patrick.net

at least people aren't building cold war bunkers all over again in case soviets attack.

This is what happens before a collapse, hoards, caches, etc. increase. Capital not labor becomes more important, and leadership has been led astray to take this route.

Check the history on it.

lol safes, first thing robbers take is a safe, my buddy had a safe and it was stolen and they didnt even take anything else out of the house, still not sure how they moved that 500 pound thing must have been someone knew about it and planed a way to get it, i have one but its intended as a decoy, theirs nothing in it, also i made sure it was jsut heavy enough so someone could carry it out just barely, that way they will take the safe and skedaddle thinking they have the good stuff, my real stuff is hidden in things that are completely useless and no one would want, works so far i was robbed once, they took the old safe and all my stuff was safe (pun), lol

surfingerman says

safe, my buddy had a safe and it was stolen and they didnt even take anything else out of the house, still not sure how they moved that 500 pound thing must have been someone knew about it and planed a way to get it, i have one but its intended as a decoy

Hey brillant! Use the safes as decoys. That is the best advice I have ever read on Patrick.net, worth it's weight in...

Sybrib says

Hey brillant! Use the safes as decoys.

Why not just store your safe in your vault, or failing that, nested in a larger safe?

Alternatively, you could also buy the smallest possible safe, fill it with your most compact valuables, and then swallow it. You'd need to stop pooping in public, however.

Vicente, for kicks I went cash only for awhile: mortgage, utility bills, etc.

The problem was, my employer paid me with a check. And those check cashing places are not free.

Wow, I never thought of trying that. There might a decent newspaper article in there. I can imagine lots of obstacles to cash-only life these days. Getting your employer to hand you an envelope with cash is just one. Any others?

We have a small safe, and have tried keeping most of our cash in that and only keeping the bank account for the purpose of direct deposit, and long term savings. So when the money came in, we immediatly withdrew or transferred to savings almost everything. Besides the chance of burglary(obviously you don't advertise you're doing this), we were able to pay almost all of our bills in this method. The exclusions were student loans, online purchases, and credit cards.

As long as our economy is run by a central bank, and we continue to take out large debts, cash only living is not possible, and banks are necessary.

corntrollio says

There are plenty of places to get better interest rates than the typical big bankster with almost no fees, and you can do so with a better ATM network too. If people can't find these things, they are not looking hard enough.

Have you? My local credit unions don't offer any meaningful interest on checking or savings accounts, same as the big banks in town. Sure I can chase after a little higher rate on the internet and have parked some cash in such a bank, but that's not earning much and it worries me slightly with some internet bank that according to their own reports is heavy into securities and real estate. Could fold up, and all I have is the FDIC protections so that money might be unavailable for a while.

Vicente says

Could fold up, and all I have is the FDIC protections so that money might be unavailable for a while.

Why would it be unavailable? The new owner has them reopen on Monday. In any case, you can look into banks yourself -- Bauer Financial has pretty good ratings. I'm not talking about shaky banks, although that's a good way to get high interest rates (see WaMu and others before failing).

Yes, I've found some. It doesn't take much effort. There are plenty of sources available, and here is just one:

http://www.fatwallet.coms/finance/

Yes, interests rates suck ass right now. But wouldn't it be better to get 5+ times what Bankster X is paying and have no fees and help starve Bankster X of capital so they do fewer evil things?

Bolt your safe down, and get a hidden safe. Don't fret about interest rates, they'll be rock bottom for awhile yet. It is kind of a drag, when the markets start to fall like this, I also wind up with seemingly worthless cash I wish I could make work for me somehow.

everything says

Don't fret about interest rates, they'll be rock bottom for awhile yet

yep, at least until mid 2013 according to helicopter Ben.