Money in shoe boxes??

noiram_2

Hi Everyone, I'm a newby here! I don't know if this is the right place to put this thread, but here goes.

I am a care assistant and this week after all the problems with the banks; lots of my 'old folk' say money was safer kept in a shoe box under the bed.
This got me thinking; Is there a limited amount of money you are allowed to keep at home? I remember something about Ken Dodd years ago being taken to court for having too much money at home and not paying his taxes on it!

Not that I will ever have that sort of money to have such a problem!!

I hope this makes sense:D

Jonbvn

AFAIK, there are no limits on how much cash you can hold. However, as soon as you try to undertake transactions with more than 5k in cash, I think you may have problems. This is due to money laundering requirements. T

The other thing you will find is that paying bills in cash is more expensive than by direct debit.

Finally, it is a really unsafe thing to do!

Stompa

Jonbvn wrote: »

Finally, it is a really unsafe thing to do!

And it'll not be earning any interest.

Plasticman

It's only a problem if you are hiding it from the tax man! I seem to remember that Mr Dodd had around £300K at home in cash and the tax man thought he had earned it and not paid tax. Old Ken claimed that he had saved it over the past few years and didn't trust the banks. I think that he was found not guilty - and has now been proved right about the banks.................... :rolleyes:

Alison_B

When my FILs aunt died, they found bits of money money under the bed, in boxes, sewn into curtains - everywhere really. She was the older generation and just did not trust banks one bit.

vtuauk

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214.

So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

PBA

noiram wrote: »

This got me thinking; Is there a limited amount of money you are allowed to keep at home? I remember something about Ken Dodd years ago being taken to court for having too much money at home and not paying his taxes on it!

I don't think there's any restriction on the amount you can keep at home. At any rate, you wouldn't have any tax liability on cash kept at home as it wouldn't be earning you anything. You could only be done for having large amounts of cash if you'd been paid cash in hand, which is a different deal entirely!

@vtuauk, if you'd put your money into NR, HBOS and XL you could at least probably get a couple hundred quid from a newspaper wanting to do a piece on Britain's worst investor

isofa

No restriction it's your money, as long as you are paying all your taxes, you can do what you like with it. But it'll be devaluing with inflation all the time.

We keep virtually no cash at home, a few quid in our wallets, but most on cards.

Nomad25

Ah, but the theory is if you haven't paid tax, that make the average jo's £100 cash worth £120 approx. So it'd be worth stashing under the mattress for 2/3 years, then splurge it big time and worth 'a million' to get one over on the tax man. Wouldn't it?:rolleyes:

opinions4u

Legally, keep what you like. But the tax man may want proof of where it came from if he gets to find out.

Your insurance company will probably only cover it up to £500.

The risk of fire, burglary or family theft is, I would suggest, significantly higher than your bank going under.

You'd also lose interest on it, causing it's real value to reduce as inflation takes hold.

Crabman

Hi noiram, welcome to MSE

Take a look at the article: Are your savings safe?