When I was growing up, my grandmother often told me that my great grandmother left me gold necklaces, which she has been safeguarding in the bank safety deposit on my behalf, and will one day pass it to me, “when” I get married.
Over the years, she mentioned it, probably once a year, that there’s this gold necklace, and the value must have increased now considering… and that it is kind of heavy, so it must worth quite a bit now.
I often quietly listen and honestly don't care much. I don’t care whether I got the necklace or not, I don’t care if my grandma decided to give one of the necklaces to my sister when she got married. I don’t care if that “One Day” never arrived.
More than 20 years passed since I knew of the existence of said necklaces, and grandma casually brought it up again one day. “Let’s take it out this Chinese New Year, then maybe I could wear it for once,” I said. Grandma cringed a little: "But it is in the bank safety deposit, it’s troublesome to take it out just to wear it."
“Grandma, I heard about this phantom necklace for years, and I have never even seen it. It makes no difference to me if you keep a roll of toilet paper inside the safety deposit. At this rate, the only party that benefits from this is the bank that charges you annually for the service, probably worth the same amount as the necklace by now, if not more.”
So a few months later, grandma surprised me with the necklace, I wore it in the safety of my own room, took some pictures, and returned it back to her. It is not even as thick as I imagined it to be.
The moral of the story is that: The value of money is where you place it. Placing it in a fixed deposit account, create an illusion that your money is safe with a slight appreciation, without realizing that you actually lose out to inflation, for example.
Talk to your financial therapist, find the best place to "park" your money.