Why would anyone possibly need to consider how best to hide your money? Unless you have been on vacation the past few days or out of touch with the never-ending news media we live in you have seen or heard about the events in Cyprus.
For those who haven’t heard, the short story is that the IMF has pushed for a “wealth tax” in Cyprus which would involve taking money directly out of the bank accounts of the people. That’s right, stealing in broad daylight with no apologies whatsoever.
The IMF is saying that the people of Cyprus need to pay back the bankers who stole and lost their money. This is done with the threat of being kicked out of the Eurozone if they refuse. Make no mistake, this is a trial run and they will be coming for money in your accounts very soon.
So, what can you do about it? Can you put your money in stocks? What about investments like property or fancy cars? My opinion is that nothing is 100% safe. You take a risk anytime you let someone hold your money for you. If your money is out of your reach and stored in any type of financial institution it can be stolen. Before I go any further let me state what should be obvious to most of you.
Warning #1: Whatever you do with your money, you do at your own risk.
Now, that being said, where would you hide your money if you can’t stick it in the bank? Well, first let me address why we put money into the banks in the first place. It used to be that our money was safe in the bank and for the privilege of letting banks hold on to our money and invest it, we were paid back in interest.
Over time, neither of these two reasons is valid anymore. You will not see any return on a traditional checking or saving account and as recent events like the MF Global scandal prove, your money can be taken and there is nothing you can do about it.
I recommend you keep only enough money in the bank that you need to operate your daily finances, cover checks and your normal Debit Card purchases. Any savings should be “stored” somewhere else if you don’t want to be like the people of Cyprus who flocked to empty ATM machines and were faced with a bank holiday for 4 days. Just imagine going to your bank and they tell you that you are unable to get any of YOUR money out for 4 days.
Where do you put this money? Great question and it will really depend on how much you have, where you live, how liquid you need it to be, and your resources. All of this falls under the umbrella of how afraid you are that something like this could happen to you and your tolerance for risk.
Warning #2: Just because you hide money doesn’t mean someone else can’t find it.
There are a ton of options for hiding things and they are only limited to your creativity. If you are going to hide money, I would take extra precautions. Especially, if you plan on seeing this money again someday. For ideas, here are a few:
Places to hide your money
Secret compartment in everyday items:
There are a myriad of places and containers that can be made to look like normal everyday items. There is a Scribd.com post with plenty of photos and ideas. My personal favorite is the VHS tape hideout. I can see this holding a few hundred dollars if you play it right. There is another article (one of many) that illustrates good hiding places on Urlesque.com. Another idea I have heard of is to hide bills in the contents of old bank statements, junk mail for home refinance, etc. Anything that looks like junk will be overlooked most likely, but remember… You don’t want to throw this away when you are cleaning up one day.
In the walls of your home:
This approach takes a little more carpentry skills and will leave a bigger mark when you go to find your money. Do you hide it all in one spot? No, so there is more work involved in this approach and you want to make sure your handiwork isn’t easy to spot. If you have never dry walled, it may take a little practice.
Read More: Embrace Your Inner Pirate: 5 Important Considerations for your Survival Cache
In the attic:
Hands down the easiest place to store your money. Unfortunately, this is also a logical place to look. If you are going to hide your money up in the attic, spread it out so that if your stash is found, they might not find all of it.
In the basement:
If you have exposed ceiling joists, you can hide money between the insulation and the floor above. For a little extra level of difficulty, you should hide the money above plumbing or HVAC ducting to make it doubly hard to get to.
Buried in the yard:
I like this idea, but the nagging fear is that someone will see me digging a hole and go dig up my money in the middle of the night while I lie in bed. You can combine this with a garden or yard fixture project where you are out digging anyway to avoid suspicion. Or, break out the new pair of night vision goggles you have been dying to try, get up at 4 am and dig your hole in the pitch black night when you have no moon. Imagine you are breaking out of prison for extra motivation.
Hidden in a secret cache in a remote location:
I talked about using the game of Geocaching to teach you how to find hidden caches. You can also use this to find a good hiding spot somewhere near (but not too near) your home. Make the place you are hiding money very well hidden so that nobody will stumble across it accidentally. I would recommend midway up a hill because you never know when a flood will come and buried several feet underground.
