Most families have a secret stash of cash in their homes that is designated for emergency purposes. However, if your home is like ours, we tend to forget the real reason for the money and are quick to raid it to pay a tip to the pizza man, get some ice cream at DQ, or use it for birthday cards.  Regardless of how you use your stash of cash, it is important that you are keeping it safe and secure in your home and not making it easily available to a would be thief or robber.

The simple solution for securing this bundle of money would be to invest in a safe or vault for your home. For those that would like to consider an alternate solution that would be on the cheaper side, we are sharing with you Frugal Dad’s top seven secret places in your home to hide cash.

Seven Secret Hiding Places for Your Cash

1. In the freezer wrapped in aluminum foil. Save a little styrofoam from the next pack of meat you buy and cut it down to the size of a couple large steaks. Put your cash in a Ziploc bag, stick it between two pieces of the used meat tray and wrap it in aluminum foil. Take a piece of masking tape and write “Scraps - 05/22/2005.” Robbers are not likely to look through the pack, and if they pull back the foil they’ll only see the familiar styrofoam tray and stop.

2. Sandwiched between the cardboard backing of a hard-to-reach picture frame. Most thieves pull back pictures from the wall to see if money is taped to the back, but they aren’t likely to take the time to look behind the glass, the cardboard backing and the picture itself. Use a pen knife to split the cardboard backing into two halves and sandwich the cash in between.

3. Under a piano, entertainment center or anything weighing a couple hundred pounds or more. If you have a hand truck around the house it’s pretty easy to just lift up the corner of a piano and slide an envelope under it. However, a burglar probably won’t be able to lift something this heavy, and would spend his time digging through the drawers or inside of the furniture rather than trying to lift it.

4. Inside a used can of soup. The next time you have soup, open the bottom of the can to empty the contents and the leave the top in tact. Rinse the can thoroughly, then use it to cover your stash of cash hidden inside your pantry. Stack a few cans of soup on top just to make it less convenient for someone to pick it up out of curiosity.

5. Buried in the “soil” of a fake plant. If you have a fake plant, or small tree, in your home, wrap your cash in a Ziploc bag and nest it inside the “soil” of the plant.

6. In hollowed out pages of a book on your book shelf. Using a pen knife or box cutter, carve out a few pages of your least favorite title. Hide your cash inside the book and return it to the book shelf.

7. Inside a kid’s toy hidden in their closet. Kid’s rooms are notoriously messy, and kids are not known for having large sums of money. Take apart an old plastic toy they no longer play with and hide your stash of cash in there. Return the toy to the bottom of the pile of toys in your kids closet, or toy chest, and it should be safe.

At SmartSecurityPeople.com, we don’t necessarily agree with all of these suggestions (kid’s toy.. really?)  but we feel that they are enough to get you thinking about what may work in your home for a hiding place. Also, it should go without saying, but if you are keeping large sums of money around your house you may really want to rethink about taking some of that cash and purchasing a safe or vault. It would prove to be much more beneficial in the long run as opposed to the bottom of a fake plant or under a piano…