A useful BLACKOUT decision starts with what you already have. An empty bag makes exploration cheap. A loaded bag makes the same detour expensive, because arrest puts that whole unbanked haul on the pavement. The next box hasn't changed; the amount you stand to lose has.
This is a familiar tension in games where treasure must be handed in. Sea of Thieves' Sovereigns, for example, act as intermediaries for cashing in treasure. BLACKOUT compresses the journey into short trips between a vault and your getaway car. The road home is part of the cost.
Price the whole errand
Before another crack, count the tasks it commits you to. You must reach the box, finish its interaction, get out of the building, reach a usable banking point and complete the deposit. A box beside your feet still costs time after it opens. Glue, a shove, an arriving car or a blocked approach can make that cost larger.
You don't need to calculate a precise probability in the middle of a night. Ask a more practical question: if one ordinary interruption happens, does this plan still work? If the answer is no, you are relying on a clean sequence while playing a game about people ruining clean sequences.
Three versions of the same box
Consider a worked example, not a replay: you are carrying $12K and see a box worth $2K. If the district is quiet, the car is close and the job has plenty of time, the extra crack may be a reasonable addition. You are risking $12K to collect another $2K, but the route and time support it.
Now keep the money the same and move the police onto the doorway. The box's reward is still $2K. The return trip has become harder, and opening it leaves you standing in place while the district changes. Banking the $12K first becomes much more attractive.
Finally, imagine the next job has been called and your car is about to move. The box now competes with getting to the next district in good time. Even a successful crack can be the wrong choice if it leaves you late, winded and carrying cash with nowhere nearby to bank.
Your bag changes the next decision
After a deposit, you get to reconsider with less exposed cash. That is the practical benefit of frequent banking. It creates points where you can change plans without carrying the consequences of every earlier box.
There are reasons to stay. A useful tool may open a better box, or collecting a missing mark may complete a Full Set. But a possible bonus belongs on the reward side of the decision, not in the banked column. You still have to earn it and get the resulting haul out.
Carrying cash slows your runner as the bag fills. A duffel raises the load threshold used for that slowdown; it doesn't extend the night or stop a patrol. Don't let extra capacity quietly turn into a rule that you must fill it.
Check the district, then check yourself
Watch the meter, the nearest police and the job timing. Then check your own position, stamina and items. A smoke can or disguise may provide options, but an item helps only if you can use it in the situation you actually face. A lockpick is not an escape plan.
Banked money is protected from arrest, although a crowbar trunk theft can remove some Take. That exception doesn't make banking pointless. It means a safer form of money still exists inside a competitive game.
Review the choice, not just the result
Getting away with a desperate extra box doesn't prove the decision was good. Getting shoved during a sensible return doesn't prove the decision was bad. After the run, ask what was visible when you chose: the cash exposed, the remaining route, the warning and the fallback.
For your next night, try one specific rule: once the next job is called, take another box only when you can explain the entire exit. That gives you a habit you can adjust through play, rather than an arbitrary dollar amount to obey.