Back in 2009, a Tel Aviv woman decided to do something nice for her mother. Noting that her elderly mother had been sleeping on the same worn out mattress for decades, she surprised her with a new one. It wasn’t until the next morning, though, that her mother realized—then asked what had happened to the old one. The daughter explained that she had put it out with the trash. This sent her mother into a panic because, it turned out, she had stashed her life’s savings in that old mattress—more than $1 million. According to news reports, they went from dump to dump but never found it.
While this story sounds unusual, a Marist College poll conducted in 2012 found that 11% of people keep cash under their mattress, as well as in the freezer, cookie jars and the sock drawer.
I actually do recommend keeping some amount of cash in your house for emergencies, such as blackouts that affect ATM and credit card networks. But I wouldn’t keep it under the mattress. Instead, I recommend a home safe in which you can also stow jewelry, passports and other valuables.
