Until now, it seems like only governments and businesses have been worried.
But as the clock runs down on 1999, the threat of a Y2K computer meltdown -- whether real or imagined -- is beginning to goad the common people into action.
Naturally, it's their pocketbook that they're thinking of first.
According to a Reuters poll, nearly three in five Americans are planning to hold extra cash over the New Year in case the Y2K bug causes their banks' computers to crash, denying them access to their ATM machines.
Of this number, which represents about 65 million households, one in five thinks it would be prudent to have a month's income -- or more -- squirreled away, just to be safe.
The results of the Reuters poll, however, conflicts with another survey undertaken by US financial regulators and published Thursday. In that one, the number of bank customers who say they plan to pull money out prior to 1 January has actually dropped since March, from 62 percent to 39 percent.
It was more like 59 percent in the Reuters poll, which was conducted for the news service by Zogby International using a random telephone sampling of 1,006 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percent, Reuters said.
Americans aren't the only ones concerned about money, come Y2K Armageddon.
The Swiss National Bank has shipped out 60 billion Swiss francs (US$39 billion) to banks across the country to cope with a possible surge in the demand for cash.
That amounts to about 20 times the usual cash demand in Switzerland around the holidays and is roughly double the overall volume of bank notes in circulation, a bank spokesman said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
