When Carlos Felipe decided to shop for the ultimate night’s sleep, he headed to the New Jersey showroom of Hollandia, an Israeli manufacturer that creates custom beds running as much as $35,000. And sure enough, Felipe, a sales representative, found plenty of appealing features and options, from the adjustable bed frame powered by German-made motors to the hypoallergenic, antimicrobial latex mattress (the cover is “treated with aloe vera for a soft feel,” Hollandia boasts). But the accessory that most caught Felipe’s eye was designed to help him rest easy in a different way. It was a small safe, good for holding a few valuables or gold coins, ingeniously built into the base of a bed — a modern-day answer to the idea of stashing your savings under a mattress. A duly impressed Felipe plans on using it to store his wife’s jewelry and some extra cash: After all, he asks, what thief would look for such valuables in the frame of the bed itself?

What’s interesting to me in this article is that it expresses the disdain of investment planners who feel that sticking your stack of Franklins in the safe is foolish since they earn absolutely nothing by being warehoused in your spare bedroom. This is true. However, it is also true that with simple savings accounts returning less than 1%, you actually lose money faster in a bank account once you add in bank fees. Of course, simple passbook savings are hardly investment vehicles…if you compare your cash in the safe versus, say, Ruger (RGR) stock or other dividend-producing investments then, yeah, you’re losing out.

But, if we assume a playing field where we’re not investing, we’re just storing…..well, safe beats bank like Ike beats Tina.

I also like statement about how if you take the money out of your safe and it gets stolen, you’re not covered by the FDIC. Hey, if I take money out of the bank and it’s stolen it isn’t covered either. ANd, yeah, if someone wraps a cable around the safe, drags it out the window, and gets it in the back of their truck, I’m screwed…at least, until the homeowners pays off…which, I’ll bet, will take just as long as the precious FDIC will take to do their payout. (Seriously, you think if your bank fails Friday you have a check Monday morning?)

Of course, the real reason we have a safe is for keeping the spendy guns outta the wrong hands, keeping emergency cash on hand, and keeping the metals and important documents safe. I think everyone should have a safe…preferably two. One big one for the guns and a smaller, hideaway one for the gold and papers. Someone breaks into the house, they figure the big safe is the only one in the house…why would they tear the place apart looking for another one when they’ve already got one as big as a refrigerator in front of them to deal with?

Anyway…interesting article. Obviously, like every other consumer product, there’s no shortafe of deluxe options to spend on, but we got a very nice, secure gun safe for about $750 eight years ago and have been very pleased with it.