What Happens When Your Money is Broken?

There are times that enjoying a more simple and decluttered life and being ready for things to go wrong can appear to be in conflict. At least if you think that a simple life means relying on getting everything you need at the last second from someone else. Which seems to be the impression some folks have of tiny house life. Though it is actually far from how I live. I get a lot of questions from folks who are concerned about my safety and security given that I live in a rural area and access to some things would be slower due to greater distances. While I know they are genuinely concerned for me, I think many of these fears come from not being familiar with the things that are actually risky. Since I already live without relying on regular, or sometimes any, of most of the external support systems that can break down, and have multiple backups for all the things I actually need in life, multiple things would all have to fail at the same time for me to really be in a bad situation. Of course this does not mean nothing goes wrong in the world, whether we are talking about my personal world or the larger one. But it does mean a lot more has to go wrong before any of them become noticeable in my life. As someone, I don't remember who, once said, "the end of the world happens every day for someone." One of the things that was brought to my attention recently, and that I thought I'd share with you all is the benefits of being ready for your money to "break."

Now I'm not actually talking about the larger monetary system as a whole, though I highly recommend educating yourself about how that system works as well! The simple book "Whatever Happened To Penny Candy" that I read back when I was something like 11 years old is a a great foundation for understanding that. You can usually find a decent second hand copy for to $2-3 and it's a pretty quick read. 

 But what I am thinking of today was brought up by the recent explosion that rocked downtown Nashville. Among other things, taking out AT&T's service to much of the region. I happen to have several very good friends in that area and thanks to them, I became aware of something I wouldn't have actually thought of otherwise. Not only were most of them out of cell phone service, home phone service, and things like the ability to call 911, this affected banking. With internet and phone being connected for many things these days, and almost all banking transactions being tied to the internet, this created a huge problem.

 Things they needed could not be purchased with a credit card, because for a store to run the card, the store internet had to be working. Well that was inconvenient. So one friend figured he would just run down to his bank and withdraw some cash to make his purchase with instead. But when he got there, he couldn't withdraw any cash either because without internet the bank couldn't tell who had what balance. And the bank phones were all out too, so they could not call anyone either. Also ATM's were not working for the same reason. 

Now this could just be an inconvenient situation if there was just something you wanted to buy but didn't really need. At least not urgently. Or if the problem is fixed in a few days. But what if what you needed was food? Or gas to be able to get to your job so you didn't get fired? Or something of that nature? And what if the problem went on for weeks? Even if you have plenty of money, at least plenty in the bank, would you be ok?

 I had not really thought about how one thing, and it could have been a different thing like a major flood, tornado, fire, or any of the many things that can destroy a physical building and it's contents, that affected a phone company, could make it really hard to access a way to pay for basic needs given that so many transactions count on a credit card these days. But given that this clearly can happen, it might be a wise idea to have some cash on hand at your home. I'm not talking a fortune stuffed under the mattress, though you can do that too if you like, but enough to pay for food, gas, or any other routine things that can come up on short notice. Of course having some extra food, gas, and so on at your home might be a good idea too, but that's another topic. And consider having mostly small bills as some stores have a hard time breaking larger notes. Especially if they are suddenly needing change for a lot of cash transactions that they are not normally expecting. The nice part is that even if nothing ever disrupts the internet and banking system in your area, there is not really a down side to having a little extra on hand for whatever it might be needed for. These are the kinds of things I try to do for sure. The stuff that makes my life way better if something does go wrong, and also better if nothing at all does. 

Is there an unexpected thing that has happened at some point in your life where a simple thing you could have done before hand would have made dealing with that event much easier? If so, please share so the rest of us can learn and be less likely to be caught in a bad situation!