How much cash is too much?

[katycoo]

I vary.  I often have next to no cash on me, but if i know I'm going out a few places over the weekend and cash is prefereable to card speding (ie. dinner with friends, cash is much easier to pay my share of the bill) then I'll get out what I need.  Carrying a couple hundred around doesn't bother me.  Once we get up near the thousand mark I prefer not to have it on my person for long.

[magicdomino]

Usually between 20 and 60 dollars on me.  As other posters have said, I don't keep any more cash than I can afford to lose, plus cash seems to evaporate.  At least when I use the debit card to buy groceries or cash, I can note in Quicken what the money was spent for. 

[camlan]

I usually have about $20 in my wallet. There's $100 hidden in the car. And $100 hidden in the house, for emergencies.

[Carotte]

I used to have around 800-1000€ (so more than 1000$) in my room, that's like, years of allowance (yes, I'm still young enough to have had an allowance until recently) but then I got a social life (new SO, going out with him and his friends, movies, restaurants..) and whow did that evaporated quickly!

Now that I'll be able to use internet to transfer from my checking to my running account I'm wondering how much I should leave on the running one. It's the one tied to my credit card so not too much that if my card or number get stolen they'll be able to put me in trouble, but enough to not have to log in every week or so.

[Winterlight]

I usually keep some emergency cash on hand. My CERT group suggested at least $200 in small bills- that way you don't have to worry about breaking them and the grocery store not being able to accept your $50. I carry around $20- enough for a taxi if I get home late and the buses aren't running anymore.

[Betelnut]

"Too much" is subjective.  My folks regularly carry $100 or more.  I generally carry $40 or less.

[siamesecat2965]

I'm on the opposite side; I prefer to give myself a weekly "allowance" i am the type who, if i don't see it, aka use my debit card, i tend to spend more. i budget $150 a week for groceries, gas, and any other misc. expenses, and take that out of the ATM every friday. which is in my building at work, so very safe.

I then use that over the weekend when running various errands, so by sunday, I usualy have less than half left. the following week, whatever i have left, goes into a tin, and I keep that in case I have a week where I have an unexpected expense, or for vacation or something fun.

[oceanus]

I also check my bank and credit card balances everyday - just to see what payments have been credited, and to make sure everything is okay/as it should be.

I had to unexpectedly take a taxicab awhile back, and was glad I had some extra cash.  Most take credit cards if fare is over a certain amount, but I didn't want to use my cc.

[Tea Drinker]

I like to have something in the range of $50-$200, depending in part on what I'm doing in the next couple of days--but I don't charge small transactions if I can help it, and very deliberately have an ATM card that is not a debit card: it was a huge hassle getting the money back after a thief got their hands on my husband's debit card some years ago and cleaned out his account in a couple of hours, and for a while we weren't sure he would get the money back.

When possible, I pay cash at some small businesses that accept credit, rather than have a credit card company take 3% of the total. (I don't care one way or the other about chain stores, generally—not charging things like a hot chocolate at Starbucks is mostly habit, and maybe evidence of my age.) One of my favorite Chinese restaurants is cash-only, and will cheerfully point people to the ATM across the street.

The emergency stash is $110, in the form of ten ten-dollar bills and a roll of quarters; this is based on advice from an EMT acquaintance, similar to what someone else said about CERT advice. That's for emergencies in the sense of hurricanes and power outages, though obviously if I had no other money and needed groceries I would spend it.

[Hmmmmm]

I can go weeks with no cash.  If I need cash I will stop and take a $100 out and use that until I know the kids or I will need cash.  My DH is the same.

He has a good friend who always has $500 on him.  I always wondered why and later found out it was for his golf bets.

[oceanus]

He has a good friend who always has $500 on him.  I always wondered why and later found out it was for his golf bets.

ahhh, I mentioned in my initial post that I wondered why brother said he always carries $1,000.  Well, now that I think about it he used to play poker (probably still does).  Still, I wouldn't want to walk around with that kind of cash.

Way back in the day one of my uncles used to carry wads of cash.  He owned a nightclub and had problems with employee theft.  He also hired bands and they usually wanted cash payment as soon as they finished.

[Deetee]

I prefer to have 50 to 300 on me. I have never been robbed in person ( my house was once broken into and a socket set and bottle of tequila were stolen) and it is simply not a concern to me.

I also prefer to have cash stashed at home. If there is an earthquake or something similar it would be useful to have.

[kareng57]

For me it is a trade off. What am I willing to lose, if I get robbed vs. cash on hand for emergencies. I have a set amount I put in my Hurricane kit* each June 1st. Then each week I add the what is left over from my cash budget that week. End of November that money becomes my Christmas budget. If we are "in the cone" I take out enough money so that I have $1000 with me if a storm hits. No electricity, no internet, no phones means credit/debit cards don't work. I put the money back after the danger has passed.




*Another thing I do with the Hurricane kit is rotate the canned/shelf stable food. I donate about 1/2 the kit each month to a food pantry and buy new food for the kit. That way the food doesn't go to waste (it still has months when I donate it).

I should do the same, I had egg-on-my-face just a short time ago.  When my sister and I were going through my mother's stuff (in preparation for a move to a retirement home) we were laughing about the items that were clearly labelled from a store that went out of business 20+ years ago......of course we had no choice but to discard them.

Years ago when I was doing family-cooking, I bought lots of case-lot stuff to save money, especially for items that I used a lot, such as canned crushed tomatoes.  I had to stop using them during about the middle of last year, when late Dh was put on a low-salt diet.

There was a food-bank-drive done by the local Scouts a couple of weeks ago, and I was going through my cupboards trying to find some still fairly-new items that I'd knew I'd never use myself.  There were still 3 cans of crushed tomatoes and I quickly checked the expiry dates - 2006!  All I can think of is that someone opened a new case before the old case had been used up.  (One of my sons thinks that we usually had about 3 cases of them stacked up).

So yes, it's a very good idea to have a routine grocery-rotation system set up.  Re cash - I've never seen the need for more than about $50 to be carried in-person.

[Slartibartfast]

Don't feel bad, kareng57 - half my spice cabinet expired in 2004, which means I've had them since college (and been through two moves since then).  No wonder I was having to add chili powder by the quarter-cup to taste it.

I hate having *no* cash, because then inevitably I'll be in a group ordering pizza or chipping in for something and I don't have any money to chip in.  I generally end up getting cash for some reason or another and then just carrying it around for ages, using it on small purchases and paying friends back.  I like putting pretty much everything on credit cards, partly because we get 1.25% - 5% back that way (which really adds up!) and partly because I can track everything online and in Quicken.  I do see the appeal of doing an all-cash budget to get out debt, though, and I say hats off to anyone who can go that route and stick with it!

[Thipu1]

I usually carry about 50 USD to buy groceries and oddments.  If I need more, my bank has two ATMs in our shopping area. 

When we travel, I usually have between 200 and 300 USD, or the equivalent in local currency.