love the safe concept (want to get one but still trying to figure out best type-the digital ones concern me, if you can make any suggestions I would appreciate it)
Wow, guess I never thought about having cash on hand. We've never had a situation where debit/cc's wouldn't work or the bank wasn't open. Guess I need to fix that! Thanks!
Not to hijack, but for the emergency fund pros... what do you do once you've hit your emergency? We had an unexpected period of unemployment and blew through the bulk of our emergency fund and now are trying to build it back but our income is much lower than previously so we're struggling getting ahead with it. We don't have any debt other than our mortgage and car, and are paying our bills and putting money towards retirement but the emergency fund is slow to rebound. Do you treat it like a debt to tackle and cut things out until you can beef it back up?
I have to have cash around, the cheapest gas stations here are cash or debit only (with a 45 cent fee, I'm NEVER going to pay that) and of course places like the Saturday farmers market are cash only too.I'm with you - I don't keep any cash on hand typically but now thinking maybe I should have a tiny emergency stash in the house!
Anyone that takes Visa, or Mastercard will still have an imprint machine.
80% of your credit cards? How many do you have? I have one.
I am surprised anyone was able to use a credit card after Rita since she was only a month or so after Katrina and there was a wide, wide area where there were NO cards used for a couple of weeks after Katrina. We take Visa and Mastercard and we don't have an imprint machine. In the last few businesses my parents had, there were no imprint machines.
Katrina taught us the lesson that CASH really does mean CASH. Not debit, not credit, but CASH. We couldn't buy anything for days until dh's boss got in to the office and paid all his drives in cash. Thank goodness he had the foresight to get that much cash out before the storm hit. It was a couple of weeks before you could really depend on being able to use your debit card again. Now there is enough money to at least pay for a couple of nights in a hotel room, tank of gas for the car and food for a couple of days in cash, in the house. The rest in a simple savings account.
Small town where the merchants knew their regular customers well. They are big cash people too.
Our local Dari Bar is cash only too!I have to have cash around, the cheapest gas stations here are cash or debit only (with a 45 cent fee, I'm NEVER going to pay that) and of course places like the Saturday farmers market are cash only too.
Small town here too. One of the merchants was a man who had a little country store and sold every single item in the store within a day or two. But it had to be cash. He couldn't be sure he would get his money at all if they used debit or credit. For some he would take a check but not everyone.
Well put.For many people, they access the account for so-called emergencies. Take for example the tires on your car. You KNOW those tires aren't going to last forever. They eventually have to be replaced. So you should be setting aside in your monthly budget an amount to cover that eventual, known expense. If you expect to spend $700 on a set of installed tires and you expect them to last three years, then you set aside about $20 a month in a non-emergency fund account. We call it the "pot" account. Some call it a periodic account. Another perfect example is auto insurance. Many people pay it semi-annually. That's NOT an emergency. If it costs you $600 twice a year, then you set aside $100 per month to cover the eventual cost. This type of planning can be applied to all kinds of expenses: insurance, auto tag renewal, holiday gift giving, annual celebrations, or any other one or twice per year expense.