During the blackout of 2003 we learned our lesson of not having any cash on hand. Like most people, the debit card was the only way to access our cash. Although the power was only out in our area for a day and a half, we were caught short when we needed to pick up some necessities. Since then we try and keep a stash that should be enough to get us through a few weeks of the inconvenience. I don't think we'd get to the point of keeping all of our money as cash in the house unless of course we see the SHTF coming then I guess we'd try and get it out.

Everyone will have a different answer to this. In my case I don't have "extra" money to just hold on to in case of an emergency. I usually take out enough cash at a time to last 2 weeks. I do it because I will not use my debit card at gas stations or for "small" purchases

I do keep a change jar. No clue how much is in there.

When the power went out in 2003, I had enough stuff on hand that I had no need to try and buy anything. A few of us on the forum have spent the month of January trying to spend less then $10.00 a week on food. So far this month I have spent $8.37 and most of that was junk food lol

I think the more "stuff" you have then the less amount of money is needed.

During the crash in Argentina, it wasa said, Cash is King. The banks closed wile peoples savings were "reajusted" When it opened, people were only alowed to take out a small amount of their devalued curency each day. In a hyperinflationary spiral, You want cash on hand for one reason and one reason alone...to get rid of it as fast as possible. Buy anything you can get that will hold 'some' value. I like silver as a store of wealth but unfortunately only have a small amount. Enough to work as a short term currency. Even if the store owner doesnt know silver, If you call over the boss and explain that this Canadian Maple Leaf clearly marked99% pure coin is the eqivilent of a 32 $ bill and increasing rapidly as the dollar decreases He may want to slip that right into his pocket. This will only work with small buisnesses where the owner is their that may keep their doors open when the big chains are closed or being mobed. Another trick I heard is gold chains. If you go to a gold buyer, you dont have to sell the whole thing. Simply cut off a couple links for the cash perchase you need. Ill be on the lookout for that at garage sales. Alot of people dont get how much their junk gold is worth. But cash is king in the short term. Its still going to work and be highly sought after for the first part of a disaster

Great question, and a very important topic to consider.
It does depend on the level of preparedness one has achieved, the number of people in the immediate circle, and timing.

I believe that if you have a month worth of food, water and other necessities you might be able to avoid the store altogether. That includes paper plates, dish soap, laundry soap, batteries, whatever makes life better. You could even to a test run and avoid the store for a week or two just to see what holes are in your short term storage that you require for emergencies.

The number of people will dictate the amount of food and water you go through as well as gas burned for the genny for entertainment and other.

Take Sandy as an example, (I was working on a post for this very topic so I have some info gathered) if you had to bug out and had no family to go to, you would need hotel expenses along with food and gas. How much is that? I would count on at least a week. That could be up to a thousand dollars. Did you need cash for that? No. Credit cards were accepted outside of the area.

If you stayed, you would need cash to buy anything and everything you didn't already have. This includes not only food and water but gas, secondary heating elements that soon became primary heating elements, anything you can think of that you might need, you could not swipe a card (with no power) to obtain.

So much depends on personal factors, and just how bad the emergency ended up being. During Sandy, would a thousand dollars have been enough? Maybe, if you didn't get shot waiting in the line up for gas. Clearly it is better to have goods on hand before a potential disaster than to have to suffer in times of need to try to obtain those goods. That's why we're preppers right 🙂

That being said, keeping the ultimate goal of not needing the store in bad times, I suggest doing a last minute run for those items you would need for the short term when the warnings are coming, not actually at the last minute. This would keep you away from the hot spots, and out of harms way where others are desperate.

If you find yourself on the desperate end, how much would you need then? I would recommend at least $500 in smaller bills. That number comes from an idea of what might be missing in preps that would need to be obtained along with heavily inflated hurricane prices. It might be too much, it might be not enough but it is something. It is enough to buy water, food, gas cans and gas for a short term emergency.

I did not include a long term financial collapse scenario because I'm not sure how much cash kept on hand would help.

Great answers so far to this important and often overlooked part of prepping. The more prepared you are the less cash you will need. If you are NOT that well prepared then I would put away only a very small amount of cash for emergencies and work hard on getting layers of the basic necessities.

