Think like a burgler

This caught my eye (H/T: GeekPress):

The Best Place To Hide Money: Conversation With A Burglar

The community that I live in is fairly safe.  Being a rural area, we do not have anywhere the types of crime rates that large urban areas have (heck, even the middle sized suburban ones either).  However, like the rest of us, one does think – "where should I stash my stuff?".  This article brought up what I would call "the Burgler Principles".  The places and techniques that I will now use are….well, unobvious….

I had quite the interesting conversation this weekend with a person who happened to be a former burglar. It was great timing because I was wondering if something like the skid mark underwear for hiding money would really work. I also figured that if you wanted to know the best place to hide your money from a burglar, a former burglar was the person to ask.

I started off simply and was not surprised by the answer to the question “where is the best place to hide your money?”

“At the bank,” he said with a sly grin

When I rephrased and asked where the best place to hide money and valuables in the house would be if you had such items there, I was taken a bit by surprise by his answer:

“It doesn’t matter how clever you think you are or where you hide it in your house, if I have enough time, I would be able to find where you stash your valuables,” he said bluntly. He then explained that what was much more important than the actual place where you hide your valuables is that you understand a burglar’s motivations. Basically, he has two:

1. To steal your money and valuables
2. To get out of the house as quickly as possible with these goods

When you begin to think of it from this perspective, how you should hide your money changes a bit. Obviously, you don’t want to leave all your money in the places where the burglar will first look: dresser drawers, drawers by phones, desks, closets, a safe (if not bolted down), boxes, jewelry boxes, purse, etc.). That being said, you also don’t want to hide all of your money too well for the following reason:

“If I can’t find money and valuables in the normal places I usually find them, I would continue to tear the house apart until I found something. Remember, the first rule is to to steal money and valuables. We’ll keep looking until we find something.”

Go read the whole story.  Now what has to be asked is "how much should one be willing to lose outright to keep from other stuff being broken or taken to make it worth it."