No doubt the economic times are as bad as almost anyone alive has ever seen them right now. Pessimism is growing among Americans as well as citizens across about the state of the American and the Global economies. In recent weeks there has been much more talk of turning back toward the Great Depression norm of stashing cash under the mattress because it is the safest place for it. The reality is, even though the economic picture looks terrible putting your hard earned cash under the mattress isn’t the great idea it may seem to you at first.

During the Great Depression many people put cash under their mattress because there were no guarantees in our financial system. There was no FDIC guarantee of up to $250,000 per institution as there is now. In the depressionary period of the early 1930′s if your bank went under, you were out of luck, which left a whole lot of people hurting severely. You can’t blame folks during that time period for putting their cash under the mattress, but today’s period isn’t the same. In fact, most experts believe putting cash underneath the mattress has now become one of the least safe places for your cash since many robbers target this area right away.

Today if you are putting cash under the mattress you are losing out on an opportunity cost basis based on the fact that you could be getting some kind of return for your money from simple very safe things such as Certificates of Deposit, Treasury Bonds, or Money Market Accounts. While the interest earned may not seem terribly impressive at first, it adds up over time, and in a tough economic environment every little bit that you can save up is extremely important over the long run. Keeping your money safe is tantamount, which is exactly why now is not the time to just stash the cash under the mattress.

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