Money
It's all about the Kerching Kerching!
Emergency cash and money in a crisis: how much cash to keep at home, protecting documents and insurance, and coping when cards fail.
By Slightly Anxious
1st July 2026 7 minute read
IN SHORT
Keep some cash at home, keep your documents safe and check your insurance now. Picture standing outside your home after a flood or fire: could you pay for what comes next?
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Two financial based issue which are often overlooked when it comes to planning for emergencies are money and insurance. Forgetting these is almost forgivable as we are basing our emergency planning on the scenario that we have to isolate in our homes for up to a week, so why do we need money? And we all have insurance don’t we? So we’ll deal with that when and if we have to. Unfortunately, both assumptions are wrong and in this rather short article, for us!, we will explain why.
When we were researching Slightly Anxious, we looked at a number of ‘Prepping’ websites. Their premise is considerably different to ours. We think that whatever the crisis situation we will end up enduring, it will probably be over within a week and society will return to normal pretty quickly. Preppers are planning for civilisation to collapse and a Zombie Apocalypse. Which is why for them having money in a bank makes no sense at all as the banks will be some of the first institutions to collapse when the undead stalk the earth. They recommend that you empty your bank accounts and use what money you have to buy supplies to last decades, build a bunker to survive nuclear annihilation and with what’s left, exchange it into items that will have some worth in the post-apocalypse bartering economy. This means buying lots of batteries, gold and silver coins and of course, ammunition!
Why you need cash at home
Our view is that there is a good chance that if you prepare properly for an emergency, read our articles here about how, you will not need to purchase things during the period of crisis. However, we wouldn’t be preparing for the worst if we only expected the best outcomes for everything. There is a chance that you may have forgotten some things, or you run out or that your circumstances may have changed with say an extra person in your household you hadn’t planned on. It maybe something as trivial as an unexpected birthday that you felt, for the good of household morale, needs celebrating. There is also a good chance that some shops will remain open. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, essential shops were allowed to stay open and sell food, drink, medicines etc. and we have no reason to think that wouldn’t be the case in a number of emergency scenarios.
What we think is equally likely is that in the same way a lot of our emergency planning is based on the belief that the mains electricity will be off, that any shops that are open will also not have power and this will mean that they can’t operate their tills or card machines. Shopkeepers will easily find an alternative to a till – a notepad and pencil will suffice and as an alternative to accepting bank cards, they will just demand cash. And here lies the issue, how many of us carry around cash with us these days?
Money and insurance checklist
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Keep £100-£300 in cash at home, depending on household size
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Store important documents safely, with copies in your Grab Bag
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Check your buildings insurance covers flood, fire and storm
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Check you have alternative accommodation cover, and how much
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Home insurance is often void if the property is empty for 30-90 days
How much to keep
So we recommend that as part of your emergency planning you calculate an emergency cash budget. This can be based on what you spend on a weekly shop or what you think the cost will be of items that you might need, but it’s basically going to be based on what you can afford to store away for an emergency. If you are basing it on a normal shopping cost then you might want to increase it by as much as 50% to accommodate the inevitable price gouging that will go on during a crisis. Our nation of shopkeepers is dedicated to supplying you with goods, if they can, during an emergency and also dedicated to profiteering as much as possible!
As a rough rule of thumb you might want to have £100-£300 dependent on the size of your household. You will want it a variety of denominations with an emphasis on smaller notes and coins. Not having the right change is also a great opportunity for shopkeepers in an emergency! You want to store this away safely. If you read our article, ‘Slightly Anxious says get a Grab Bag’, you will see that we recommend keeping all your important documents (e.g. passport, birth certificate, house deeds) together in one place so they can be easily moved if you have to evacuate and your emergency stash of cash should be part of this. We suggest you consider keeping the money and your important documentation in a fire and water resistant lockable case or safe. The Master Lock Fireproof and Waterproof Safe Box with Key at c.£75-£95, will survive fire or flood long enough for you to find it and grab them. They will not survive an expert burglar but will protect against prying hands.
We should also state that while there is a good chance that shops will not accept bank cards during an emergency, there is some chance that they might or only accept certain cards. Different parts of the chain that links you paying by bank card with a retailer to the actual banks will be affected in different ways according to the type and extent of the emergency. So don’t ignore taking your bank cards with you just in case.
With your emergency fund money safely stored away you will have the security of knowing that given any unexpected need for a purchase, you will have the wherewithal to get what you need.
After the crisis
Now we need to consider what happens after a crisis situation. We hope that if the worst happens, it’s a scenario where boredom is your biggest problem. However, there are instances where the emergency could damage your property. This is most likely with flood, fire or other extreme weather issues. In these situations you may well be forced to leave your property. We discuss this in our articles: ‘Slightly Anxious says get a Grab Bag’ and ‘Slightly Anxious about rising water levels’ and 'Slightly Anxious about approaching flames', that is why recommend keeping your important documents safe and together if you need evacuate at speed. If this happens you will understandably be focussed on the here and now and not too bothered about what happens when the world is getting back to normal. So now is the best time to get prepared.
You need to consider what will happen if you can't get back to normal because a flood or a fire or extra strong winds have caused damage to your property. This is what we discuss in our articles, how you need to have thought about emergency accommodation and dealing with getting your property fixed. What we want to discuss here is a much earlier stage of emergency preparation and that is insurance.
