Keeping Cash: Is it Always King? 🤔

Keeping Cash: Is it Always King? 🤔

Keeping Cash: We asked y’all, where do you keep your CASH?

 

Before we go over some answers, please forgive us for this unpopular opinion: Cash is *not* always king! *Ducks and hides in the corner*

 

While cash is great to have for emergencies, we DO NOT suggest keeping the bulk of your money in cash because it:

 

  • loses value due to inflation! Inflation is the rate at which the cost of living rises, and the higher it is- the less you get for your money. Inflation generally increases over time, so that cash you have sitting in a shoebox gets you less and less as the days pass.

 

  • can easily be destroyed, lost, or stolen! While the instant availability (aka liquidity!) of cash is great, it comes with no guarantees. If you lose it, someone steals it, or God forbid it is destroyed by fire or flood- it is gone. There is no recourse. You spent 2 hours in VIP with the toxic twice divorced tech guy and for WHAT?

 

Some of your replies about where you keep cash, which we have all done but we cannot recommend lol, included:

 

  • In Shoeboxes: Girl get your lil’ shoebox full o’ cash photo and wrap it up! This is NOT SAFE LOL

 

  • Inside of Books: some of you mentioning buying hollowed out ones made for this purpose. This is an ok answer for some emergency cash you keep at home, but you have seen movies yes?? Theives be tearing the bookcase up! They know girl!

 

  • Various Closet Spaces: inside of coat pockets, sneakers, and sewn into the lining of dresses. Maybe less obvious than in books, but still unsafe. Anyone can go rummaging in your closet. Imagine your maintenance man is fixing something in your closet and sees you got $15k in a Jordan. Now you have a problem omg.

 

  • Wrapped in a ziploc bag at the bottom of the trash can: While this is crafty, it’s also kinda gross and if anyone at your crib ever takes the trash out for any reason they may steal it or accidentally throw it away wahhh

 

  • In a FIREPROOF Safe: This is definitely the best option for keeping cash and valuables in your home! The safe being FIREPROOF is also huge- notice that none of the above options are. If possible, bolting it to the floor or even screwing it to a beam in the wall will help keep your items secure. If you live in an area prone to flooding on the ground floor/basement, consider keeping it high on a shelf rather than bolted to floor. Having a fireproof safe for some emergency cash and cash you need access to soon is a great idea. Install safes where they are not easily visible and it’s unlikely others may go looking for something (like in your closet) and never tell anyone you have one! I also kept a little fireproof bag for smaller amounts of cash I planned to use soon for things like for nails, eating out, and pocket change.

 

  • In a Safe Deposit Box: FULL DISCLAIMER, keeping cash in bank safe deposit boxes is ILLEGAL, and thus, any cash you put in them is uninsured. We obviously cannot and would not advise you to do anything illegal, but safe deposit boxes are a great place to store other valuables and difficult to replace documents that you don’t need frequent access to. Some of you mentioned that when you have a safe deposit box, no one actually sees what you put into it cause you take your box and go into a little room alone with it. Interesting to know!

Some other ideas for what to do with your cash:

 

  • OPEN A ROTH IRA Account: This is a type of savings account you open with a brokerage, and can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs in. Don’t be afraid if that sounds overwhelming- opening one is pretty much the same process as any other bank account! IRA stands for “Individual Retirement Account,” and a Roth IRA allows your contributions and investment earnings to grow TAX FREE. There are specific rules about how much you can contribute per year and when you can begin taking out contributions tax free, but this is hands down one of the most important tools in building your wealth and retirement savings. Here is an article from Nerd Wallet that gives a good overview of Roth IRAs, and we suggest you do more research and open one ASAP! If your income is $146k or below (single) or $230k (marrried, joint filing), you can contribute the full amount allowed to your Roth IRA, which is $7,000 per year as of 2024. It is important to note that there are penalties for early withdrawals, so do not put cash you’ll need into this account. It should be treated as a long term savings account for retirement and long term wealth building!

 

  • OPEN a High Yield Savings Account: this is a savings account that has a much higher APY (Annual Percentage Yield) than regular savings accounts, meaning you make way more on the money you keep in it vs. a traditional savings account. This Goldman Sachs page has a cool calculator on it which shows the difference in APY you’d make per year based on your initial investment/monthly investments. Note we are not affiliated with them nor suggesting you necessarily open the account there, it’s just a cool tool. I personally do have my high yield savings account there. This account is best used as savings for your emergency fund, or saving for long term goals like buying a home/property, or starting a business. A high yield savings account is a good balance between the Roth IRA or a typical investment account where there are penalties/tax implications for withdraws, and traditional savings accounts where you may actually LOSE purchasing power/value of your money if inflation is outpacing the APY.

 

  • OPEN a Traditional Savings Account: Personally, I don’t like these much because again- you actually LOSE purchasing power usually due to how low to APYs are. BUT they can be a great tool if you are just getting started out with saving money, and need a simple savings account that is easy to transfer funds in/out from your checking account. I have one attached to my everyday checking account that I put very short term savings into- stuff like money for gifts, spa/self care treatments, clothes, etc. that I plan on using within the next 1-2 months. This keeps it accounted for separate from my checking account spending money. This is also the first type of savings account I ever opened and committed to a savings plan with! The ease with which you can move $ into it makes saving easy, and as you see your savings grow- you’ll feel empowered to learn more about other ways to save and invest. Many banks even offer features like rounding up your purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically moving the amount to your savings! 

 Now we know how much CA$H is a staple of the Industry aesthetic, so go ahead and keep a lil’ rack in the shoebox if you MUST- but use the rest of 2024 to plan how you’ll level up financially 2025!

PS- On our private Industry Only IG, I'll post 2 of my most crafty cash hiding tricks I did in a pinch. 

 

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