Reddit reviews Everyone's Money Book

The notion that accumulating cash has a built in depreciation due to inflation is correct. However, that only matters once you have some wealth accumulated that you need to protect. You are still in the early stages of wealth accumulation. Average inflation is ~3% a year so it isn't much. You lose very little over the short term so it isn't something you need to worry yourself over. Keep saving. You are on the right track!

A $10k goal is a good place to start. Your idea of different accounts to assist you in saving is one that worked for me. I keep local checking and savings accounts for my spending and emergency accounts along with an online savings account through Ally with a higher yield to push my savings to. I pay my bills through my checking and keep enough in the savings account for emergencies and to cover budgeting errors. After everything was paid for each month I moved everything over to the Ally account until I had enough stockpiled there that it was time for me to do something more productive with it.

From there I opened an IRA to start investing for retirement. Eventually I began maxing out my IRA contributions and still had money left so I opened a standard brokerage account and invested the surplus there. This replaced my Ally account as my general savings vehicle. Instead of the ~1% I was getting from Ally(less than inflation) I started to see market gains of varying amounts up to 20%/year. IIRC the S&P500 returns/dividends have averaged ~10.9%/yr over the long term to give you an idea of what you might see. This is where wealth accumulation really begins to take off. Compounding gains is pretty spectacular. The satisfaction of seeing your money make money is motivation to save even more.

Finance isn't confusing once you gain some basic knowledge. Just like wealth this knowledge is accumulated over time. When I was younger a mentor of mine suggested this book for a broad view of finance:
https://www.amazon.com/Everyones-Money-Book-Jordan-Goodman/dp/0793142245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524669876&sr=1-1&keywords=everyone%27s+money+goodman

It has been almost two decades since I have read it but I remember it being very beneficial when I was younger. From there I have read a lot of different things and taken tidbits from all of them to inform my wealth accumulation strategy. You should do the same. A couple of other books that you will see recommended very often are The Millionaire Next Door and Rich Dad Poor Dad. I do not recall which but I read one of them when I was younger and got a lot from it too. From there another book that helped me in investing was All About Asset Allocation by Richard Ferri. This really did a great job of explaining all of the different assets you can invest in and how and why you might want to invest in them. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing is another book that is frequently recommended. I have not read it but I have read a lot from the Bogleheads online. My initial asset allocation strategy was their 3 fund portfolio. Somewhere in there I listened to a lot of Dave Ramsey. His investing information sucks but his basic "don't suck with money" strategy is a fantastic common sense approach to not digging yourself into a financial hole or to get yourself out of one if you need to. Just keep reading and learning. Make it a daily chore. Eventually it doesn't seem like black magic any more. Amazon used books and ebay are a great way to pick up some great books at a low price. Or check your local libraries.