As a quick example: Layers for water, fill pop bottles, buy cases of water, buy a water filter and some containers, build a rain water collector etc.

Start with 1 way to do anything but keep it balanced. eg: save some water in pop bottles, have some basic quick to eat food storage, buy a few candles for light and heating etc. etc.
Then move on to the next level making the rounds on all the basics again with better solutions.

I have increased my options over the past few years with gardening, animals, food storage etc and as oldschool mentioned some of us did a challenge for the month of January. Our family continued to buy fresh fruit and veggies but we could have done without that if necessary as I still have lots of canned or frozen. We could have stayed home for a month with no problem and only a few minor inconveniences at the two month mark. When we lived in town I might have lasted two weeks but that was counting on the water and electricity still running from the grid. We could have "made due" without water & electric but that would certainly have cut down on the length of time we could have lasted in the house. I had more emergency money socked away then because the plan included leaving home and heading for my parents which would require gas.

Small bills and loonies and toonies are my choice of cash. I save the loonies and toonies and spend the rest for the sake of space and weight. I haven't gotten to buying any silver or gold for various reasons but if someone would like to share more about the ins and outs of gold and silver I will certainly be interested in reading more about it from people who actually DO IT. I can find articles galore but I need simple and prefer first hand experience.

Thanks for the ideas to think about so far. There are variables I never thought about before hand...I thought a few hundred bucks would suffice but can see that would get eaten up awfully quick under certain circumstances....

I would also like to hear more about silver/gold also as anita has mentioned. From people who have experience in it first hand. Gold is one of the most stable forms of trade for centuries...tru'd and tried through declines before. Maybe not a bad idea for a worse case scenario.

I've built the Bug out reserves up to about three hundred in emergency funds. Adding to it over time just like any other prep. The hope is that it will get me to where or when cash machines are working. I consider it part of our savings. Just a bit more accessible.
Doing things like keeping gas tank full, having food stocks on hand etc will hopefully help avoid dipping into this cash reserve in the event of an emergency. Saving it for when you absolutely can only get what you need with cash.
The type of emergency I see this being used for are forced evacuations from our home. Train derailments, tornado etc.

I had enough stuff on hand that I had no need to try and buy anything.

This statement should tell you much. How well stocked/prepared are you otherwise. The less you're ready the more cash you should have.

Cash on hand is mostly to cover yourself from a personal disaster. Wallet lost/stolen. Job loss etc. Your purse in your car and you find it's burned to the ground.
Let's assume it's the start of a long weekend and your wallet is stolen. How long till you can get your access to cash fixed? Have enough to cover at least that.
If you lost your job how many bills could you cover before you were in trouble? Large mortgage payment? You better have enough in cash and in your bank account to cover a couple of months at least.

Examine your situation and do what works for you.

$500 is my goal right now...it's going to depend on your own preps, how populated it is where you are.
I plan to have nothing bigger than a $10 bill. I think $100/ person is a good start.

I don't want to be flashing bills at the local corner store/gas station/drug store ...a handful of change looks like you've raided the piggy bank not that you have a worthwhile source of stashed cash.

Hi All. First post: I've been skulking around the forum for a few months, without feeling the need to post, but I thought I'd sign up to give a bit of information and opinions about buying gold / silver, as I have recently 'done it'.

I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago, and bought silver maple leafs (assuming they are maple leafs, plural of maple leaf, rather than maple leaves!) I bought them as bullion only, as I don't know enough about 'rare coins' to know what's a bargain and what isn't. Also, the maple leaf is 9999 fine, or 99.99% pure. Many other coins are 99.9%, and some are even 925 (sterling silver). The maple leaf has a reputation for being the finest of the silver coins, and reselling later will not be an issue.

