(Weffie)
Most financial experts don’t recommend keeping large amounts of cash stashed at home, but that doesn’t stop people from socking their savings in corners they believe to be safe. Those who do so leave themselves vulnerable to losing huge amounts of money due to burglaries or forgetfulness.
If you do choose to stick your savings in the proverbial bank of mattress, WiseBread recommends you try these inventive, deceptive tricks:
* Fake electrical outlet. Cut a hole in your wall, fill it with money and cover it up with an electrical outlet.
* A hole in your yard. If it’s good enough for pirates, it’s good enough for paranoid money hoarders. Be sure to cram your money into a box that protects it from moisture and bugs. And remember where you buried it.
* With personal hygiene items. Possibilities include empty boxes that once contained toothpaste tubes or soap, or whatever else you’ve got under the sink.
Just to reiterate, experts say your money is safest with a financial institution.
The Best and Worst Places to Stash Cash in Your Home [WiseBread]
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But why would you stash cash at home? You’re hurting the economy! By not putting that money in the bank, you’re artifically reducing their reserves, limiting their ability to make loans. You, by stashing your cash, are slowing the economy!
We need the Universal Banking Act of 2011 to force everyone to put all their money in an approved banking institution… for the betterment of the nation!
/sarc
Here, here…. and don’t forget the Equalization of Opportunity and Anti-Dog eat Dog riders to that bill
/sarc also/
It’s “hear, hear”.
I prefer “there, there”.
We need a like button
I always found, “There, There” to be denigrating… unless that’s what you were going for.
Explain please. I don’t get why you find it denigrating.
“There, There” is something you say to a child or an over-emotional person.
Harrumph. It should be harrumph.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN99jshaQbY
You’re new to the internet, aren’t you?
Well, I actually didn’t know that… so thanks for that. But next time don’t forget your references. Why should I just take your word I am wrong? What are your credentials such that I should give veracity to your claims without substantiation?
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/here-here-or-hear-hear/
Wait for it… I’m sure I have another grammatical error somewhere….
a hole in your yard – see, that worry about moisture and bugs makes me think this is exactly the time you want to be hoarding dollar coins. also, how much fun would that be to dig up later?
i actually have a fake electrical box mini wall safe. it holds more than a standard metal electrical box from the hardware store and it keeps your stuff from falling back into the wall or getting chewed on by bugs in the walls. it wasn’t expensive at all and would be hard to spot as a fake since it uses a standard outlet plate as the cover. all i have to do is actually install it one of these days.
the other day when i was vacuuming my hallway i discovered that not only does a little piece of my baseboard need to be reattached, but the drywall behind it is broken along the bottom edge, enough to the point i can get my hand in. it seems like that might be a useful hiding space too if i ever needed another one
My yard is so wet from all the rain that digging a hole would probably result in a small pond, and I’d have to put the cash in a water tight box that would then float or pop to the surface the next time it rains. I could put bricks or stones on top of the hole, and then my neighbors would wonder what the heck I’m doing digging around in the mud. Knowing my luck, a squirrel would dig it up and chew up the cash.
I think the bank is the best place, for now.
my problem is if I buried it, my dogs would probably dig it up to see what if its food.
One of my dogs bury her food. My other dog follows her around and digs it up as soon as she goes back inside.
What if you have a house fire?
the good stuff is in the fire safe
Really? What’s your address?
A friend’s uncle was paranoid about banks. He had an old television with $10,000+ inside of it. A bicycle had hundreds of dollars in quarters *inside* the metal frame tubing. He stored money like a squirrel all over his house.
His will stated each person would get an item, and I’m sure all of them knew that these items had a roll of 20s or loads of change in them – they just didn’t know how much. Hell, *he* probably didn’t know how much.
I have a wall safe in my house that I installed. It is large enough to hold a couple of handguns, my SS card, passport, some important docs, some jewelry, silver bar, all my spare keys, a backup hard drive, memory stick, and some spare SD cards with “sensitive” data on them.
The thing is – unless a criminal knows exactly what to look for, they aren’t going to find it. Most small time crooks aren’t running around looking in the backs of closets or behind every picture. They aren’t moving furniture, and they surely aren’t looking for things that are hidden unless they know they exist in the first place. Heck even my own family knows I have a wall safe, but they have no idea where it is.
Frankly as far as cash and documents, one of the best places to hide them is behind a family picture inside of the frame. Because it is a family photo, thieves are not likely to steal it, but if something happens to you another familiy member probably will… and they will find the stash later.
Another great hiding place is to put items in a box or tin and drop them down a floor register. You can pop the vent cover off to reach them, but aside from a duct cleaning service nobody would ever know they are there.
