So here's a confession: I have no idea how much money we have in the bank. I know a vague amount, but DH handles all our finances.
I'll sit next to you. I know what we got back in taxes and how much paychecks are. I also know about where our bills land us, but I haven't checked a bank balance. We are comfortable and don't spend much. I SAH. H works. I have passwords to it all. I think I have a 10$ in my wallet. Too lasy to look further. Now, retirement stuff I don't know. Employer changed recently.
I don't understand the question. I could get cash from my personal line of credit more easily than I could get cash out of a stock account or even another bank account. My private banker would messenger me a cashiers check within an hour, drawn on my line of credit.
I now imagine your bank looks like the bank in Mary Poppins. I am outside singing feed the birds obviously. LOL
I have access to it all; I just don't handle bill paying.
Same here. Quicken gets weird when we try to have multiple people access it, so DH handles the bill paying/account reconciliation responsibilities. I always have a good idea of our general expenses and how much we have on hand and we do go over things together periodically so I can see the exact numbers and our savings projections. I do have total access to the accounts and could look our balances up right now if I wanted to, but that would require me to dig around for the bank access number since I don't have it memorized, and I'm feeling too lazy at the moment.
That said, I know enough that I can still answer the poll accurately, assuming we're excluding retirement/security deposits/CC cash advances/HELOCs on the properties/etc., unless there's an account somewhere in the Caymans I'm unaware of. :-)
I have access to it all; I just don't handle bill paying.
Hmm. I guess this is better than what it sounded like.
Yeah, after I posted, I realized it sounded like a "man, this girl's in trouble if her husband ever decides to sneak around." He's just a lot better at money management than I am, and it's easier if one of us handles it all.
I am concerned about the people that have 100K sitting in cash.
I'm more concerned about the <1K people, but I hope the 100K people are buying a house or something within the next few months or else they're actively losing lots of money sitting on the cash.
Ehh, for most people it's really not necessary to have access to over 1k within 24 hours. I can't think of very many emergency situations in this country in which I couldn't use my credit card for if I had to spend thousands at the drop of the hat.
I'm more concerned about the <1K people, but I hope the 100K people are buying a house or something within the next few months or else they're actively losing lots of money sitting on the cash.
Ehh, for most people it's really not necessary to have access to over 1k within 24 hours. I can't think of very many emergency situations in this country in which I couldn't use my credit card for if I had to spend thousands at the drop of the hat.
Don't most banks have a limit on how much you can withdraw at once?
ATMs do, but I don't think there's a limit if you go to a teller unless you're talking about more money than the branch has on hand or something like that?
If this was MM, people would be dropping over in a dead faint at the idea!
You can have liquid assets that are not cash.
Anything invested, though, will likely take more than 24 hours to get to because you'd have to sell it and then have the proceeds transferred to a bank account.
In 24 hours, I'm pretty sure I could only get the cash held in my local bank account. Capital One bank account, investment accounts, selling things, would take more than 24 hours to get my hands on.
But I'm with @wandering -- credit cards are my strategy in that situation. Any blackmailer worth his/her salt is going to be willing to wait a few days for the real money to come in.
Anything invested, though, will likely take more than 24 hours to get to because you'd have to sell it and then have the proceeds transferred to a bank account.
In 24 hours, I'm pretty sure I could only get the cash held in my local bank account. Capital One bank account, investment accounts, selling things, would take more than 24 hours to get my hands on.
But I'm with @wandering -- credit cards are my strategy in that situation. Any blackmailer worth his/her salt is going to be willing to wait a few days for the real money to come in.
I asked H, who is an FA, how long it would take to empty some of our liquid investments. I should have prefaced the question, lol, because I scared the crap out of him. But he said it all depends on timing. So if the timing was perfect, we could empty some of our investments within 24 hours. It all depends though.
Ehh, for most people it's really not necessary to have access to over 1k within 24 hours. I can't think of very many emergency situations in this country in which I couldn't use my credit card for if I had to spend thousands at the drop of the hat.
Everyone should have an emergency blackmail fund.
"Everyone - on Married Life - should have an emergency blackmail fund."