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Russia invaded Ukraine 13 days ago. While the civilized world (including yours truly) is rooting for Ukraine, the West’s response to the war is hitting ordinary Russians hard.

As you’ve likely heard, the US, UK, and European Union have Russia in a financial stranglehold. Russian banks are banned from the SWIFT international payments system. And Russian billionaires are seeing their international assets frozen. Goodbye yachts.

Meanwhile, private companies like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal have halted operations in Russia, too.

The sanctions have long-range consequences. I saw pictures the other day of people in Russia standing in long, maybe six-hour lines to pull cash out of ATMs. And I thought to myself, “Ordinary Russian guys, you should have planned ahead.”

That is true for everyone, including us here in the United States.

I’m not equating your situation to the people in Russia. But you still need to have cash at home, outside of the banking system—outside of your checking account, outside of your savings account, outside of your brokerage account. You need 100 crisp $100 bills in an envelope in a waterproof/fireproof safe at home.

Now, some of you are thinking…

• “What if I get robbed?”

Come on. You are not going to get robbed. Besides, there’s a good chance you have things in your house worth more than $10K. Some of that stuff is probably just sitting out in the open, not tucked away in a safe.

Plus, on the off chance you do get robbed, that $10K in your safe will be the least of your worries. So, get over your cash phobia. And pull some cash out of the bank.

Keep in mind, it might take you a while to withdraw $10K, even during normal times. I was talking to a friend the other day. She said she’d recently gone to two different banks, trying to withdraw $6,000 from her account. The banks said they didn’t have the cash—she’d have to wait.

Go ahead—try to pull out anything more than $5K in one swoop and see what happens. You may find yourself filling out a form and waiting two weeks. This happens. In America. Banks can refuse to give you your money. And they’re going to ask why you want it.

This all feeds into the phobia people have about carrying cash. They think it’s something only gangsters and drug dealers do. Not true!

I try to minimize my bank hassles by pulling out cash in smaller increments—$3,000 at a time. And I am neither a gangster nor a drug dealer. I simply want to be prepared for emergencies. End of story.

• Think about it in terms of a natural disaster…

I live in South Carolina, and we get hurricanes all the time. I can easily imagine a scenario where a hurricane knocks out the power for an extended period, while knocking a tree onto our roof. So, I go to hire a guy to get the tree off our roof. But the bank is closed, and the ATMs are down. The roof guy won’t take a check, he won’t take Venmo, and he won’t send me a bill the following week.

This guy wants cash, today, or he’s not touching the tree on my roof. That is why I keep cash on hand.

Same story with a tornado, earthquake, etc. At some point, you may find yourself in a situation where the only solution is cold, hard cash.

• I know people who never pull out more than $40 from the ATM.

And they do it over, and over, and over again. That is nuts. What good is $40? What happens when you go to the ATM, and it doesn’t work? You can’t even fill up your gas tank with $40.

I pull out $600 every time I go to the ATM. Because there is something very comforting about having large amounts of cash. My life is less stressful because I know I’m prepared.

Remember, it takes a minimal amount of effort to store $10K cash at home. And please, do not worry about inflation eating into it. This has nothing to do with inflation. This is your break glass in case of emergency money. You won’t regret having it ready.

Jared Dillian