Burying Cash - Yeah, It’s Crossed My Mind

There’s an article by Smartmoney.com on Yahoo Finance about people who are burying their cash. One man from Alabama admits to burying $8,000 somewhere on his 300 acre property.

Personally, I do not like cash. I don’t like how easily it can be lost. Even having a stash in our house gives me pause. In the even of a fire or theft - it could be lost. I like having my money in the bank where it is presumably safer.

With doing that, we are placing a lot of trust in banks and in the FDIC (who insures our money). Trust isn’t a bad thing, but neither is having a back-up plan. We should probably have some cash funds available regardless of the economy right now. After all, if a natural disaster strikes, there’s a good chance or debit or credit cards wouldn’t be accepted. Who knows if checks would either. Cash, on the other hand, is almost always accepted.

So I have thought about having a little stash in the house and then maybe burying some money. I wouldn’t do it in our backyard (too small and too many curious neighbors). But there are other places I know of where we could do it. GPS technology could make it pretty easy to find again. I thought I was going a little overboard with my thoughts, but maybe I wasn’t. It turns out I’m not the only one who has thought about it.

I probably won’t do it because we have long, cold winters here. It would be tough to dig up anything we bury if we needed it during the winter. So I think we’ll keep with the small stash in our house for now.

Posted by Tricia on November 22, 2008 at 11:54 PM in General Personal Finance |
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  1. Andrea responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 am

    I have a hard enough time keeping track of the credit cards for balance transfer offers. If I buried cash I would never find it again.

  2. DebtGoal responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 am

    Thanks for reposting this article. I can’t stress enough how critical it is for those who struggle financially not to get spooked into burying cash underground. Inflation will eat away at its value!

  3. Sandy responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 9:24 am

    I hate cash too. You could always get a fire proof safe and put it there with all your other important stuff. I think Suze Orman has a kit.

  4. Danielle responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 am

    I live in Houston, and endured Ike and Rita. Cash is important during a natural disaster, because most ATM’s will be out of cash during an evacuation. My emergency stash has $100 worth of tens, and $20 worth of quarters. (Small bills important, because no one will have change. Quarters important, because if you leave town, you need to do laundry at a washateria).

  5. Cos responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 10:13 am

    I agree with the idea of having a safe, a *real* safe. It should be something that requires a combination and does *not* require a key. I happen to have a gun safe (I don’t own a single gun) that I keep everything in: keys, checkbooks, unused credit cards, cameras, important software and .. of course .. some cash. $100 bucks in five’s.

    I happen to want the space a gun safe can offer however it would be just fine to get a combination fireproof lockbox (no key, keys can get lost or somebody else can use them) and bolt it down to the floor in the corner of a closet or washroom, out of the way. If you can’t do it yourself I’m sure you can find somebody you know that can help - it’s incredibly worth it.

    Don’t keep too much cash though: inflation. One or two hundred bucks in small bills and you’re set.

  6. Generation Millionaire responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am

    We live in an area of the country that was hit with a natural disaster - most of the state did not have electric for up to a week!! Which meant no gas pumps, stores were very slow to get up and running, no banks or ATM machines. You get the picture. Since then we do keep cash in our house in a safe with an old fashion dial combination lock.

  7. emmi responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    The freezer is a good place to protect things from fire. Unfortunately it is also a place thieves like to look for valuable things, and if you hide things in there too well, like inside a package, another family member might throw it out inadvertently.

    Personally, I’d go for inside a loose block in the basement wall or something, where you’d need a crowbar and some time to get at it, so it would make it harder for a thief. That’s the kind of place people find old money stashed away by dead relatives during the great depression.

    This problem shows why false bottom trunks and hidden compartments in desks have been popular for centuries. If you are handy with industrial glues and tools, maybe you could add a hidden compartment under a desk that’s pushed up against the wall. Ours all have modesty panels that leave a sizeable space behind them. You’d want to have a space large enough for a small fireproof box.

  8. emmi responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Sorry for the double post, but I just had a crazy idea.

    Get a few sizeable rocks for decorative purposes around the lawn (I have a friend who redid her whole yard with stone she stopped on the side of the road and picked up over the course of several years. She kept thick plastic in the trunk just for this.) Drill a one inch diameter hole in what will be the bottom of one of rocks. Put your wad of cash in a plastic tube and put it in the rock, plugged with a heavy rubber stopper, roll the rock back over onto the plug. Make sure it’s a rock where the flat bottom side is stable so it won’t roll if bumped.

    I like this idea enough to try it. Not sure how much the drill bits are going to cost…

  9. Tricia responded:
    Posted: November 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    emmi - I think that’s a good idea with the rocks, as long as the rock wouldn’t be misplaced. I could just imagine my son going through the rocks LOL.

    I thought about it some more, and if a natural disaster occurred, we’d have enough food on hand for a while. I like to stock up on stuff like that. It wouldn’t be the greatest of food, but we could live off of it for a while. Same for water. We have a good stash. Plus, I have three books on survival. So I guess what we’d need cash for would be gas if we had to leave or if we needed heat. Even if gas soared to $4/gallon, $50 would get us a tank full and that would last us a while.

    Food-shelter-clothing. Everything else is extra. I think $50 and a good disaster kit should do it for us. As for money in the bank, we have a pretty good split with our accounts being at different banks. I doubt all of them would fail at once so we are probably okay.

  10. Craig responded:
    Posted: November 24th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    This reminds me of Uncle Eddy in Vegas Vacation burying his money across various spots in his desert. I personally don’t know if that is the best idea, too easy to lose or get ruined. To me I think stashing cash away in the bank would be the same as burying cash. It is as easily accessible and you are guaranteed money by the FDIC. Even if the bank fails you still will have your money, or am I wrong?

    Craig
    http://www.budgetpulse.com

  11. DebtGoal responded:
    Posted: November 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

    Exactly - if the money you deposit is guaranteed by the FDIC, it’s a “safer” bet to place it in a bank. “Safer” here meaning less likely to get lost, forgotten, or misplaced.

  12. CanadianKate responded:
    Posted: November 26th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    Tricia, disasters don’t always allow you to stay in place. Even if you have no natural disasters where you live or nuclear or chemical facilities, if a chemical truck overturned near you or fire came through, you’d be asked to evacuate. Then your food won’t be all that good to you. You need cash.

    BTW: if you live in a cold snowy place, you should bury your credit cards, not your cash, outside in the yard. This limits their use over Christmas! What a great way to avoid growing your debt!

  13. fathersez responded:
    Posted: December 19th, 2008 at 2:49 am

    Burying in a 300 acre lot is a little dicey. Maybe a lot dicey. Hope he remembers exactly where he buried his stash.

    But for many of my wife’s grandmother’s generation, this was the way to go. They did not trust leaving their money in the hands of others. And the safest was to bury it in their yard. (She’s about 82 now)

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