pension you will be sorry you have no cash/gold savings

Who the hell is going to take gold? lol

I have a coupe of buckets of mud saved in case it goes all water world on us. Lol

Dealing gold is a pita, with all the commission, insurance etc.

 

[slinxy]

gold can be sold as/when needed in smallish amounts to bullion dealers etc

It’s a lot easier said than done… a friend of mine was gifted a bullion and is issues selling it.

They require proof of purchase and certification of authenticity, then the gold needs to be tested..

The costs comes out of the value of gold and then the broker takes their cut.

 

[slinxy]

I think some people have forgotten that not too long ago one of the banks basically lost it's ability to let it's customers do virtually anything (and the branch staff*) couldn't access accounts on their systems either.

Unless you've got at least two current accounts with completely different banks, or a credit card that is from a completely different issuer and type there is always a single point of failure that can remove your ability to use any electronic funds, even then if there is an internet outage or whatever you can be without your electronic cash.

I probably use card for about 95% of my purchases these days, but cash is always handy to have around.


*Good luck finding a branch that hasn't been trimmed these days

I can remember the big whooha when amazon turned around and said they wasn't going to take visa credit cards as the fees was too high and all my credit cards were visa.

I had to get a mastercard with them as they was giving away £50 pounds gift card with it. It all got sorted out before they actually stopped taking visa but a few people I knew was left stumped as we just had visa cards. lol

 

[slinxy]

I always take my wallet.
If I drop my phone or. It runs out of battery or Google pay doesn't work it would be too difficult without it.

Although I don't carry cash.. I couldn't be without a phone backup

I have my iphone and my apple watch both are setup for apple pay linked to a number of credit and debit cards.

But the other day I went into town and forgot to take my wallet, and not felt that poor in such a long time, the shop didn't want to take digital payment as what I was buying was under a tenner. I spent a good 30 mins walking around trying to get money out the hole in the wall using apple pay and failed!

Luckly I had a tenner hinded in my phone case, but was worried that I didn't have enough cash to pay for the items that I needed from the market place... which was a swede and a lemon... lol...

Honestly I don't have an idea of what stuff costs, I roughly know how much a weekly shop should cost in total as I buy roughly the same stuff each week but for each item; I have no chance in guessing as everything just gets thrown in to the trolley and I don't even question the total of the shopping when I tap to pay for it on my phone/watch.

 

[slinxy]

Bumping this as some banks seem to be having an issue or two today…

 

[slinxy]

Possibly also why governments have all recently been telling people to “prep” with plenty food and water at home.

Seems a lot of this sort of IT “issues” recently:

I always have a good supply of stables like pasta, noodles, rice and few tins.

But I do a weekly shop for the food that I’m wanting to eat that week. That weekly shop is on a Saturday so I’m low on none stable food..

 

[slinxy]

We've almost completed our move from the highly resilient in depth systems of the 60's and 70's to highly efficient but low resilience modern world. And I don't mean just in commercial transactions. Accounting, energy infrastructure, deliveries, stock control, telecoms, manufacturing the list is endless. There maybe standalone PLC's and DCS systems that can be ringfenced but often the supporting systems are dependent on highly interconnected systems that can go down just like today.

it all depends on what service you are prepared to pay for...

working in the selector, I can reassure you that we check, double check and triple check everything before mulitple testings... 90% of my role is paper work. a 5 min task in another company takes me days if not weeks to get it cleared.
but those things costs; if you bank is offering higher interest rates, insurance is super cheap, etc.. You need to think where the savings are coming from.

Our team is very small in size but very expensive in cost.. questions are always asked why we are around by newer directors/chiefs, then other C-level managers tell them to shut up as they been though the process of looking to what we actually do.
Just a shame we can't have more staff.