Warning #3: Just because you hide your money doesn’t mean you will be able to get to it when you need it.
Again, use your best judgment with these ideas. Having your money safe from bankers does you no good if it gets washed away or found by hikers out exploring. Worse, if your house burns down and all of your cash is in the attic. Take appropriate precautions with everything but consider an alternate place to store your money. You may need it soon and not have the ability to go get it from your bank.
You must consider fire.
A floor safe is pretty safe, especially with gold coins. May get wet in a fire, doubtful it will melt. triple hide it so even the firemen wont see it.
Great idea!
Floor safes require a little more engineering but they make a great hiding location. Its harder to retrofit a floor safe into an existing house, but that would be far better than leaving your money in the bank (in light of recent events) in my opinion.
Pat
Remember. Never place cash in your safe at home where it’s visible!! The IRS cannot take Any Monies that are not Cleary visible. Meaning when placing cash in your safe keep it inside Bank envelopes because when the audit comes the IRS agent cannot touch your money he finds that is covered!!!! But he can and will take everything in the dawn safe that is wrapped in bank rolls that he can see! Be smart people don’t purchase a cash counting machine unless you are OK with a audit coming soon after. I learned the hard way after I did… Read more »
Thanks for the info Big Texan.
Easy to see you’re a Texan! YTF would ANYONE with more than three braincells be stuffing around with the Taxman????
I respectfully disagree with the article above on where to hide your money. The suggestions listed therein are risky and don’t take into consideration variables like fire, flood, and if the SHTF, search and confiscation by the government or even marauders, who would think nothing of brute force or torture to get what they want. A better alternative would be to put your cash and liquid investments into foreign Coupon Bearer Bonds in several countries whose economies are doing well or are recovering. Never put all your assets in one place. The money you have sitting in the bank doesn’t… Read more »
PrepperNet, Thank you for stopping by and sharing your comments. I always welcome different viewpoints and opinions. Hearing both sides of a discussion helps everyone make a better decision I feel. I would like to quickly address a couple of your comments though. Lets assume for everything going forward that the global economy hasn’t collapsed. Now, assuming your $1 bill still buys you a pack of gum, but we aren’t in a Weimar Republic type of scenario, your bearer bond idea seems to be fraught with the same type of peril that leaving your money in the bank does. If… Read more »
hehehhehehe. Gold and silver has NO practical use, hence ACTUAL ‘VALUE’ other than jewellery. AND it’s ‘price’ (as distinct from ‘value’)is reckoned in the very dollars that are blowing away in the inflationary/otherwise-useless gurglar. To be ‘safe’ and REMAIN IN CONTROL of your money you need to buy things that will ALWAYS be NEEDED (as distinct from ‘desired’) by people (for barter if nothing else) or at least be useable by yourself. Food is the obvious ‘store’: either in cans or in the form of a garden/chookpen. But there ARE a few others that can remain even further outside of… Read more »
Too stupid for words! “The coupons on Bearer Bonds are” no more than ‘promissory notes’ that have NO value at all and can be jiggled and juggled by any number of people and situations. (Ditto the nonsensical exhortations of the ‘buy-gold brigade.) It’s not easy to find a foolproof REAL investment, but they DO exist. (and usually at a far better return than you’ll get on the ‘normal’ markets: NONE of which are designed with YOUR INDIVIDUAL considerations in mind.
As with most things in life, you need to diversify and tier your savings/money. 99% of the time, life is good/normal. So, you need to keep SOME money in the bank, and in traditional retirement/investment accounts and such. But, only keep as much as you are willing to LOSE in these traditional accounts. (e.g. don’t keep ALL of our savings in these accounts.) The reason I say this is NOT because of the possibility of bank failures or whatever. Instead, it’s because cash in the bank is losing buying power by roughly 10 percent per year due to inflation. So,… Read more »
Thank you for commenting Jack!
Excellent points and descriptions of your options and personal experience. This is worthy of its own post 🙂
Thanks,
Pat
One of the best online posts I have ever read!
This is great
This is one of THE BEST and most informative posts I have ever read!
