Places to hide money at home

(Survival Manual/2. Social Issues/Places to hide money at home)

A.  Twenty Places To Hide Money At Home Besides Under Your Mattress
March 1, 2007, The Simple Dollar, Written by Trent
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/03/01/twenty-places-to-hide-money-at-home-besides-under-your-mattress/

“Recently, I posted a discussion about why I keep a small amount of cash at home under the figurative mattress for major emergencies. One of the controversies with that article was the idea of actually storing cash under your mattress. So, to alleviate those fears, I sent out a call to a large number of contacts asking where they would keep money at home besides under the mattress and compiled the sensible responses into a list of twenty places where you can store your money besides under the mattress.
Why would you store it somewhere else? In the event of a burglary, under the mattress is one of the first places burglars look for cash, so by finding another place to store it, you’re drastically reducing the likelihood of having your emergency cash stash found or stolen. My recommendation is to choose one of these hiding places and place your cash there rather than actually under your mattress. I’ll even go so far as to say that I actually use one of these twenty myself.
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Here goes:
1.  In an envelope taped to the bottom of a kitchen shelf
2.  In a watertight plastic bottle or jar in the tank on the back of your toilet
3.  In an envelope at the bottom of your child’s toybox
4.  In a plastic baggie in the freezer
5.  Inside of an old sock in the bottom of your sock drawer
6.  In an empty aspirin bottle in the bathroom (bundled up with a rubber band around it)
7.  In the pocket of a particular shirt in your closet
8.  In a “random” folder in your filing cabinet
9.  In an envelope taped to the bottom of your cat’s litter box
10.  In an envelope taped to the back of a wall decoration
11.  In between several pages in a random book or two on your bookshelf
12.  Buried in a jar in the back yard (my grandfather, incidentally, did this very thing)
13.  In an envelope in the glove compartment of your car
14.  Underneath a potted plant (or even buried in a small jar in the soil)
15.  In an envelope taped to the bottom of a dresser drawer (so you can reach it from the inside of the dresser below it)
16.  Inside of a big coffee cup in the back of a cupboard
17.  Inside your Christmas decoration box
18.  Inside of an empty bottle of Guinness in the back of the fridge with the cap seemingly in place (smash it to get the cash)
19.  In a plastic baggie inside of a flour or coffee container
20.  In an envelope inside of a DVD case
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B.  Seven Secret Places To Hide Cash In Your Home
July 8, 2009, Frugal Dad, by Jason
http://frugaldad.com/2009/07/08/places-to-hide-cash/
It’s a good idea to keep a little cash in your home for emergencies. How much you decide to keep is up to you, but I would suggest keeping enough cash on hand to pay for a week of groceries, and maybe a night or two in a hotel. Because this money will not be earning interest, and is subject to being stolen by a burglar, I don’t suggest keeping a huge stash in your home. In addition to a small amount hidden at home, I also stash cash in our online savings account (my ING Direct review) to put a little distance between me and some of our savings. Think of cash stored in one of the best online banks as an offsite backup disaster recovery plan. When you’ve settled on an amount you should think about secret hiding places to stash the cash. We’ve all seen those spy movies where the guy removes the tile from the back splash behind his stove and pulls out a cache of bills, passports and ammo. Well, the following ideas may not be worthy of James Bond, but they will improve the chances of your money surviving a break in. Seven Secret Hiding Places for Your Cash

1.  In the freezer wrapped in aluminum foil. Save a little styrofoam from the next pack of meat you buy and cut it down to the size of a couple large steaks. Put your cash in a Ziploc bag, stick it between two pieces of the used meat tray and wrap it in aluminum foil. Take a piece of masking tape and write “Scraps – 05/22/2005.” Robbers are not likely to look through the pack, and if they pull back the foil they’ll only see the familiar styrofoam tray and stop.
2.  Sandwiched between the cardboard backing of a hard-to-reach picture frame. Most thieves pull back pictures from the wall to see if money is taped to the back, but they aren’t likely to take the time to look behind the glass, the cardboard backing and the picture itself. Use a pen knife to split the cardboard backing into two halves and sandwich the cash in between.
3.  Under a piano, entertainment center or anything weighing a couple hundred pounds or more. If you have a hand truck around the house it’s pretty easy to just lift up the corner of a piano and slide an envelope under it. However, a burglar probably won’t be able to lift something this heavy, and would spend his time digging through the drawers or inside of the furniture rather than trying to lift it.
4.  Inside a used can of soup. The next time you have soup, open the bottom of the can to empty the contents and the leave the top in tact. Rinse the can thoroughly, then use it to cover your stash of cash hidden inside your pantry. Stack a few cans of soup on top just to make it less convenient for someone to pick it up out of curiosity.
5.  Buried in the “soil” of a fake plant. If you have a fake plant, or small tree, in your home, wrap your cash in a Ziploc bag and nest it inside the “soil” of the plant.
6.  In hollowed out pages of a book on your book shelf. Using a pen knife or box cutter, carve out a few pages of your least favorite title. Hide your cash inside the book and return it to the book shelf.
7.  Inside a kid’s toy hidden in their closet. Kid’s rooms are notoriously messy, and kids are not known for having large sums of money. Take apart an old plastic toy they no longer play with and hide your stash of cash in there. Return the toy to the bottom of the pile of toys in your kids closet, or toy chest, and it should be safe. It’s important to remember that any cash saved at home could be lost in a fire or natural disaster. The ultimate hiding place is a fireproof safe bolted to the floor, and even that isn’t fool-proof. The ideal spot for storing large amounts of cash is an online savings account, far away from your house and any potential danger. But for the small amounts you stash at home, take the time to put it out of sight. Also, remember to tell a spouse or close friend about the money in case you are not able to get to it (you die, or become injured or ill and cannot communicate). Keep enough cash on hand to cover you a few days in a major emergency, but not so much that you’d be completely wiped out if it all disappeared.
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C.  The Ultimate Secret Hiding Place In Your House
Bit Rebels, By Diana Adams
Pasted from <http://www.bitrebels.com/geek/the-ultimate-secret-hiding-place-in-your-house/>

I’ve always thought the idea of leaving a time capsule for future generations to find would be fun. It’s even fun to pack away a magazine or trinket in a box only to find it years later in the basement or attic. Wouldn’t it be neat to find a tiny hidden treasure somewhere in your house that someone who lived there years before left for you to find? It reminds me of the story of the teenage boy who got a bible from his grandparents for his birthday. He tossed it aside, thinking it was such a boring gift. If he had just opened it up, he would have found the $100 bill tucked away inside. We never know what little life treasures we can find all around us in any given moment.
I remember when I wrote How To: Leave A Time Capsule For Future Generations. It was an article about how to hide a note behind a light switch. However, what if you want to leave more than just a note? What if you want to leave a little thumb drive of information or pictures, or even a little token representing the era?
This is the Doortop Stash project from Make. I have never before thought about using the inside of a wooden door to hide something. However, to me, this might be just a little bit too good. It’s so clever; there would be a good chance nobody would ever find it! If you would like to make one of these nifty little secret stashes for yourself, you can get the step-by-step instructions on DIY Doortop Stash.
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D.  The Construction of Secret Hiding Places
*** a free downloadable pdf file ***
The pdf file can be downloaded from:
http://www.uaff.us/SecretHidingPlaces.pdf

The Table of Contents for that file is as follows,