Be Ready

Potential electricity outages have been all over the news lately. These have really been bizarre times. With everything that’s been happening around the world, I’ve been trying to learn and find tips and ways that could potentially protect my family and me.

Would I be ready if something like this happened to my bank?

Someone wrote to Financial Prepper about a recent experience they had with their bank. I cannot speak to the validity of this story, however, I felt it could be a good tip to potentially mitigate any more frustrations if problems should arise.

They said their bank recently suffered an outage that also affected the software this bank used. They said when the software came back online, the bank asked them to verify the amounts they should have in their accounts. For many of us, I can see this being a problem as we rely heavily on everything being electronic. Many do not get paper statements from their banks anymore, and several I know do not balance their checkbooks regularly to ensure what they have is correct, so trying to prove the dollar amounts that should be in their accounts could be difficult.

Financial Prepper suggests keeping updated documents of the current balance in your accounts, such as a printout or even a screenshot. Balances can change daily, but if you do this at least weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly (depending on the account), it could help give you a starting point to help prove what the amounts should be in your accounts. I suggest printing this off and keeping it in a safe spot and then replacing it when you print off an updated copy. Hopefully, this is something that will never be needed, but it could help if something unforeseen happened to your bank.

All we can do is try the best we can.

I highly recommend checking out Financial Prepper and this episode if you would like to learn more about this story and/or any other great information they have to offer.

Please let me know what you think, and if you have any other information or tips that could be beneficial. Also, check out my Lessons of 2020 page for more information on how to protect yourself and your finances, and how to become more self-sufficient.