 Now, if I offered you this piece of paper, would you take it? Probably you would. Well, what if I offered you this piece of paper? Would you take this one? Well, probably not. So what's the difference? Why would you take this one, but not this one? So in other words, what makes something money? Actually, anything can serve as money if it can be used in three special ways. The first use of money is that it can be used to buy something. We say that it can be used as a medium of exchange. People will take it in exchange for something else. The second use of money is that it stores value. This $1 bill is worth, or quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, or 100 pennies. Now, what if I put this dollar in my wallet for a month? What would it be worth when I took it out? That's right. It's still worth for quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, or 100 pennies. Even a month from now, I can still use it to buy something that is worth $1. That brings me to the third special use of money. It serves as what we call a unit of value. This means that we can compare the value of things. Let me show you what I mean. Look at this jacket. It has a $100 price tag on it. See how you can compare the value of these two jackets? OK. For something to be used as money, it has to be accepted as a medium of exchange. It has to store value, and it has to have a unit of value. We accept this as money, because it can be used in all three ways. And there are more fun facts about what makes money money. So watch for more segments of Mary's Money Moments. I'm Mary Rittenhouse of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Remember, you should learn about money, because it doesn't come with instructions.