Common wisdom from the Depression said that it was best to hide money safely inside the home — under the mattress, preferably. Maybe there was a time when that was true. It’s not anymore. For those people who simply don’t feel safe without an emergency stash of cash at home, here’s what they need to know.  

See Our List: 100 Most Influential Money Experts Small Business Spotlight 2022: GOBankingRates Celebrates Small Businesses Across the US

Even in the age of digital everything, it’s not a bad idea to have some cash on hand — but not too much. As MoneyTalkNews points out, stashing physical paper cash around the house is literally the least productive and least secure way to store your money. Keep only what you reasonably believe you’d need to get through an emergency because whatever you have in the house is:

Losing money to inflation: If you had stashed $1,000 inside your false book or wherever in 2016, it would have lost 23.4% of its buying power by now — that’s $234 less than the amount you hid six years ago.

Not earning bank interest or stock market gains

Not FDIC insured: If it gets lost, destroyed or stolen, it’s like it never existed — and lost, destroyed and stolen are not hypotheticals.

Take Our Poll: Do You Have an Emergency Fund Established?

Your house is one big collection of hiding places. Sites like Family Handyman love to publish lists of secret spots that would keep even the savviest of thieves guessing for eternity. They include:

Rolling money up and stuffing it inside the metal cylinder your toilet paper goes on

Taping an envelope of cash to the hidden back end of a drawer

Removing an air-return grille and hiding your cash inside the vent

Best of all, removing a tread from your staircase and reattaching it with piano hinges to make a secret box 

Clever hiding places are a great place to start, but theft is only one of the ways your cash stash can disappear. There are 353,100 house fires in the U.S. every year, according to the National Fire Protection Association, and millions of homes are at risk of being flooded every year. Neither your toilet paper, your drawers, your air vents or your staircase are any match for fire or water.

There are far too many types and styles of safes to cover here — combination safes, biometric safes, digital, mechanical, wall safes, floor safes, diversion safes and the list goes on. Generally speaking, safes are designed specifically to repel fire or human prying. Their ability to do each is measured by a series of rating systems.

TL-15 and TL-30, for example, mean that a safe can repel skilled engineers who understand the inner workings of the safe and have common safecracking tools for either 15 or 30 minutes, according to DeanSafe. Fire ratings measure the amount of time that a safe can tolerate 1,500-degree temperatures. Some safes are also waterproof. They’re rated for how long they can remain fully submerged in water.

You can buy multipurpose safes that score high ratings for burglar, water and fire protection in one, but they can easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Good burglar safes are the most expensive. Instead, consider investing in a simple lockbox that rates well for both water and fire protection — SentrySafe sells them starting at $50. Then just hide that in your piano-hinged fake staircase spot or wherever. This lets you thwart burglars without springing for a pricey burglar safe while still guarding against flood and fire emergencies — which is exactly when you’re most likely to need your cash the most.

9 Bills You Should Never Put on Autopay

Get Ready for Retirement Now With Expert Tips for Every Stage of Life

Should You Still Buy a Home in Today's Market?

10 Things to Do Now If Your Credit Score Is Under 700

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Where Is the Safest Place To Stash Your Extra Cash?

The Oracle of Omaha knows how to beat inflation. So ride his coattails.

Michael Burry’s fame spread far and wide after his exploits were documented in the Big Short – the book - and later the movie - that told the story of Burry’s success in betting against the housing market during the financial crisis of 2008. That was a move that turned out to be a hugely profitable one. Burry went short then and hasn’t been shy in issuing repeated warnings on the current state of the market, either. In addition to some recent enigmatic tweets that hint at looming disaster, Burry

The chairman of the Board of Directors of the second largest Swiss bank is under investigation by the Swiss authorities.

Super rich people may avoid paying more than $160 billion in taxes every year, the Treasury says. Here are some strategies they use to do that.

Inflation, interest rates, and recession – these are the bogeymen of investing, and they’ve been watching over our shoulders for the past year. We all know the story by now, the rate of inflation, at 6.4%, is still high, the Federal Reserve is hiking rates in an attempt to push back against high prices, and that could tip the economy into recession. At a time like this, investors are showing a growing interest in finding strong defensive portfolio moves. It’s a mindset that naturally turns us to

We are entering into what could be a prolonged battle over the future of Social Security and Medicare.

The largest electric-vehicle battery maker in the world, CATL, will offer a unique pricing structure for its product. The deal spooked lithium investors.

It's a tech-astrophe out there. But you have options.

Once you have $1 million in assets, you can look seriously at living entirely off the returns of a portfolio. After all, the S&P 500 alone averages 10% returns per year. Setting aside taxes and down-year investment portfolio management, a … Continue reading → The post How Much Interest Can You Earn on $1 million? appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Ltd. plummeted the most on record in Sydney after the pizza chain operator said its first-half earnings fell as customers spurned price increases meant to offset inflationary pressures.Most Read from BloombergHow Much Do Investors Say They Need to Retire? At Least $3 MillionMcKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2,000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of CutsRussia’s War on Ukraine, China’s Rise Expose US Military FailingsWorld’s Largest Four-Day Wo

Transocean (RIG) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of -157.89% and 0.56%, respectively, for the quarter ended December 2022. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?

Stocks moving in after hours: Coinbase, Palo Alto Networks, Caesars, Toll Brothers

“With consumption and inflation reheating, risks of a hard landing resembling a boom/bust are growing,” Lisa Shalett, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s CIO, warns.

Stocks fell hard again with the S&P 500 tumbling toward its 50-day line as Treasury yields keep rising. Palo Alto Networks and Coinbase reported after hours. Nvidia earnings loom.

‘My worry is that if my debit card ever gets stolen and there are fraudulent charges, that money comes directly out of my checking account.’

Morningstar says two factors can indicate stocks with safe dividends: economic moats and distance-to-default scores.

Lower production is likely to have affected Pioneer Natural's (PXD) earnings in Q4.

The world's second-biggest miner by market value on Wednesday said it made a net profit of $12.42 billion last year, down from $21.09 billion in 2021.

The mortgage rate meltdown from the end of 2022 is showing up in home prices. Among the 50 largest metro areas, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose saw the biggest drops in home values year-over-year, followed by Austin and Seattle. San Francisco saw home value appreciation fall by 4.9% as compared to the previous year.

AbCellera Biologics Inc. (ABCL) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of -1,100% and 62.63%, respectively, for the quarter ended December 2022. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?