Tel Aviv Woman Mistakenly Trashes $1 Million Mattress -- Where Should You Put Your Money?

Talk about a case of regretting doing something nice for somebody. An Israeli woman in Tel Aviv, known simply as Anat (not her real name) only wanted to do something nice by buying her elderly mum a new mattress. Little did she know that her mum, after a bad experience with a bank, was saving their $1M fortune inside the mattress.

JERUSALEM - An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress with $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites, Israeli media reported Wednesday. The woman told Army Radio that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise on Monday and threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside. She was identified only as Anat, a resident of Tel Aviv. When she went to look for the mattress it had already been taken by garbage men, she said. Subsequent searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing. Continue reading on MSNBC

My first thought was wow that is royally bad luck. Then I wondered how come nobody knew they had that huge of a fortune. And then I attempted to imagine what the interest would have been like if she had left it in a bank. Banks are really nobody's friend but we can all agree that a mattress isn't the best place for your life's savings. There are so many reasons to factor in:

Theft - Saving it in your mattress is quite common and if I were a thief I'd look therern Loss - Why sleep on it when you could be raking in the interestrn Value - The value of cash goes down everyday due to inflationrn Accidents - Your daughter might accidently throw away the mattress

So where should you put your money? I consider myself to be a pretty financial responsible 24 year old, but I'll leave the advice to the experts: 1.) Ten Tips on Where to Put Your Money NOW by Peter Passell 2.) Where to Put Your Money Now by AOL Money & Finance 3.) Investing for Beginners : Personal Finance by Divine Caroline 4.) How to Pick the Right Mutual Funds by Mint.com 5.) Why and How to Buy a Mutual Fund by Mint.com Happy saving, investing and money making.