You call no one. You buy a safe of your own. You start buying your groceries in two transactions, one with your card like always, the other in cash. Every other time you fill your gas tank you use a little of the cash. Clothes are all cash till that safe is empty. Buy all your gifts from the farmer’s markets or other “street walk” events. Who cares if it’s more than you normally spend, the point is that officially, you bought no gifts. Cash anytime you go out to eat.
Get what you can from Facebook marketplace or Craigslist, but never anything that would mean title or registration. Those all need to come with deductions from bank accounts you can point to. The point is that by “cutting” a bunch of explainable expenses, you can eventually save up for the big spend item and buy that officially.
so what you mean is when i hit the grocery store i should buy half of the things with cash and the other half with card? wouldn't that be more suspicious than just buying it all with cash this time and next time i use card and so on?
You'd definitely have to declare it to the IRS minimum.
But yeah, a national news story? You're just asking for someone to 'find' proof it's theirs; if not inviting a mugging/robbery.