Practical Lessons for Your Financial Life (Collection)

You Could Misplace It

How many people lose $20 bills because they put them in a pair of pants and forget about them? They go into a pocket 5 years later and say, “Look at this! I have a $20 bill in here!” Has that ever happened to you? It’s not that hard to lose money. In June 2009, you may have heard the story of the “million-dollar mattress.” An Israeli woman, Annat, bought a new mattress as a surprise gift for her elderly mother. When it was delivered, Annat had the tattered, old mattress hauled away as garbage. The gesture ended up bankrupting her mother, who kept nearly $1 million in the bed for decades. A relentless search of the two major dump sites in Tel Aviv was fruitless. Perhaps the mattress has been found by another ambitious person ...