The €200 in your drawer is the most useful money you have
Card systems fail more often than people think. A small amount of physical cash, the right denominations, in the right place — and a quiet conversation with your household about why.
The boring failure mode
Card networks fail more often than blackouts. The 2024 Visa Europe partial outage took out a meaningful share of point-of-sale transactions for several hours. The 2023 IBAN-system issue in the Nordics meant ATMs in three countries refused withdrawals for most of a Friday afternoon. Neither was a "disaster." Both meant households who relied entirely on cards couldn't buy bread, fuel, or a train ticket home.
European Central Bank's 2023 review explicitly recommends households keep "a small reserve in cash, accessible without going to a bank." That's it. That's the whole brief.
The amount, the mix, the place
- The amount: roughly one week of essential household spending — €150–€300 for most. More if you have specific medical or transport costs. Not a bug-out fortune. Enough to bridge a card outage and the awkward gap between paychecks during a slow event.
- The mix: mostly €10s and €20s. €50 notes are sometimes refused in informal sales during disruption; €5s for parking, vending, small purchases. A handful of €1 and €2 coins. No €500s — they don't exist anymore and look suspicious.
- The place: somewhere that is not your wallet and not a desk drawer. Inside a book, behind a picture frame, in a sealed envelope in a kitchen cupboard. Tell exactly one other household member where it is.
The conversation that matters more than the money
The cash itself is small protection. The conversation it forces — "what would we do if both our cards were down for 48 hours?" — is the actual preparedness. Most households have never had it. Two minutes around the kitchen table changes that.
One thing this week: put €200 somewhere you would forget about, and tell one person where.
— Systems Fail Lab