As pointed out in a previous post: gold and such has NO ‘value’ per se. (Take a wheelbarrowful of gold and a wheelbarrow half-full of BIgMacs to a starving African village and see who mugs you for what!) Moreover: Although real-estate (particularly productive-in-whatever-form RE) has always been seenas a prome backstop, don’t forget that the ‘authority’ can dispossess you of it for whatever reason or none. (eg the local ‘sheriff’ can, if you owe money to some agency, as I do) confiscate your RE and sell it, often at a fraction of it’s ‘real’ value, to satisfy the alleged debt.… Read more »
This is childish. What good does hiding do if the currency is drastically devalued or is declared no longer legal tender (when a new one fresh from the printing presses is brought in) ? Better to convert to precious metals, or a silo full of least-perishable foods that’ll keep for a couple of years while you’re unemployed.
– Najma Sadeque, Pakistan
Thank you for the comment Najma,
Yes, I should have more explicitly stated that having all of your “money” (dollars, Euro’s, etc) does you know good if the currency collapses. I should have stated more about storing your “wealth” which as you mention would be better spent in my opinion on precious metals and physical goods that you can keep. Paper money as an investment is too risky as it is and with the current actions in Cyprus and the ongoing actions by our collective banks and governments, the outlook doesn’t look too good.
Pat
Very wise reply Najma. Food, clothes, medicine, stuff you can barter with. The key secret is hidden. A safe room – even a cave. We began in caves, perhaps we will end up in caves. I keep telling my husband to remove our retirement cash from the banks but he doesn’t see the train coming. He has only one fault – he is stubborn. So, I am buying and storing. I would also say, if you can buy a gun do so, but soon I feel the penalty for owning one and not turning it in will be death. I… Read more »
Paper money may have little or no value anyway in the near future. The New World Order will simply declare the US Dollar null and void and come up with “The system” via probably a implanted chip one will be required to take. Very good article. I would say, right now, put your money in tangible goods, ie: food, medicine, practical, warm, working / hiking clothes. Pay off your house and car. The day of everyone owning their own big SUV, eating at Wildfire and owning a 3,000 sq ft house with three-four baths is soon drawing to a end.… Read more »
Thank you for your comments CH.
I agree completely with you. Paper money is going away the only question is when and you need to have some form of “wealth” that isn’t in the banks.
Pat
If you put cash in a hiding place you will need to make sure you have killed all the bacteria on the bills or you may recover a batch of mildewed paper that is totally worthless.
when you deposit money in a bank, you are effectively giving THEM a loan at a negative interest rate as even a savings does not pay even the rate of inflation. So you are paying the bank to take your money so they can use it and make even more money. Not smart use of personal assets. The greater the rate of inflation its better split assets into combination of buying gold or silver or other hard assets, guns, ammo, anything of low depreciation or assets that can earn income. IE hard assets you can rent out for use.
What about a gun safe, no one is going to carry it off and I’m sure it is fire and water proof.
A gun safe does make a great option for general security but they aren’t foolproof and a determined person can get in there with the right tools and enough time. Safes are the first place a criminal would look for loot, but depending on how much time they have they could overlook it. I was thinking of places they wouldn’t consider.
Four years later and the cash is still strong. Decent article, with the proper amount of paranoia and cynicism.
Getting ready to pull 100k from my savings and stash it now. I will no longer be funding the banking system.
Where do you plan to invest or splurge it on? 🙂
Wow, me too. I just got a nice mint direct roll of 20 walking liberties 1 ounce of the yellow variety. They are so pretty. 6 of those, and you are talking the same money. So while they are sitting in my wall safe….i had the worry that any bad guy would hold a gun to my wife’s head, and then what? Hiding them is the best, but i dont like any of the suggestions.
I can’t get your ‘rating’ gizmo to work, but wanted to applaud your handing of the proposition. I removed my cash from the bank about a year ago for some of the reasons cited as well as more personal ones. Half of it is suitably buried and the other half (about $250k) is kept out more conveniently for maintaining my lost bank-interest payments of about 5%. There are several ways of using short-term (even daily) investments for that purpose. But I’d never keep cash in the house: ANY house is exposed to fire in any number of ways. My only… Read more »