Comments on: Lessons from that Old Coffee Can over the Kitchen Sink

By: FinanciallySmart

FinanciallySmart — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:39:54 +0000

Yes most of our savings habits come from our parents and if we idolizes that parent then there is nothing to deemed wrong. But yes some parents have bad saving habits that we don’t want to adopt and we should be very careful how we take up these ones. It is good that you revisit this article it is a wonderful one.

By: luvleftovers

luvleftovers — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:23:15 +0000

guinness416 said it for me. Many ATMs ran out of cash on 9/11. We get smaller blackouts on occasion. I always keep some extra on me for taxis and such and a few hundred hidden at home. We get hurricanes and tornadoes here too.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:26:47 +0000

I’m in the same boat as Jade – use a CC for everything and hate carrying cash. But maybe I should rethink keeping some in the house – “just in case”. Wish I had one of those cool wall safes behind some art in my house to keep it in!

By: resonanteye

resonanteye — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:26:33 +0000

Change jars and a little ornamental box crammed totally full of ones. It’s never worth a trip to the bank the next morning, and if I didn’t put it away like that I’d end up spending it. I usually get about a hundred squeezed out by accident every month this way.

By: Veronica

Veronica — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:45:46 +0000

I struggle to for all time have a little definite money squirreled away around the home, in my wallet, at job, and in my car. All totally around $150. My theory is that I might never require any of it, however if I do, it would be best worth for it.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:34:04 +0000

It’s weird how history effects our lives. My grandfather was probably around the same age as your grandmother, living though the depression. He always had coins and bills stuffed places, because he lived in a time when a savings account wasn’t safe and his parents cashed their check every week, payed their bills to the deliveryman in cash and put the rest in a cigar box. It took my mother a long time to get out of the cash hoarding habit, though I do agree having a little on hand is good for emergencies. During my two months in India, major monsoons knocked out the ATMs by disrupting the phone lines. It could happen anywhere.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:30:43 +0000

I keep a twenty in my car, in case I need cash and don’t have any or if my wallet were to ever get lost/stolen. I’ve only used it twice that I can remember, but both times it was well worth it.

I’ve never thought to keep money in the house for emergencies (the mid-atlantic doesn’t have many natural disasters) but there are a lot good points above. I think I’m going to put $400 in my fire-safe box this weekend. I feel like $400 would be enough for me to get to a relative or friend’s house out of harm’s way if there was an emergency. But I guess it depends on how big an emergency…

By: skeptic

skeptic — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:04:57 +0000

Frugal Bachelor said:

In my opinion, every American should have around $5,000.00 in cold hard cash (American) also probably equivalent amount in Mexican pesos and also Chinese Yuan or Indian Rupees, in case the shit really hits the fan, not too likely, but you can drive to Mexico and then fly to anywhere on the planet where things are not so fucked up. IMHO …

Even poor Americans should have $5,000?

By: sometimes nothin is a real cool hand

sometimes nothin is a real cool hand — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:54:24 +0000

Another good card is the Costco Amex – 3% gas, travel, & Costco, 2% on restaurants, & 1% on everything else… I also have the discover 5% on gas (but only up to first $100 a month, sneaky!) & 1% on everything else. When I got the discover there was no $2500 stipulation…Between the two cards and carrying no balance I am getting paid about $400 tax free dollars a year for nothing. *only a good plan if you ABSOLUTELY can and will pay your balance off on time every month.

By: almost there

almost there — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:38:49 +0000

@Jade and Chetan, Join Pentagon Federal Credit union via NMFA (anyone can) and use their Visa card. It returns 5% back for Gas, 2% back for groceries and 1.25% back for all other things. I receive about $400 cashback each year.

By: cherie

cherie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:46:50 +0000

LOL!

I have a big fat wad of cash sitting in a wine glass in my liquor cabinet!

Silly but I had all these big bills from my mom who was paying me back for something – and I have this big expense coming up and wanted to save it to pay in cash [I'm loathe to let go of cash for some reason so it's not tempting]

What will my kids do LOL?

By: Rosie

Rosie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:32:03 +0000

@ Bill

My car was getting towed [the guy had it up on the trailer already] and he said if I gave him $60 right there, he’d let it back down. I don’t carry ANY cash on me because I always figure I can go to the ATM. Luckily – my boyfriend always keeps cash up in his room and he ran up and grabbed the money. Saved me $90 from what I would had to have paid should he have taken my car.

