Enough cash to pay for essentials for at least a month. Also useful if there’s a disaster and you need to run, and the credit systems are down. We’ve been in ice storms where all the antennas for credit/debit card verification were down, but I could still buy milk, diapers and wipes with a $20.
At least one other financial institution like a credit union from which you can pay bills, withdraw cash, even if the main one you work with is breached or frozen your account. We had to rely on this when Bank of America saw several online bill pays and transactions I did in one sit down session as suspicious and froze everything - not even fraud, but now locked out until they were happy we proved that it wasn’t.
Several weeks of food and water in case services are disrupted, whether hack attack or major snowstorm.
All of the account and financial information printed off in a secure place, so that you find yourself unable to access anything on a second computer in case the first is hit by malware or ransomware.
Check all accounts at least weekly for anything unusual, usually reconcile after every update for purchases/sales.
Don’t bother with Lifelock or credit monitoring, they take too long to find anything compared to my vigilance. I’ve reported suspicious stuff the day it was pending and had to wait for the bank to open to talk to someone to deal with it.
Enough cash to pay for essentials for at least a month. Also useful if there’s a disaster and you need to run, and the credit systems are down. We’ve been in ice storms where all the antennas for credit/debit card verification were down, but I could still buy milk, diapers and wipes with a $20.
LifeLock is good if you don’t have the time for vigilance...I have applied for credit cards in a store and before I got home, they were notifying me/calling me. They help with identity theft too. However, if a total grid meltdown, then won’t matter...