I once heard of a spy who would tie things to a string and drop them down into the wall. If you have suspended ceiling this is probably an option. On the other end of the string he had a magnet, so he would slowly lower the item into the wall and then drop the magnet. To get the items back out, he would drop another string with a magnet which would attach to the first magnet and then he would pull the item up. Probably a bit too much of a hassle for items you want to retrieve on a regular basis, but for those items you want to hide for long term it is an option.
I’m fairly certain I could hide millions in my home and nobody would ever find them unless they knew what to look for. Heck a section of PVC pipe running between some joists in a utility room would look totally normal but could be used to store all kinds of items.
Experts say, that the best place to store YOUR cash, is in my bank account. Donations welcome, paypal info upon request.
This is a great idea! Please send me your bank account and Paypal info and password.
I’m planning on buying a small safe,bolting it between 2 floor joists and then making a secret door in the floor for it. After we drywall the basement ceiling you’ll never see it. If we ever move I’ll leave it there for the next lucky homeowner.
My parents frequently told me at story from when I was a kid about the burglars that found the safe and came back the next night when the owners were home, forced them to open it and then killed them. We had a safe and they were scared of it, we had the door cut off in the end.
……
takes out the list of things I am paranoid about…
(scribble scribble scribble)
Okiedokie
That’s what guns are for.
I saw, in I think Family Handyman Magazine, that they cut a hole between two studs, installed a box and then took a HVAC vent and covered hole. They used magnetic fasteners, so you wouldn’t have to screw and unscrew the vent each time. You could conceal a safe behind a vent cover this way.
Stockpiling cash, food, or having missing fingers is a sign of terrorism. Enjoy your FEMA camp!
Thank goodness stockpiling ammunition is still okay!
>.>
Places to stash your cash at home, so when a thief finds it they can clean you out more easily.
Inside your cat…?
Ouch.
Well someone did suggest under the cat litter n the comment section of the article…..
ick….
A friend of mine used to stash her drugs inside a wrapped ‘feminine hygiene product’, and damn if she didn’t get that stuff through every purse search she encountered. Seems like stuffing cash into a box of those on a closet shelf might do the trick.
Stupid phone! The rest of that comment should have read that some of the other tips in the article seemed to involve a little more handyman skills than I possess, but I can easily add a box of not-usual-brand of pads to the bathroom and the casual observer would be none the wiser.
I was helping a friend of mine run some speaker wire through the drywall wall of their home and we kept hitting something solid. Took a closer look with a flashlight and we were hitting a brick that was sitting on top of something shiny. We opened up the wall to access the brick and it turned out to be a big wad of aluminum foil under the brick. Opened the aluminum foil to find about $5,000 in bills dated from the 1950′s and 60′s.
Must have been in my parent’s house. They have fireproof boxes hidden in various places to the point when they die I will need to gut the entire house to find out where they stashed all of their valuables because they refuse to tell me where they are hidden (I live 8+ hours away so it is not like I could easily raid their home. Most of the stuff is more sentimental than valuable.
My uncle lived through the Depression. He hid money all over the place. In the walls, rafters, belt buckles, suitcases… Everywhere! He was very frugal, and kept everything. If it was broken he either fixed or re-purposed it. We had to look through a ton of junk. We are not sure we found it all! It was fun looking though.
I puit mine inside the dog. She doesn’t like it though and I have to keep putting it back in.
If you are going to use one of the electrical outlet “safes” http://safetycentral.com/hiddenwallsafe.html Just make sure to
1) mount the safe at the same height as all of the other outlets in your home
2) Make sure that the safe is the same color as all of the other outlets in your home (or at least in that room)
3) Is not installed directly next to another real outlet. Also, don’t install it near an outlet that has 5 power strips daisy chained together which will raise suspicion that it might be fake (or why would you not use the other nearby outlet rather than overloading the one outlet)
Also look at the fingerprint patterns on the wall near the safe. My In-laws had a home-made security system installed in their home (pretty nice system), but rather than having a keypad, they had a switch mounted above one of the ceiling tiles in the entrance from their garage. Over the years, the ceiling tile pattern had worn down, and there was an obvious dark circle from the body oils from years of popping open the ceiling tile, and disarming/arming the system
Also make sure to look at the
Home made security system instantly made me visualize a hanging shotgun with one end of a string tied to the trigger and the other end tied to a door knob.
And a paint can pulled all the way up to the ceiling that will be triggered to swing right in your face when you trip the wire at the front door.
Do you need to cut a new hole in your wall to use those safes, or can you remove an existing outlet? I live in an apartment, so cutting a new hole isn’t an option.
I don’t own one, but I think you have to cut a new hole. Removing an existing electrical outlet, and having a person not experienced with properly capping off the now unused electrical wires would be a huge safety risk. Also, removing al existing electrical outlet would likely be a violation of the National Electric code that requires outlets to be spaced typically every 12 feet or less.
Sure it is. It’s not like they check to see if you maybe added an outlet when you move out.
