Cash won’t do much good when there’s nothing to be bought at any price. Better than nothing, I guess.
If you do buy tinned goods, make sure it’s food you’ll actually eat, so if “I have to eat tinned food now disaster” never materializes you’ll actually eat it instead of it expiring in the pantry uneaten.
Cash won’t do much good when there’s nothing to be bought at any price. Better than nothing, I guess.
People often seem to be of the opinion that crisis is black and white, all or nothing, but there is a real sliding scale of disaster. Cash works pretty well for crises like ATMs going down, blackouts, internet outages, etc.
You layer your crisis preparations based on probability and even capability to actually handle a certain kind of crisis (if you’re living in a major city, don’t expect to be able to handle nuclear apocalypse).
So some cash at home can absorb problems like power going down or even electronic payment systems going down, having money in more than one bank account makes you safer against bank systems being down or even bank mistakes (or identity theft) zeroing or making inaccessible your bank account, having money in more than one country (for example, bank accounts in multiple countries) or outside the banking systems makes you more more resilient to banking crisis (like in 2008).
And that’s just one side of things. Other things to consider are, for example, how will you power your electronics if the power is down, which can happen for a whole lot of reasons (for example, I’m in Portugal and were I had was hit by a 1 day brownout that hit the entire Iberian Peninsula and some months latter a freak storm that trashed all the high voltage lines around here which for me specifically meant 4 days without power but for some it meant weeks and even a month) - fortunately after the first event I got a power bank, so during the second one my phone and table always had power.
And then, of course there’s food and water. Years ago when I lived in the UK and after the 2008 crash, I got some cans of freeze dried food. Never used them, still have 10 years before the expire by date. However I also always have some canned food around and I definitely needed it during those periods without power. Also I keep some bottled drinking water in my pantry and again, definitely needed it when power went down (as water goes down not that long after since the water pumps stop working, which is why when power goes down I also fill some big containers with water to use for washing and on the toilet, again things you don’t tend to think about until it happens).
I also have a windup radio from back when I got the freeze dried food, and that too was very useful to figure out what the hell was going on the two times power went off for long periods.
Anyways, all this is agreeing and extending your point: in my experience quite a number of small things can help you go through the far more likely smaller “crisis” without being unduly inconvenienced whilst people with zero preparation are getting desperate because they “can’t buy anything because my card doesn’t work” or “don’t have any drinking water at home”.
Cash won’t do much good when there’s nothing to be bought at any price. Better than nothing, I guess.
If you do buy tinned goods, make sure it’s food you’ll actually eat, so if “I have to eat tinned food now disaster” never materializes you’ll actually eat it instead of it expiring in the pantry uneaten.
People often seem to be of the opinion that crisis is black and white, all or nothing, but there is a real sliding scale of disaster. Cash works pretty well for crises like ATMs going down, blackouts, internet outages, etc.
Exactly.
You layer your crisis preparations based on probability and even capability to actually handle a certain kind of crisis (if you’re living in a major city, don’t expect to be able to handle nuclear apocalypse).
So some cash at home can absorb problems like power going down or even electronic payment systems going down, having money in more than one bank account makes you safer against bank systems being down or even bank mistakes (or identity theft) zeroing or making inaccessible your bank account, having money in more than one country (for example, bank accounts in multiple countries) or outside the banking systems makes you more more resilient to banking crisis (like in 2008).
And that’s just one side of things. Other things to consider are, for example, how will you power your electronics if the power is down, which can happen for a whole lot of reasons (for example, I’m in Portugal and were I had was hit by a 1 day brownout that hit the entire Iberian Peninsula and some months latter a freak storm that trashed all the high voltage lines around here which for me specifically meant 4 days without power but for some it meant weeks and even a month) - fortunately after the first event I got a power bank, so during the second one my phone and table always had power.
And then, of course there’s food and water. Years ago when I lived in the UK and after the 2008 crash, I got some cans of freeze dried food. Never used them, still have 10 years before the expire by date. However I also always have some canned food around and I definitely needed it during those periods without power. Also I keep some bottled drinking water in my pantry and again, definitely needed it when power went down (as water goes down not that long after since the water pumps stop working, which is why when power goes down I also fill some big containers with water to use for washing and on the toilet, again things you don’t tend to think about until it happens).
I also have a windup radio from back when I got the freeze dried food, and that too was very useful to figure out what the hell was going on the two times power went off for long periods.
Anyways, all this is agreeing and extending your point: in my experience quite a number of small things can help you go through the far more likely smaller “crisis” without being unduly inconvenienced whilst people with zero preparation are getting desperate because they “can’t buy anything because my card doesn’t work” or “don’t have any drinking water at home”.
Don’t Brits mostly live off beans-on-toast anyway?
No, they live off eating paper. Crunchy little rectangles with pictures of royalty on them.
Nah, those are just for licking.