Do you have a secret trick?

Longwalker

Back when I was a nipper my nan instilled in me the need to have a pound tucked away in a handbag when I went out at night ( that long ago a £1 note was a lot, nowadays a £20 might cover it )

It was the get out of trouble money 

Since then I have always had a FOF. We have a joint account and I have my own. I have access to the joint - for household purchases , my account is for me alone to access. Mr L knows about it, knows the code to access it, but same as I dont bother with the joint , he takes no interest in mine. Its not hiding money, its just being careful. Mr L would spend his last penny, that scares me to the point I cant sleep. So I keep a wee bit kept aside 

JIL

I always keep a stash of cash in the house, you never know when you will need it.

I have a £10 note tucked into my phone case, again for emergencies.

We also have a small Tupperware box full of pound coins and silver coins in the car (well hidden of course) really useful if we are on holiday for parking and coffees/Icecream.

YoungBlueEyes

Longwalker said:

Back when I was a nipper my nan instilled in me the need to have a pound tucked away in a handbag when I went out at night ( that long ago a £1 note was a lot, nowadays a £20 might cover it )

It was the get out of trouble money 

I used to do something similar when I started going out drinking and I had my handbag stolen one night. After that I always kept £10/£20 note and my front door key in my pocket, so if it happened again I could get home and get in  

annieb64

My great aunt used to keep emergency cash in a draw string bag which she wore round her waist under her skirt. My aunt was horrified when shopping with great aunt as she once had to rummage under her skirt to find the cash.

Nonnadiluca

Do you remember a couple of years ago when there was a spate of banking issues which led to people not being able to use their cards? Since then I keep £50 cash in the house; I reckon that's enough to get us some fuel for the car and a few days food, but not a large enough amount for me to worry about keeping it in the house.

Brie

Our biggest problem was when we were burgled.  Wallets taken so no cards of any sort.  Drawers gone through so all that tucked away cash gone.  Left the piggy bank but that had just been emptied as it was just before Christmas.  So no money and no access to anything held at the bank.  On Friday Dec 23rd.  So couldn't even go to the bank to get anything as couldn't ID ourselves.  We were very fortunate that the inlaws lived near enough that we could get to them and they had the savings to lend us £££ to tide us over a couple of weeks.  If they hadn't have lived nearby I suppose we might have rung up a friend to help.

In the end it took about 2 weeks at least before we could access anything.  I'm still not sure how we might get around this should it ever happen again.  I guess with online banking it would be easy enough to transfer some cash to a reliable individual to hand over to us but potentially accounts might be frozen in case it's the burglars trying to do a transfer.  As I recall our bank was overall fairly vile about the whole thing to the point of accusing us of lying about the burglary when my debit card was used repeatedly in the middle of the night before the theft was discovered.

YoungBlueEyes

Gawd Brie, that’s awful  

I don’t know what the answer would be tbh. For every pro in a situation there’s a con. A mix of cash and cards in various places, digital and real I suspect. Maybe do a Samuel Pepys and bury your FOF in an earthenware jar in the garden. Ok he was stashing his favourite Stilton, but still  

Are those empty fake things any good? Soup tins, books, beer cans etc? 

Edit - It was a Parmesan, not a Stilton 🙄

Rosa_Damascena

YoungBlueEyes said:

Gawd Brie, that’s awful  

I don’t know what the answer would be tbh. For every pro in a situation there’s a con. A mix of cash and cards in various places, digital and real I suspect. Maybe do a Samuel Pepys and bury your FOF in an earthenware jar in the garden. Ok he was stashing his favourite Stilton, but still  

Are those empty fake things any good? Soup tins, books, beer cans etc? 

Edit - It was a Parmesan, not a Stilton 🙄

With the right can opener, its as simple as making your own. Not with Heinz Beans mind - you wouldn't want to create the illusion you can afford branded luxuries.

Brambling

When I was growing up my dad would keep a jam jar with a small emergency fund in the loft, the jam jar was in case of rodents 🐁 then again he never had a bank account or credit card

A colleague help clearing his in-laws house several years ago found nearly £5000 squirrelled all over their house in small amounts in what was then out of tender £20 notes which he had to take to the bank of London to change. 

YoungBlueEyes

That made me laugh Rosa  

Good point Brambling. If you're gonna have a stash of notes, makes sure to refresh them to keep them usable