Best Places to Keep Emergency Cash
Cash is always important to have, whether it's for an emergency or an opportunity
Author: SteveHanafi (Silat Sharaf Practitioner, Malaysia)
In the event of an emergency, there’s not much that you have control over. Two things that you can however control; yourself and the preparations you’ve made up to that moment. Where time is a luxury, you’d want to get out as fast and as safe as possible. If your house is on fire, you don’t get to choose how fast the fire burns your house down, you only get to save what’s not burnt and that includes your life and your loved ones. Worst comes to worst, all that you’d ever safe is your life.
But things could’ve gone better if you have better prepared yourself and have good prior planning. Having to leave your house during emergency sucks. You need to take along important documents, credentials, phones, and your wallet. Oh, and also cash. Why cash you ask? There are countless reasons you might need emergency cash. In the event of an absence of electricity or some other essentials, a cash economy will dominate and you wouldn’t wish to be in a situation without any insurance of your family getting food, water, and protection.
Disasters happen. You can’t tell or choose when they’re going to happen.
Emergencies can range from the house being on fire, flash flood, hurricane, volcano explosion or any disaster that you can think of, be it man-made or natural. In situations where it would be best to leave your house to go to a safer place, you’d want to have all your essentials close, and that includes your money. Knowing that you can get to your emergency money anytime you need provides a certain level of security and confidence that no bank can give. It would be wise to start placing emergency cash in strategic locations around your house. By strategic, we mean:
Well hidden. Should the event of burglary occur, burglars will have a hard time finding the money you saved.
Ease of access. When you need to take it, you won’t need to climb a stair and open a 21-key password to take it. Remember, during an emergency, time is gold
5 Best Places to Keep Emergency Cash at Home in Case of Disasters
And one of it is not under your mattress
1) In an envelope taped to the bottom of a table/chair/kitchen’s shelf/child’s toy box
You get it, it’s under a place that can’t be spotted easily, not even from lurking eyes. Under a flat surface where you can tape an envelope. In times when you need the cash, just reach under, take the envelope and leave.
Bet you can’t identify which one, good.
2) In a jar or bottle in the freezer.
Obviously in a jar or bottle where one can’t easily see through what the insides of the container are. An easy spot for you to remember and easier to get to. Just be sure that you don’t have 5 other identical bottles arranged near your emergency bottle, you don’t want to waste time having to look at each bottle for the right one.
3) In an envelope taped to the back of a wall decoration
This is pretty much self-explanatory. You always have a good sight of it, it's hard to forget, and thieves don’t usually go to these places looking for your cash. Drawings, clocks, mirrors, calendars, just to name a few.
4) Inside your car
In an envelope inside the gloves compartment, under the car seat, under the car carpet, get creative. In the event where you forget to take the money out with you, Ka-ching! its already in your care. A worry-free strategy. There’s a risk to this one though, car theft can occur anytime and your money can be inside.
5) In your go-to pants/shirt
Clip it using a money clipper inside your go-to pants or shirt. Some disasters have prior warning by the local government, giving you ample time to get changed and get out. No need to search your house for the cash, it's already inside your pants/shirt. Get changed and get moving.
Even though this money won’t be making any profit, you should view them as an investment. An investment against the unexpected – situations that you don’t expect, and those where every other option has failed and options are limited.
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