Keeping your emergency fund at home is not the best way to treat your money. Here’s why you shouldn’t keep your money at home and choose a bank instead.
An emergency fund is a substantial amount of cash that you keep aside for rainy days. This fund is built over a period of time and financial experts say that it should be enough to pay for your expenses for six months.
Your six months’ worth of expenses is a tidy sum. And, most people keep this money stashed at home for easy and immediate access. Keeping a portion of your emergency fund at home is alright, but keeping the entire amount within the four walls of your home might not be the best option.
If you are still doubtful, we’ll tell you all the cons of keeping your entire emergency fund at home. You might reconsider a bank after reading this article:
Let’s begin…
Additional Reading: 7 Important Questions To Ask Yourself Before Dipping Into Your Emergency Fund
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Under-the-mattress. Seriously?
Who hides money under mattresses anymore? If you do, know that you’re losing valuable money in the form of interest. Moreover, keeping money under your mattress might make it a little uneven and give you a sore back.
So keep the mattress just for comfort and not storage. Use a bank instead to keep your money safely.
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Don’t look at the shopping bags
We all store shopping bags for they always come handy at some point or another. And if the shopping bags are fancy, we store them away even more neatly and nicely. You might not believe this, but a lot of people hide things in shopping bags including their emergency fund kitty. Shopping bags are not the most obvious place to look for money, but they are far from being the brightest place to hide your money.
What if you hand over the bag with money in it to your teenager kid to fetch groceries from the market? Both are not coming back for at least six months.
Nobody can run away with your bank account though!
Additional Reading: Tips To Handle An Emergency That Costs More Than Your Emergency Fund
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Oh, the old wallet and purses nobody ever uses
These, again, are not a good place to hide your emergency fund because you just might forget where you’ve kept the money. Old wallets and purses often get lost in storage spaces meant for discarded stuff and you not only stand the chance of losing your old wallet but also your money. Moreover, anything old gets attacked by insects who won’t see your wallet and money differently.
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Are you seriously saying – laundry basket?
Why would you hide your money in a laundry basket unless it’s ‘dirty money’? Ok, that was lame! But so is hiding your money in a laundry basket. One day, you’ll not only wash your clothes clean but also wash your hands off your hard-earned money. So, ditch the idea of a laundry basket, no matter how pretty it looks, right now!
Additional Reading: An Emergency Fund To Rescue Your Investments
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Using old photo frames as your secret hiding place
This one is a classic! Dismantling a photo frame just to find some stash hidden behind the picture. This sounds neat but all unscrupulous family members know this trick. And it’s them you have to think about when scouting for a place for your money.
Psst… it’s not easy to dismantle a bank account. Park your emergency fund in your bank account and keep your Debit Card PIN a secret.
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In your cupboard, under your piles of clothes
This is medieval. You know when somebody is out looking for money, they will turn everything upside down. So when somebody rummages through your neatly stacked piles of clothes, you will get an OCD attack and a heart attack for losing your money. You might have even lost a shirt which the robber probably used to wrap the stolen money in. Hurts!
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In grocery storage boxes
We’ve seen this in movies a little too much. Wads of cash wrapped in plastic, hidden in sugar and flour storage boxes. This idea is just as bad as any of the above.
Additional Reading: How much to save in an emergency fund?
In the end, none of them compare with banks. Banks are a safer option to park your money and you even get interest on it. A better idea is to invest your money in an option which offers easy liquidity. We have one on our mind. It’s called Mutual Funds. Check them out!