Cash or no cash?

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RV-Kitty said:
Do you believe if the SHTF that the USA will return to the 1800s way of life forever? With no Gov, no commerce, no armed forces or police depts....
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yeah i beleave we'll revert back to the 1800's are further back..it's highly likely that we wont have a government commerce police department or what ever after wards..at least not the way it is now,or when geroge washington was alive..if groups of ppl 20 or larger start a new life on a good size peice of land after shtf,and create the needed rules and laws.then yes we can have a government commerce and all once again,even thoe it'll never be the same again..but it's gotta be the right kind of ppl who's not only willing to work togeather on these diffrent things and areas.but will do so,while starting a new life for them selfs..
 
Warriorhealer22 said:
Of course, in a SHTF situation, paper currency will be valueless. As far as precious metals and gems, who will apply their value? That will be the difficult question. For local disaster situations it is good to have some cash around, as credit machines may be temporarily out of order. I always travel with a phone card as part of my kit, as there are times when my cell phone may not work and someone may be willing to let me use a landline provided I can pay for the call. Its just one thing to think about.
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I carry a couple rolls of quarters for the same reason (plus the ability to use it in pay phones, or to buy some gas, or to hold in your hand and punch the hell out of someone). :D
 
Do you believe if the SHTF that the USA will return to the 1800s way of life forever? With no Gov, no commerce, no armed forces or police depts....​
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Forever? No...but for a while, absolutely. For one thing, the loss of the grid will cause an unprecedented nuclear fallout disaster for nearly half the nation. There are lots of unaffected pockets of area, but most of the damage will be in the major population centers, when all those nuke plants meltdown without power for containment. Pretty much from the midwest to the eastern seaboard. Take a look at a map of nuclear facilities in the US.
 
goodselfme said:
I read somewhere sometime ago to have at least $500 in small bills in the home if possible. If our current monetary system goes downhill even more than it has been the small bills in cash might be worth quite a bit more when and if the grid goes down in a doomsday senario. The ATM will be out, banks won't be functioning with the grid out, so preppers this makes sense to me.
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I think small amount of cash make be stock piles of food and ammo
 
All those trillions of dollars existing in the form of digital ones and zeros are one nanosecond away from being wiped out permanently in a coordinated terrorist attack on the banking system. In which case cash on hand will be very valuable indeed!

The best advice is still to not keep all your eggs in one basket. I have cash, gold, silver, guns, ammo, water and food. Depending on the circumstances many of those may be worthless, but under no circumstances will all be worthless.

But hey, save your dollars for posterity. If everybody burns their paper money for fuel, 100 years from now they may have significant collector value. Just look at how much Confederate money is worth now! :D
 
cash money gold and silver alike..they might have value with most folks at first..(BUT) what are they gonna be worth a month or 2 after a complete economic collapse?..matter of fact.i give gold silver and cash money.2 weeks,3 weeks at best.then they'll be totally worth less when it comes to buying and/or battering for needed items..thats where weapons ammo food water first aid clothes and other well needed things come in at..
 
You wake up one morning and on the way to work you go try to fill up your car and your credit card declines at the pump. Your debit card declines. You go into the store they say YEP it's happening to everyone, we don't know what's going on. You'll have to prepay to pump gas.

You rush to the bank to get some cash, but the there is a sign on the door that says "Temporarily Closed. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

Think about it...
 
Keep some cash 2 or 300 worth in diff bills but keep items that you can trade with bc not many ppl are going to care about money but more about things they can use
 
I'm looking at getting some silver rounds to pass as currency, as gold is way out of my league, but I think tangible barter items are the best. In most times of turmoil, prec. metals have done well, but when you get down to it, you can't eat them. I'm stocking up on some of what I like to call luxury items, like homemade wine, jerky, etc. for trade. I want to start making cheese this year too.
 
I am with "goodselfme" excellent suggestion, Always a good thing to keep some cash on your person and in the home for emergencies, can’t relay on bank card if IT systems go down.

When the big rotten paw-paw hits the fan there are always a few things to get before it goes pear shaped, e.g. medicine, fuel, milk, bread. Don’t want to be baking bread for the first few weeks after the paw-paw is flying everywhere - need to keep a low profile.

A friend of mine got stuck in a flood cutoff between two rivers - the only cafe (7/11) in the area was sold out in a few hours a tin of baked beans like $5 1000% increase in prices in half an hour. My emergency plan includes a few shop stops before bugging in or bugging out!! Need to keep your ear to the ground :).

Hording large amount of cash is of little value if government like the USA are daily over printing it by the billions it’s relative worth could drop by 1000% in a day - perhaps in 3 days time, not so quick but soon.
 
Brent S said:
I see you're from ky, I was born in Louisville, where is shepardsville?
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I'm in Georgetown.

I don't have any extra money to stock pile. I do have several silver dollars and old junk silver coins. I also keep regular dollar coins for possible trade. I keep enough stuff on hand I can sustain my family friends and a few others for months and months with no issue(depending on the what happens) don't be caught needing something. Counting on a plan after the fact can screw you.
 
My opinion is... Water is, and will be way more valuable than gold or silver. The way I see it. You can't eat or drink Gold/Silver. I think food and water will be the most traded when shtf. Perhaps later on if/when things settle down, gold/silver will be more valuable. Who knows when that will happen.
 
