Absolute Positioning problem

I am having trouble getting this absolutely placed DIV to stay where it should stay.

Example

The Dollar sign graphic is within an absolutely positioned DIV with both it's left and top placement set. I have tried switching up the hierarchy which holds it by trying it out in both the right inner content div and the container. It is staying vertically where it should, but appears to be taking it's placement from the BODY tag instead of the containing element. Am I misunderstanding something? This is why I hate trying to use AP/relative divs - even with tutorials I can never get either to come out right.

where is it supposed to be?

I managed to fix the problem last night. The Dollar sign icon was absolutely positioned, but was taking it's top and left from the body, even though it was within a parent container. The fix: made the container relatively positioned.

I seem to have a lot of trouble with positioning things absolutely or relatively - never turn out quite right.