Storing your savings--with the Wall Street woes, everyone is looking for the safest and smartest way to protect their money. But one option many are exercising could be doing more damage.

As the country watches the Dow Jones Industrial average plummet, the NASDAQ drop and major investment banks tumble, local banks are starting to see people withdrawing their money.

Financial advisors say that is one of the worst things you can do.

"It's not a good idea," said financial advisor Michael Zabaloaoui. "First off, what do you do with it? Put it in a jar, under mattress? These are techniques I think some people have actually started doing, they want to actually see their cash," he said.

Dr. Janet Speyrer says many people are acting on emotion to what is happening on Wall Street, even though the government raised the FDIC's coverage.

"In other words if you leave your money in the bank and the bank's one of those that doesn't make it you have insurance for your account in that bank, up to $250,000," said Speyrer, an economics expert.

Zabaloaoui says other people do not want to risk having their money tied up for months if their bank fails, so they withdraw it all, thinking they are protecting their nest egg. 

But Speyrer said that not only hurts the economy, it ultimately hurts everyone.

"The more scared people are and the more they might go do that, the larger reserves banks have to keep. What does that mean, it causes the credit crunch to get even more severe," she said.

For those who insist on withdrawing your money, there are some other options: consider a federally insured money market fund, a CD at a financially insured institution, or consider buying treasuries.

But remember, the key here is safety, and not necessarily making money.

"Treasuries are yielding almost nothing because everybody's moving into treasuries. It is considered very safe because the U.S. Government is the lender of last resort and their approach is if things get tight start printing the money off," said Zabaloaoui. "As they do that the debts are made good but they become worth less."

Once the rescue plan is put into effect, a lot of the banking crisis fears should be alleviated, but with no timeline on when it all begins, experts say expect at least another rough couple of months ahead.