By: Chetan

Chetan — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:45:18 +0000

@Jade,

I recently closed my Discover Account because when I opened it, the promise 5% cashback in big bold letters but when I saw the statement, it was more like 0.2%. When I called them, they said the 5% applies only after you first touch $2500 in expenses on the card.

I’ve got much better experiences with Citi’s Dividend Platinum card and the Chase Freedom Visa.

By: Anna

Anna — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:38:56 +0000

Wow — so many excellent reasons for keeping cash on hand. On 9/11, the first thing I did (after watching the attacks in horror) was withdraw the limit from my bank account. Next was to fill up the gas tank, do all my laundry, and shop for two weeks’ worth of food — all before we knew that electronic banking was still safe, the power would not go out, and the supplies of food and gas would not be interrupted. Foresight, foresight.

Lurker Carl #20 says it best: cash for emergencies is not the same as an emergency fund.

By: Jade

Jade — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:01:07 +0000

I have the opposite problem. I have this aversion to having cash in my wallet or in my house or car. I pay for everything using my Discover card (which gets paid off at the end of every month via electronic transfer from my checking account). I figure if I’m gonna buy groceries, gas, etc anyway, I might as well let Discover pay me 1% for using their card to do it. And I keep my Visa around for the places that don’t take Discover. If someone steals my credit card, I can call the bank and I’m not liable for the charges. If someone steals my cash, well, that’s it!

I rarely have more than $100 in the house, probably because when I was a kid I used to put all my cash in my wallet which I hid behind a stuffed animal on this little shelf above the window that I had to stand up on the couch to reach. I always joked that if we had an earthquake then I’d have the wallet fall down on my head and I’d find out how rich I was. One day my dad saw me adding to my cash stash and told me if I had more than $100 in that wallet, I should go put it in the bank (I had a savings account already by the time I’d saved up this much money).

But considering that they’re predicting a 7.0+ quake on a faut line less than a mile from my house, maybe I should start stashing more cash in the house… We lost power for less than a day when the last big quake hit here in ’89, but that quake was not in our backyard…

By: Frugal Bachelor

Frugal Bachelor — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 06:12:12 +0000

My grandmother was born in 1925. I don’t know if she has coffee can full of money, it is not so relevant to me. Anybody else catch Sarah Silverman last night?

By: Lurker Carl

Lurker Carl — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:38:55 +0000

Each automobile has $50 stashed in it, just in case. We keep several hundred stashed away in cash around the house, just in case. These stashes aren’t our life savings but in case of emergency when credit cards or access to cash is not readily available. You never know when or why you’ll need a handful of cash but it’s great to know it’s there.

Keeping some cash around for emergencies is not the same as an emergency fund or savings account. One covers immediate emergencies, the other wards off disaster. Each has a unique function and neither is like hoarding money in the mattress in lieu of an interest bearing savings account.

By: almost there

almost there — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:05:29 +0000

I just purchased $1000 in presidential dollar coins from the mint (free shipping). I plan to give half to a sister that got laid off today in a piggy bank that I got from Microplace, for making loans to them. I figure mine will stay in a piggy bank in my house and not burn in a fire. One can always have ready cash. I will later build up my stash of bills to use in an emergency. I know, I know, the interest will be lost.
BTW, my grandmother kept coins and cash in a sugar bowl in her cupbord. She would only keep so much cash in checking and then buy CDs with the rest.

By: Jillian

Jillian — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:26:33 +0000

I agree that you should keep a couple hundred dollars in the house in various denominations. I don’t have a cheque book, so I’ve found my stash quite useful on several occasions – paying a tow truck driver when the car broke down in the driveway, paying various tradesmen for small jobs around home, and even having cash for the offering when I’m visiting a different church than usual.

By: sometimes nothin is a real cool hand

sometimes nothin is a real cool hand — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:35:22 +0000

I took my 2 year old out to a crafts store, we bough a giant porcelain pig that we painted together… We have a lot of fun with it, saving and celebrating putting money in it. I think it is a good start. Recently we were in a cash flow pinch, on principle I refused to take money out of investments for day to day expense… I cashed all the change in the house (except the pig!) and the 128 bucks got us through to payday. Not the smartest way to do it, but at some level it works…