I'm earning BTC on this forum for months already, so I have been able to stack some bucks up recently with the help of the forum. A week ago I was wondering about the same thing: how can I store my money safely? I mean I'm using a BTC wallet on my phone and my computer, so.. just one, little infected download and it's all gone..
so I researched and found out about Offline, Paper Wallets. They're the safest ones, it seems. Now the question is... How are you going to do it the safest way?
1. Make sure the PC you're going to use is NOT infected. You have to be 100% sure about it. If you're paranoid about it like me, download a Live Linux CD and make a bootable CD/USB with it. Why? Because if your PC is infected, even going offline isn't safe because as soon as you're turning the internet on.... the data's being transferred automatically to the hacker. Live CDs are removing ANY change made on the system (including files, folders, history, temp files, RAM, everything!) when you shut it down. The PC has to work with a printer you got at home. Again, if you're paranoid, you can use an old printer. Newer ones got memory, which means they can be hacked.
2. As soon as you got the clean PC in front of you, power it on (or boot the Live Linux CD/USB). Connect it to the Internet, but DO NOT DO ANYTHING ON IT YET!
3. Open a browser. Again, don't do anything else than what I am saying! Go to bitaddress.org. When the site is loaded, disconnect from the Internet.
4. You need now to move the mouse over your screen fast to generate your Bitcoin Address. The website is made to work offline too, so don't worry about it.
5. Don't connect to the Internet anymore! When the generation process is complete, click Paper Wallet on the top.
6. Now here's a tip I can give you: split your money into more addresses. So if you got .1BTC, split it into 4x .025, 2x .05, 10x .01 or anyhow you want. This is a step to make it even safer in case you are afraid of one of them being hacked or stolen. But I have made the mistake to split it into over 30 wallets which was a pain... I've lost +$10 in commission so don't exaggerate.
So at "Addresses to generate:", type in the number of addresses you want to generate.
7. You may be now wondering what "BIP38 Encrypt?" is. This is a Wallet Encryption, so you can't take the funds off you wallet without entering the password. It's good for the safety in case your house will ever take part of a burglary, but it's harder to find wallets accepting these encryption (when you need to import it) and if you forgot the password.. It's all gone.
8. When you're done, press "Print", print the paper and cut it (so you'll have 'banknotes'). Now I recommend you to laminate the paper you're going to print after you cut it, to make it waterproof. Here's how I did it, REALLY cheap: look up "DIY Scotch Paper Laminating" on YT. It's less than $1. Shut down your computer, unplug the USB/eject the CD.
9. NEVER share/snap the right side of your banknotes. Store them safe, never give them to anyone. The right side of the paper is what you need to take your funds from the wallet. Okay, so now go to your online wallet.. scan the LEFT QR Code and send as much as you want to the wallet(s).
10. You're done!
And a tip: always withdraw ALL your funds from a paper wallet. So if you have a 0.1BTC paper wallet, don't take just 0.001 out of it. Take everything, for safety reasons.