I was in NYC during 9/11. I also went to the bank that week and thought we would be killed! we needed money but ATMs were down, so you could only get money by going inside the bank. Well, the computers were very scrambled, even our account was scrambled, they thought my husband was his dad, and his dad's work check went into our account and my husbands went into his dad's. Some people weren't getting money at all from the bank because as long as the account systems were screwed up they weren't going to give any one money. The bank was FULL! Standing room only! And there was people threatening to shoot the tellers, they wanted all their money out of this bank, and they wanted it now. There was a few times, I was trying to figure out how I was going to hit the floor when the bullets started flying (since there was no room on the floor due to the massive amounts of people in the bank) we were in line for about 6 hours waiting to see if we would be ones able to get money out or not!

Any way....I learned from that you NEED to have cash at home. I would have at least one months worth of what you regularly spend in cash at home. Not for SHTF really, but if you ever have a 9/11 such thing happen in your city, this could be you. Lots of things could cause this. Our money was still useful and needed for this type of situation. So it is a GOOD idea. and I personally do it.... I will not be in a dangerous bank again when such happens! Personally I only keep the amount of money we HAVE to keep in the bank there....I keep the rest at home...it's safer in my opinion....but yeah...I always felt this way, and my dh always laughed at me, till we thought we were going to die in the bank that day!
 
I agree with the cash on hand. True, if a meteor hits the earth, money would be worthless, but far more likely would be a disaster that knocks out power for a time. No power means no cards will work, but cash will still be accepted. I'm sure there will be a time when the banks only allow you to withdraw a small sum per day. There are federal laws for this on the books now to keep people from running on the banks and causing them to fail. Every time I swipe a card at the gas pump, I think about when the system will suddenly fail, and what a mess it will cause. I keep as much as I can, and try to keep smaller denominations. I also have a little bit of silver and don't forget about any jewelry you have could be cash in an emergency. Some months I spend some of it and some months I put a little away, but I always try to have some reserve on hand.
 
People will use cash for a while no matter what happens. They will probably take checks too, even though there may be no way to cash or deposit them. In the event of an internet infrastructure failure, cash is the only thing that will be used for a while. You're not going to be able to pump gas for beans or bullets, but they will take cash.

Any alternate medium of exchange will take a while to develop because it will take time for people to realize that cash is just paper.

However, I'll bet most people don't really have much cash these days. The term "cash poor" will take on a whole new meaning!
 
DavyRocket said:
My opinion is... Water is, and will be way more valuable than gold or silver.
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I guess I'll be a one rich SOB then. The BOL has a flowing artesian well. It will be like having an inexhaustible gold mine where the gold just comes up out of the mine by itself! :D
 
well in NYC very little checks are taken even now, so for sure not during a crisis. They won't take them during good times!
 
A Friend visited me once and had travelers checks, which we thought every one knew about. And the walmart in Long Island would not take them, they said how did they know they were real, they had never seen them, yadda yadda yadda. And I was like um, I always get them and they are supposed to be guaranteed, but nope that walmart wouldn't take them!
 
In anything less than the total meltdown of society, cash is always king, as long as there's faith it will be worth something tomorrow.
 
I will say though the smaller the denomination the better. In NYC very few people will take any thing over a 20. (not the food carts, not the small restaurants, nor small businesses, etc etc So keep your monies in 20 dollar bills or less.

I personally like to keep 1's, 5's and 10's mainly. People more readily take them. Even the 20's are examined thoroughly in NYC before being taken. 1's, 5's and 10's are not examined or under any scrutiny yet.
 
PrairieWife said:
I will say though the smaller the denomination the better. In NYC very few people will take any thing over a 20. (not the food carts, not the small restaurants, nor small businesses, etc etc So keep your monies in 20 dollar bills or less.

I personally like to keep 1's, 5's and 10's mainly. People more readily take them. Even the 20's are examined thoroughly in NYC before being taken. 1's, 5's and 10's are not examined or under any scrutiny yet.
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I'm starting to think being in NYC either pre or post shtf is not a good place to be! Lol. I've only been to the city once and the sights were amazing, but any place that populated would get pretty ugly after about 5days of no power or food/water shipments. I feel anyone that lives in any large city should really be focused on a good bug out plan. Sorry, I get distracted easily, back to the money, I agree twentys or smaller is good for trade, but a few hundreds hid away will let you have more resources that should be easy to conceal. Remember that cash is not the only resource out there. A lot of Jews escaping Germany were able to bribe officials with jewelry, art, diamonds, etc. anything that people consider luxury or desirable can be used for barter.
 
There is no amount of money they could pay me to move to Communist NYC. I have a friend that lives there, and I keep asking him why he still lives there. He wants to move back to Texas, but with 5 kids that makes it kinda hard on him to do. I always tell him he needs to GET OUT before it's to late.
 
yeah..money or no money..a person don't need to be within 100 miles of any big city after tshtf..i never enjoyed the idea of living in a big city to begin with.just to many people for me..money will be good at first after a shtf situation happens.but what is it gonna be worth 4 tr 6 months later?
 
Here's a mini-economic uncertainty situation for you - shopping at Target LOL!

I had to buy something at Target the other day, because nobody else carried it. Not a snowball's chance in hell that I would let them touch my debit card! I paid with a $100 bill, and I was ready to give it to him with both barrels if he made a fuss. He didn't even blink. In fact, he didn't even examine it.

I guess a lot of people are paying with cash at Target these days.;)

If the electronic payments systems go down, THEY WILL take $100 bills in NYC...or go out of business!
 
yeah situations like that.and as long as we have some sort of economy..folks wont ask twice if at all,much less deny cash money..
 
where i work we are told not to look at the bill, just take it, for fear of offending the customer. we are a little overboard on customer friendliness! luckily i dont think we get too many fake ones.
 
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