Here in New Zealand, where I live, we pay a premium - a single 1oz 9999 fine maple leaf can be bought for around NZ$46, depending on where you get it - that's about CAN$38.66 at today's rate, if you're lucky. Spot price is CAN$31.32 at the moment. I see people today selling a single maple leaf on Trade Me (NZ's preference to eBay) for NZ$52, so there's a huge variation in price. The more you buy, the lower the individual price per coin, as you can get bulk discounts. I am buying silver because I consider it to be very much undervalued at this time. I don't buy gold for a couple of reasons - 1) despite the 'experts' opinion that gold will only get more and more expensive my opinion is that it's 'flexibility' is nowhere near as great as silver, so I get more 'bang for my buck' with silver. I expect silver to increase significantly in value over the next 12 months. And 2) when it comes time to use your gold, you can't really 'clip a bit off' a gold maple leaf. Also, how often are you going to buy more than NZ$2000 worth of goods, (or the local equivalent,) in one hit? That's what a gold maple leaf is worth, today.... Silver's much more flexible.

Like I said, these are my opinions. If you trust / want gold, or platinum, or any other PM, then go for it. Just be sure of the quality - it could be 9999 fine (24 carat), or 18 carat, or 14 carat, or even that 9 carat 'pseudo gold' so prevalent in the UK.... I say 'pseudo gold' because if it's less that half gold, then it ain't gold, IMHO!

Hope this helps.

DUP

When you buy silver at a dealer they charge you a premium based on what you are buying.
Cheapest premium is junk silver. Junk silver is silver coinage that has no numismatic value. The only value is in the silver content. The downside is when you purchase it from a dealer they tax you on it.
Next would be your privately minted rounds and wafers. These are usually 99.99 silver but not every one might not recognize the value in them if you had to sell in a shtf situation. Since they are silver bullion they are not taxable.

Next would be your country minted bullion coins that are in less then pristine condition. Maple leafs from Canada, Eagles from the US. Mexico, Austria and other countries sell them as well. Usually they are a buck less then better condition ones. Very recognizable and easy to sell.
After that you get into higher prices. The premiums get steeper and move you away from prepping silver and into collecting nice shiny coins. Buying in high volumes can lower premiums. We are talking five hundred ounce monster boxes though.

Another option for buying silver is private purchase. You can purchase silver for spot price or less, saving the dealer premiums. The seller will certainly get more privately then he would selling to a dealer. Put an ad on Kijiji looking for sellers.
Buyer beware though. There has been an ad on my local kijiji for some junk silver dollars lately. If you actually took the time to figure out what the seller was asking you would realize he wanted about 15 bucks over spot. An insane premium. When you do these deals you should stay away from items you are unsure about like rounds/wafers. Go to a coin store and handle some silver, get familiar with what you are going to buy.

What to pay? Here is a good website that gives current spot price of silver. It also gives junk silver prices for Canada and US.
http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html

todays silver price is about $32
you can go to your local bank and purchase 1 ounce, 10 ounce or even larger size bars.
i purchased 10- one ounce bars for $32, U.S. and paid a delivery fee. cost was about $400 (cant remember exactly) after converting to U.S. funds.
one side has Scotia bank emblem on one side, the other side has size and purity of the bar, individually wrapped in plastic.
you can also buy coins, more expensive though as a result of the artistry on them.
some canadian coins, pre-67 i believe, are 80% silver.

as for cash, after the power outage a few years back, i only keep enough in the bank to cover my bills.
the rest is my savings and forces me to live by cash. dont like credit and dont trust the safety of banks. in fact, banks would only cover up to, i believe, $100,000 of yours
if anything were to happen. (their insurance) not like i have that much, but that is Canadian protection. im pretty sure that covers retirement savings as well.

if shtf, i have tradeable items but would only trade for precious stones and metals. currency would only be paper as far as im concerned.

I think you should look at the probability of a typical SHTF scenario. Katrina, ice storm, sandy ect. How much $ should you have depends on how many dependents, how much stuff you already have and your personal comfort level. I say the more the merrier! I put away a chunk almost every paycheck and over the course of 3 years now it has added up to something that I'm comfortable with but I'm always trying to do better.

Remember, no power = no debit or credit!!

I always refer to this story,
http://internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1065&p=28443&hilit=katrina#p28443

To those that are able to buy silver and gold or put away funds I have a stupid question - If things go bad, will people trade or take silver or gold?

Going back in history if the event is long term, paper money will have no value. I do remember the gold rush. I also know that there was a ginseng rush, however this is the only thing that I can find at the moment on the ginseng rush http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/41/v41i06p249-266.pdf

My point being what will be of value and how does a person know?