Here’s a new one to share in education and enrollment meetings—invest in a 401(k) or have your savings eaten by insects.
We’ve all heard the term “eating away at returns,” but this is ridiculous. A pensioner in China didn’t trust his local bank to look after his life savings, so he buried it under his house—only for most of it to be eaten by worms and insects.
According to Yahoo! News, Wu Chen, 67, “stashed the cash in a carrier bag five years ago, feeling sure it would be safe. When he recently came to make a withdrawal he found that insects had been feasting on his funds and there wasn’t a lot left.”
Chen, a fisherman in Deyang, in south-west China’s Sichuan Province, stashed about 35,000 RMB (roughly $5,500) in a plastic bag and placed it in a hole.
“It was my pension fund payment and all of the savings I’ve had from working as a fisherman all my life,” he reportedly said.
Sadly, the website reports that the bag proved to be biodegradable and fell apart, allowing the elements in. He told local media he was horrified when he dug up the dosh to find that most of it was rotten.
However, there’s a happy ending. His local bank—which ironically he didn’t trust to hold his savings in the first place—agreed to swap the notes that were still in good enough condition for fresh ones.
In total, the bank was able to salvage around 20,000 RMB (roughly $3,000), although the rest “was beyond help.”