How $500 Cash Almost Got Burned Up
I have heard lots of stories of where people will stash some cash at home so they have some in an emergency yet hope a burglar will never find it.
Actually, this could apply to people both with and without a home safe.
May I suggest right off the bat that you go no where near the mattress?
The photo at left is of a wad of $20 bills totaling $500 that fell just a few feet from a roaring fire.
Want to hear the story?
Said owner of cash was moving, so the wad of money was put in a file drawer of then-important files to make the move. It was not the only wad of cash moved in said fashion.
Over time, the money was retrieved and spent.
Fast forward a few more years and the person was going to be moving again. All of those once important files were now just excess baggage and no longer needed, so the tedious task began of burning them on the pile out back – in a rural environment where this was completely legal.
Part way through the process, the hot, semi-exhausted destroyer turned around from the hot fire and eyes caught on this clump of cash laying on the ground.
Huh?
He picked it up, put it in his pocket and continued the time consuming, exhaustive chore. Found money.
Through the process of self refection it was determined that, since there was no list or inventory of the piles of cash stored at home in this fashion, this one was probably forgotten about. And while it was originally just placed on top of the files, the moving process probably allowed it to settle to the bottom.
And it was forgotten about.
(The more one thinks about something, the more we can be unsure if we remember something or if our mind conjures up solutions, you know? “I think I remember looking for ‘1 more stash’ but never found it – until now”)
A Home Has Almost Infinite Hiding Places
A similar story revolves around a couple of tubes of Morgan Silver Dollars that was ALMOST forgotten in a home when a move came and everything was hectic.
Especially when one has a basement or an attic with insulation there are almost infinite places to hide a tube of coins or some cash (if you are thinking a metal detector, it’s harder than you think – and it won’t detect cash).
The Problem
One of several things can happen, though, to your cash stored at home – or coins or whatever, even if a burglar never does enter your home let alone find your valuables.
- You forget where you hid them
- You forget THAT you hid them
- You die and the information dies with you
- You forget to retrieve them when you move (it’s a hectic time, lots on your mind)
- A fire destroys the cash or damages precious metals
- Someone else, like maybe a plumber, stumbles onto your stash and takes it
The Solution
The solution to the problem of storing cash at home safely is just to buy a good home safe. If the safe is to hold cash you may want to opt for something with a fireproof rating.
Buying a home safe is always a tradeoff in many factors including:
- Cost
- Size
- Hide-ability
- Portability
- The more portable for you the easier for a thief to take the whole thing
- Burglar protection
- Fire protection
In the end, you may choose to have more than one home safe for different purposes. Or you may buy a fireproof media box to put inside of an otherwise burglar or less-fireproof safe.
You may choose to have one safe to “give up” in a robbery that is easier to find in a burglary and a better, harder to find safe for the “good stuff”.
The Key To Having A Home Safe To Store Cash
The one thing for sure about a home safe to store cash and other valuables is that, unless it’s a hidden wall or floor safe, it is MUCH less likely that you will forget to move it. And if it is a hidden safe, you are more likely to remember to clean out the contents than you are to go searching under the insulation in your attic!
The last thing you want is to have cash or other valuables go into the fire or get left behind.
