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birb_cromble  7hr ago (text post)   137 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread

Since a lot of us here have expressed interest in not starving to death in a gutter, I figured I'd start a weekly thread to discuss financial matters.

Ground Rules

  • Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
  • Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
  • Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
  • Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Better is better. Celebrate people when they take a step up and work to move their finances in the right direction. Don't flame out because they haven't followed what you consider the optimal path. Everybody has to start somewhere.
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How much emergency cash do people keep around? and where precisely so I know where to look I don't mean uninvested money in a checking account or whatever, I mean literal cash not in a bank.

I have a few thousand, which might be too much, but zero feels like too little.

For cash, usually zero to a thousand or so. I don't pay particularly close attention to keeping it up. It's more for if I'm about to go somewhere but find I don't have that much cash in my wallet, it's slightly easier to grab some than to stop at an ATM, though that's not at all hard either. I don't take it too seriously as emergency prep, mostly since living in a big city, any massive crisis that results in me not being able to get more cash from ATMs easily or buy things with cards will also cause much bigger, more widespread, and difficult to predict chaos that a little cash is not likely to save me from.

What I do consider as more useful emergency prep to keep safely stored at home is a valid working credit card and ATM card, working spare phone with no service, and expired spare ID. I can lose pretty much everything I typically carry on me and not experience significant hassle.

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