Editor’s Note: Liz Claman joined FOX Business Network as an anchor in October 2007 following stints at NBC in Boston, ABC in Cleveland and, most recently, CNBC in New York. The Emmy Award winner co-anchors the Fox Business block with David Asman, Fox Business Bulls & Bears, and hosts Countdown to the Closing Bell from 3-4 PM. Click here to learn more about Liz on Foxbusiness.com and click here to learn more about her on wowOwow.com. 

For someone who talks about the stock market and high finance all day long, you’d think I’d be smarter with my own money. On a recent morning, a very nice teller at a Citibank branch in the Bronx basically told me I’m being an idiot with my cash. 

Granted she was much nicer than that, but her message was clear: "You are not doing the right thing with your money." Moi???

Now, it is hugely embarrassing to even admit this incident occurred. I’m an Emmy Award-winning journalist. Since October of 2007, I’ve anchored a three-hour block of financial news every day on Fox Business Network, and before that, I anchored financial television at CNBC for nine years. I can maneuver the floors of the New York Stock Exchange blindfolded, I can go head-to-head with screaming traders in the oil pits at the world’s largest commodities trading floor down at the New York Mercantile Exchange and I grill CEOs of the world’s biggest companies on a daily basis. I once had the CEO of a Dow 30 company ask ME to explain "fair value" to HIM. Hello!?

But with my own little nest egg, what was I thinking?

Here’s what happened: I had just dropped off my daughter at her school in Riverdale, NY, and headed toward Manhattan via Broadway. I stopped at the bank branch to deposit some checks and to take out my usual weekly allotment of cash. I’m always paranoid that something will go wrong with the ATM machine when I’m depositing checks so I always wait in line for the “human touch” teller. The one who helped me this day was a sweetheart — until she saw how much cash I have spread over three basic checking accounts. She gave a disapproving look at her computer screen and then said with a tone worthy of an annoyed sixth-grade teacher who’s just seen a bunch of spelling mistakes on a straight-A student’s homework, “Why do you have so much cash in here?” So I’m thinking, "This is a good thing to have cash, no?" I began to stammer. “Well, I … right. I, I guess I was worried about bank failures back in September so I took my money and spread it out over FDIC- insured accounts just in case something failed.” Then I sort of trailed off, looked down and kicked at my Nike shoelaces.

“But you could put it in a money-market account that has a higher interest rate,” she said with a very kind voice.

“Yeah, so, OK, what should I do?” I replied sheepishly.

As she kindly began to explain a few options, I realized she was pointing out something I already knew: Fear had prevented me from making smarter decisions with my hard-earned cash. 

I’ve been working since I was 14. Back then, growing up in Los Angeles, I begged my mom to drive me around to clothing stores to ask if I could apply as a stock girl. To me, the concept of having a job was so glamorous. Of course, every boutique in Beverly Hills — from "Bis and Beau" to "Boulmiche" to "McKeen Jeans" to "Camp Beverly Hills" — turned me down, saying I was too young. I finally landed a part-time job developing film at Foto-Speed, a one-hour photo store. I thought I was Princess Diana when they hired me. I was WORKING, making money and contributing. Could anything be cooler?

I never stopped working after that. Through college I folded sweatshirts at the Gap in Berkeley for minimum wage, spent a summer at Camp Beverly Hills (it was a clothing store, so again with the folding) and finally, during my junior year at Cal, I got a summer internship at KCBS-TV in L.A. as a news researcher. Whatever money I made, I spent or saved in a basic checking account. By the time I got my first on-air job as a reporter at WSYX in Columbus, OH, a nagging feeling told me I should be *investing*, whatever the hell THAT meant. I called my dad and said, “Should I be putting this money somewhere?”