What cash and savings instruments actually are, how their modest returns are made, how they're priced, evaluating a specific account or instrument, its risks, costs and taxes, and where cash fits in a portfolio.
The lowest-risk, lowest-return end of the spectrum
Lessons
A deposit is a loan you made to a bank — Money in a savings account is not money you are holding. It is a debt the bank owes you, and what makes it safe is a government guarantee with a limit - not a property of money itself. (9 min)
Interest, and a rate somebody else can change — The whole return is a rate applied to a balance. What makes it unlike every other asset class is that the rate is set by the institution, can be changed at will, and you have agreed to that in advance. (10 min)
The spread between the policy rate and what you are offered — There is no market price here. The price is the gap between what the central bank sets and what the institution passes on - and that gap widens and narrows in a pattern that is not symmetric. (11 min)
The nominal safety that loses money anyway — The balance cannot fall, and that is exactly why the real risk in this class is invisible. Inflation reduces what the money buys, and the tax is levied on the nominal interest rather than on what you actually gained. (13 min)
Certainty on a date, and the ability to act — Cash does two jobs no other holding can do: it will be there in full on a known date, and it lets you act without having to sell something first. It pays for both by losing purchasing power, reliably. (8 min)