Interesting Note and a Reminder To Keep Currency On Hand

Something sort of strange happened. My sister came to Germany and of course she brought money with her. A lot of banks charge crazy (10% isn't unheard of) rates for using ATM's in Europe so we suggested she bring cash. Usually changing it to and from Euro's is easy. However it just didn't happen before Thanksgiving and stuff was closed then. We headed out of the country for a trip to Paris, her destination of choice and weren't particularly worried because we figured we would be able to change it at our destination. Most countries have those little money changing booths everywhere.

Not Paris. There are no convenient money changing booths and banks won't change money. Maybe you can do it at the airport but I am not sure. We walked around for more than an hour this morning trying to change money. It is definitely very convenient if not impossible.

It wasn't a big deal in the course of things. Our travel money was mostly in an account that doesn't have punitive charges for outside of the US transactions so we just paid for stuff. Wifey told her to just have me get whatever she wanted and we would figure it out later. I got the bonus of being able to make fun of her for nobody being willing to take her stupid American money. Things like telling her a pick pocket would just give her wallet back because it's not like he can buy anything with or change dollars here anyway.

It was nice that we could make light of the situation. However as she pointed out if she was alone it would have been a real problem. I would extend that idea into preps. If you are planning to be able to buy stuff you need a means of exchange people will accept. While can openers, AK mags, common caliber ammo and 5 gallon buckets of food are great to have for a lot of reasons they are not regular means of exchange. You need a stash of whatever the currency in your area is. It isn't necessarily a bad idea to have some money in a currency you see as stable like the Swiss Franc or the Euro or the Yuan but that should be in addition to your stash of currency you can spend at the gas station, corner store, etc.

In this precious metals have an interesting category. They are bought and sold everywhere it is legal and the same I presume is done underground in places where it is illegal. It is however not convenient. In most places you have got to sell them to an individual who understands them, knows the value and how to make sure they are legit, etc. You've got to sell them to a guy to get currency before you can go to the store. I can see how a reasonable person might not want to hold onto a ton of dollars these days, particularly if they bought a good amount of gold and or silver 5 or 10+ years ago at very good prices. However I would still say they need a decent stash of cash (sticking with a months cash expenses as a minimum) just to make things work for awhile and then if need be sell some PM's. Of course there is a risk of those dollars getting hit by inflation but there is a risk to everything. I would however submit to you that if things are bad enough that a months cash expenses getting inflated away rapidly (vs a high of even 8-15% in a year which would still be devastating) in weeks or months then you've got bigget problems than missing that bit of cash.

So keep some of the currency that is used in your area. Might not be a bad idea to keep some currency of an area where you could reasonably decide to go to if things get wonky. Wouldn't get crazy about that but enough to rent a room and get some food would be wise.

Personally I keep both of the currencies I use. I also store precious metals. Regardless of the situation I cannot see how I wouldn't go through all of at least one type of currency (even if in a day or two) before going to the shiny stuff. It is downright hard to realistically see a situation where random prep type items (even barterable ones) are more desirable for trade then the shiny stuff, let alone cash.