Theres a big difference between &quot;savings&quot; and &quot;cash in a savings account.&quot;<p>Given the current interest rate situation theres essentially no difference between money in a checking account and money in a savings account, other than that the checking account likely has a debit card of some sort directly linked to it. Both are likely earning near 0% or so close to 0% it makes no difference. Not that long ago CDs were paying &gt;5% so it made sense to put cash into such instruments. Right now a CD is essentially pointless.<p>I would agree, though, that too many people have far too little cash on hand (regardless of where its stored). I often see people that live in a million dollar home but don&#x27;t have enough cash in their bank account to pay the cable bill. These so called &quot;asset rich cash poor&quot; people are playing with fire since it&#x27;s often that they banked too much on the appreciation of those assets to justify the situation they&#x27;ve put themselves in.<p>People should maintain a healthy chunk of readily accessible liquid assets which could include non-retirement non-speculative investments and some good old hard cash too.