People always say to save money for a rainy day or prepare for the worst. Some might say to have three to six times worth of monthly expenses readily available to pay any unexpected bills. The bills can be medical, or mechanical repairs for any vehicles, or for planned vacations. This is a smart idea...
To expand on the concept of family-based reserves, it should be noted that the 'reserve' is not deposited in a third-party institution, such as a bank or credit union. The reserve should be a place that is very close to you and where it is secure. Keeping your money under a mattress? Of sorts. Have a family vault? Of sorts. People can buy safes if they don't have money for a vault or maybe a more secure metallic cabinet.
Why have a safe or a secured cabinet when a Bank pays you interest and is significantly far more secure? There are a few reasons why you should have your own safe at home. The biggest reason is readily available money at your home, but the safe shouldn't just be used for cash and coins. The home safe should also be used to secure precious metals, jewelry, promissory notes, deeds, cold-cryptocurrency wallets, paper wallets (cryptocurrency), and even collectible items. Also, it's beneficial to keep the IRS's snooping eyes at bay.
Keeping your cash in a safe isn't always the best idea because of constant inflation but what you can do is use your cash from the safe to exchange the coins and physical bills that you have on hand. What I mean by this is to exchange your older coins and bills that are crisp and clean from your wallet and exchange them for the damaged bills and coins in the safe. Don't forget, there are many collectors that love old coins, also collecting older federal reserve notes and historical notes are valuable to collectors.
Who knows maybe you can issue promissory notes to family members so you can build your familial reserve through intra-family bonds. Maybe you can incorporate your cryptocurrency holdings with such a strategy. Of course, be wary of any applicable taxes you may incur through these transactions. Uncle Sam always wants a cut.
We agree on the need to prepare by using hard assets. Just be prepared on the old coins (yes I have a bunch) becoming useful for their silver value during SHTF. They may recover later, so use them last; but silver's silver if you are in a tight spot! Diversity is king in prepping, and non dollar tied assets are queen. I have some crypto, but it might become hard to reach if the tyrants shut down the Internet; even though dialup to the dark web will bypass their attempts. I expect any interruption will be temporary to allow additional monitoring to be added.
I do keep a little cash (conditional $ asset), but it will only last a few weeks after SHTF, so not a great deal there.
Expect some of your non-conditional assets to crash, that is why you diversify! But keep an eye on them, most come back at a later date. Metals will crash when people are really Hungry, but will become the trade standard after the economy reestablishes on non-dollar conditional assets. If crypto is blocked by a failed internet, when the replacement limps in, the crypto is still intact!
So don't lament a seeming loss, it will return; and probably exactly when you need it!
Keep on prepping, and diversify!
👍🤠🥦🌿💲