“Also make sure to look at the …..” {post abruptly ends}
At the what? You left us all hanging there.
His in-laws got back home.
And remember, when you donate/throw out your coat/mattress/item, or sell your home with the money left in the house, the new owner gets the cash.
Safe in the basement bolted into the foundation?
You could end up with this happening: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53043280-78/allegedly-clark-court-heist.html.csp
Just be careful about dampness in a safe in the basement. I did this and ended up with mildewed bills all stuck together that could never be separated.
for those with their own server rack, storing cash in a hot swap drive cage inside a server with a locking faceplate is pretty damn safe… unless they also steal your servers.
That seems akin to stashing your cash inside of your computer, i mean maybe pick something not so valuable to stuff it in. Like the fax machine
Perhaps, but while my computer is sitting in my office on the floor, my server/networking rack is in my basement, behind a locked door. The rack is bolted to the concrete floor, and the servers/switches are all screwed to the rack. A thief would have to be rather determined to try to steal someting from my server rack. The computers and TVs would make a much easier target.
I guess alot of it depends on your personal setup. Granted if your server room is quite that, a barricaded server room, you can probably get away with just putting a safe in there, or locking the cash in a drawer. No need to be sneaky!
Personally, I keep my money in a lunchbox in my shark tank. I like to taunt my robbers….
the VCR, put it in the VCR
Put it in a VCR tape! Even more valueless (unless you label it “My Threesome”).
You’ve obviously never tried to move a server rack.
A thief is not going to spend the time to take down a rack if they even know how. It’s not like it’s slapped together with cheap plastic.
A desktop computer and a rack aren’t even close to the same.
I keep very little cash in my house. The cash I do keep stays in the fireproof box sitting in my locked filecabinet beside my computer table.
How about in the goddamn Master Bedroom, under the f*ing bed, in the f*ing floor safe?
They have these diversion safes – cans for household products that are weighted and have removable bottoms. My personal favorite is cruex jock itch spray. Especially if you get a real can and add lifelike signs of use.
http://www.amazon.com/Cruex-30001S-Diversion-Safe/dp/B000A8I1X0
Ha these plans have no flaws.
or you can always put it where my cats hide all the little toys they steal from my kids…. under the fridge!
Also, make sure it’s fireproof. Otherwise, if your house burns down, so will your savings.
I hide my cash in my monopoly board game, under the fake monopoly money.
Don’t hide it with your drugs. How else are you gonna pay for an attorney?
I put mine in the basement behind the brick wall where I hid the body.
eww, then it gets all gooey and hard to spend
And the cask?
+1 for elegant Poe reference.
In the door. Linkie
I would bet the amount of money that someone hides inside the door that they will ruin the door and it will cost more to fix the door than what they are hiding.
Install a fake electrical breaker box, a little out of the way, in the basement, run a couple of wires to nowhere, as long as no one can easily see where they end. Get a box you can lock with a Master padlock. Don’t leave tools useful to break the box lying around. Put some grimy masking tape on the front cover and write something like “garage”, “sump pump”, outdoors”, whatever works for you and maybe “50 amps”. Pretty small possibility someone will figure it out unless they have the run of your house over a period of time like a weekend. For smash and grab, no.
In a money collar (similar to those money belts with hidden compartments for some bills), around to your Doberman’s or Rottweiler’s neck.
Am the only one who saw the cat photo and thought “underneath a litter box” as a good place to hide where thieves would never think to, nor want to, look?
I have a no-frills top load washing machine, on top of the agitator there is a cap that can be popped off which covers a water tight compartment that is large enough to hold 350 C notes. seriously who looks in a washing machine for hidden loot.
My rooms have differing ceiling heights, so the attic is very uneven. That means it’s filled with blown-in insulation, and there are places I can set a small firesafe and bury it under 2-3 feet of insulation.
Have fun hunting for that one!
Oh, just great. Now that you’ve published all of these extra ideas for where to hide money, you’ve just tipped off the burglars as to where to look from this point forward. Nice job.
Don’t be a cheap bastard and buy a really good safe and bolt it to the floor. Make sure to get a digital lock and a good safe like Gardall. http://www.gardall.com/ I have a real nice setup and never worry about my cash.
On occasion, I stashed things in a hollowed out loaf of bread in the freezer.
My money is in property Win Win for me as for the cash A GPS coordinate is a good locator
using an alphabetical ,numerical code assures that the only one to get the GPS and the code is my safety deposit box…….The code breaker sequence is in the is in the SDB
I hid my big laptop when I went out of town last time. I’m not going to tell you where I hid it, but it was somewhere most burglars wouldn’t bother looking. I move the hiding place every time, too. It’s a challenge coming up with new ones sometimes.
I’m waiting for the day when I do that and then forget where I hid it and come home and go, “OH DEAR GOD MY LAPTOP IS GONE!”