Buildings insurance
Have you got buildings insurance? If you have a mortgage then you will need to have it, if you’re a leaseholder than your property management company or freeholder may provide it, if you rent, this is down to your landlord. Just check and keep the insurance documents safe and make a copy, just in case. You should also check the level of cover. Its there to cover costs even in the absolute worst scenario, where your property needs rebuilding and so it should have sufficient cover for this cost. To calculate how much it would cost to rebuild your home, you simply just use the calculator provided by the Building Cost Information Service at https://abi.bcis.co.uk/
Insurance worth checking
Cover
What it pays for
Buildings
Repairs to the structure after flood, fire or storm
Contents
Your belongings in the home
Alternative accommodation
Somewhere to stay, meals and travel while the home is uninhabitable
Unoccupied property
Cover once the home has been empty for 30-90 days
Personal possessions
Laptops, phones and jewellery you take with you
Legal expenses
Disputes with builders, neighbours, landlords or insurers
Garden
Restoring the garden (try NFU Mutual)
Does your building insurance cover flood, fire and storm damage? Most do, but it is also worth checking. If you live in an area that is prone to flooding then you may have insurance issues. We thoroughly recommend you go to the Flood Re website ( https://www.floodre.co.uk/ and check with them about whether you need specialist advice and possibly extra insurance.
Contents cover
Whether you are a property owner, leaseholder or tenant, you will probably also have contents insurance that will cover you for accidental damage to the items inside your property and this may be sufficient for any damage incurred due to flood, fire or storm, but please do check and if you don’t already have it, get it. This should also include alternative accommodation cover (or additional living expenses - ALE) as standard. This is insurance cover for if the damage has made you home uninhabitable and you need to pay for emergency accommodation, meals and transportation. You need to check you have this and it is of a sufficient level to actually be useful.
This is where having your insurance documents safe and with you is so vitally important. Our wonderful insurance industry survives by not paying out if they don’t have to, however much its marketing may say otherwise. So, it doesn’t matter how deep inside an emergency you can be, you will still need to contact your insurance company as soon as the emergency hits and tell them about the damage and if you have plans for moving elsewhere. You will need their authorisation before you can start spending any money – if you want to get that money back. You should make a record of all damage that your property incurs, take as many photos as possible, even make videos where you show and describe the damage. The more evidence you have the better the chance the insurance company will pay up. In the same vein, you also need to be diligent about keeping every bill and receipt for any emergency related expenses so you have proof for the insurers to reimburse you.
Extra cover worth considering
We also think you need to consider enhancing your insurance provision as while the buildings and contents insurance will cover the basics you could still be left seriously out of pocket. The first contender is Home Emergency Cover which is usually found as a bolt-on to your home insurance or can be a stand alone policy. While buildings insurance covers the structural damage, Home Emergency Cover is there for the immediate work that needs doing to make your home safe directly after the emergency has hit. These are the immediate repairs, such as fixing broken boilers, burst pipes, total electrical failure, or broken windows, which workmen are making call out charges for. This insurance is relatively cheap, but will pay for itself. You may already have it, but if not we strongly recommend it.
Even with your property made safe, it still may not be habitable. You may have Alternative Accommodation Cover as part of home insurance but you need to thoroughly check if you do, as some cheaper policies exclude it. If you do have it, you need to check your level of cover as many policies which include it only do so to cover the initial emergency, so just a few nights. If a fire has destroyed your property or flood waters made it uninhabitable, it may be weeks, if not months before its fixed or even rebuilt. Some policies will also offer what is ‘temporary accommodation’ at best, you need to look for the kind of cover that will allow you live in a standard you’re used to for the amount of time it takes to fix your property and this may need a standalone policy as opposed to what has come bundled with your home insurance.
You should also consider unoccupied house insurance, although you might only need this after an emergency actually strikes, so bear it in mind. Your home insurance is usually voided if you don’t occupy it for 30-90 days dependent on your policy. If you’re house has been badly damaged and you can't live in it, you don’t want its existing insurance being voided due to you not being there. Houses that are unoccupied are at risk of vandalism, fire, burglary, and burst pipes, which can cause far more damage than if the property is lived in.
Other insurance worth considering
Other insurance worthy of consideration:
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Personal possessions cover – this insures things like laptops, phones and jewellery. All stuff that you will hopefully be able to take with you if you are forced to evacuate and will hopefully survive that process. The insurance gives you peace of mind if it doesn’t.
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Legal expenses insurance – emergencies do highlight the failures of others, whether that’s contractors you’ve got in to fix the building, neighbours who may have helped cause damage or may be blaming you for damage or even your landlord or insurance company, they may all need demands from a lawyer and this will pay for it.
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Garden cover – this is rather niche and you will need to hunt around, we suggest looking at NFU Mutual, but if you do have a garden then a flood will ruin it. A fire will see fire engines and fire hoses destroy it and a storm will decimate it. Check the wording of the policy to ensure it covers natural disasters as getting your garden back will be one of the main signs that you have fully recovered from the disaster.
Your to do list is:
1. Set an emergency cash budget and keep it in small notes
2. Put document copies and some cash in a waterproof pouch in your Grab Bag
3. Check your buildings and contents policies for flood, fire and storm
4. Check you have alternative accommodation cover and that it is enough
5. If you are at flood risk, check Flood Re
6. After any damage, photograph and video everything before clearing up
The bottom line
As with all of the Slightly Anxious articles, this is about being prepared and willing to incur a cost on the off chance the worst does happen. Our advice is just to imagine that you are standing outside your property, which has been made uninhabitable due to either a flood, storm or fire. You have fortunately read our articles so you have all your essentials with you in your grab bag. Do you have the finances to pay for everything you will need to live and survive until your property has been fixed and you can move back in? That is why there is insurance and we thoroughly recommend you not only ensure that you have it, but it is comprehensive enough to ensure you survive comfortably.
