Money under the Bed

One day I was at work at one of the many retail jobs I had while I was in college. It was just me and my boss that was working that night. It was slow so my boss and I started shooting the breeze about a number of different topics, one of them being finance. I started to get into the conversation being a finance major and all. My boss starting talking about her distrust of banks and that she put money from every paycheck she had in a box under her bed. You can start to see where the conversation was headed. The crazy thing is there are alot more people like her then you might think. Maybe they don't stuff there money in some box under there bed, but many Americans don't invest any of there money. Let's get back to the money under the bed thing. Let's say my old boss forgot all about that box. It's been five years. One day she is cleaning to find that box. She get's all excited thinking she hit the jackpot. She finds there is $500. Not to bad. But here's a question? Do you think that money is worth more then it was five years earlier? I rest my case. Because of something called "inflation" those $500 are worth less then what they were five years ago giving her less purchasing power. But if that money was put in some sort of investment i.e. CD's, stocks, bonds, then that money would have kept up with inflation. Investing your money can go a long away, especially if your looking to purchase a home. So next time you get that paycheck, put some of it in an investment and not in some old shoebox.