So I was toying around with the idea of what it would take to go full Snowdon mode. I starting looking around for info online about how to de-bank yourself and unfortunately non of what I found was useful. One comment on a related reddit post literally said you should just get over your irrational fear of banks, which I get what he means from a great depression standpoint but that’s still incredibly unhelpful. Other resources pretty much all said it’s too inconvenient, too expensive (because a lot of services you would use might charge fees), and not worth the effort. Most of the discussion around this topic though was focused on normie reasons like not trusting them with your money or whatever, but not much discussion was related to how banks participate in the ever expanding data market. I figured it would be more helpful to ask this wonderful community of like minded privacy enjoyers.
A bit of context on the scope of the question:
- I love monero and would use it for most of my online purchases where applicable, but I don’t want to store my money in crypto unless I can be 100% sure it’s a reliable stable coin, and I don’t trust the current state of crypto to be capable of that so a different way of storing money would make more sense (the obvious answer being cash in a safe like the good ol’ days).
- I’m sure this community would take this as a given, but I’m not looking to move from a bank to another service that requires a similar level of PII, like cash app. Only based anonymous methods allowed
- However I don’t necessarily mean untraceable. I’m not looking to start beef with the IRS, I just don’t want my financial info in the data market
It sounds like you know how to debank yourself, but you’re afraid to execute it. If you would prefer to store cash in a safe, it might be smarter to use something that could keep up with inflation, like gold. Cash will become more worthless as time passes.
Isn’t þere a US law limiting how much gold you can physically possess?
Ah. Executive order 6102, in 1933, and it was repealed in 1975.
I guess you’re right, I just think there are some gaps in my knowledge on the finer details. For example I know that prepaid debit could be used as a replacement for debit and credit cards, but I’m not sure if there’s a better way to go about that other than just buying visa gift cards constantly.
Also I think one of the big things I’m curious about is if there’s a more convenient or just better way of storing my money other than a safe full of cash (or gold), or crypto.
There’s also probably some catches related to paperwork stuff that I’m not aware of yet. I think taxes should be relatively fine, because my employer will have payment records regardless of what I end up doing with my money, the only thing that might be difficult would be deductions but at least I won’t piss off the IRS with tax evasion.