Survival prepping means being prepared for anything. This includes everything from the essentials, like food and water, to protecting your wealth. Financial preparedness is an important aspect of any SHTF plan, and diversifying your portfolio with gold and silver is a good place to start. If you are unfamiliar with or on the fence about investing in precious metals, here are 4 reasons why you should consider incorporating gold and silver into your survival preps.
1. Protection
In times of economic uncertainty, you want to be sure that you remain financially secure. Gold and silver can help protect against weakening currencies, such as the US dollar, and can act as a hedge against the prospect of high inflation. Precious metals are viable means for wealth protection and have long been considered a safe-haven investment, especially during times of geopolitical crises.
Domestic and international crises can put serious strain on an unstable economy and wreak havoc on a country’s banking system. As consumer confidence in the banking system fails, faith in paper assets dwindles and consumer demand shifts to tangible investments, such as gold and silver.
2. Value
Gold and silver are both an excellent store of value. This means they can be saved for long periods of time and still retain purchasing power when retrieved at a later date. This is an important facet of gold and silver when deciding if they are right for your SHTF plan.
The strong value of gold and silver also allows them to be used as an intermediary of exchange. In disaster situations, bartering for goods may be required. You want to be equipped with assets that store value and can be easily traded. Furthermore, gold and silver coins and bars are divisible, fungible and easily transportable, making them the ideal asset to own in an emergency.
3. Tangibility
When it comes to survival preparedness, there is one appealing advantage to storing gold and silver: you hold what you own. Your investment is in your hands, and you are in complete control at all times. In an emergency situation, you have the freedom to access your secure cache of tangible assets and use it accordingly.
Tangibility is especially important when access to electronic funds and investments is impeded. Both metals have the potential to store a significant amount of value in a small surface area, which allows these precious metals to be a reliable use of exchange for goods and services in an emergency situation.
4. Diversification
No matter what your investment strategy is, it is always important to consider diversification. Holding gold and silver provides an easy entry into the commodities market and can help expand a well-rounded financial plan. Diversification in general helps reduce overall volatility of your portfolio and limits your exposure to risk. If you don’t already hold gold and silver, consider diversifying about 10 to15 % of your assets into the precious metals.
If you are interested in incorporating gold and silver into your SHTF plan, we recommend low premium options such as junk 90% silver coins, silver bullion bars, and gold bullion bars, as well as US Mint bullion products, like the American Silver Eagle and American Gold Eagle coins. Read more about it here at the Upstate Coins website.
Katie Rau is a precious metals trader, industry analyst and contributing writer for Upstate Coin & Gold.
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I am truly looking forward to any SHTF situation in which anyone thinks they’re going to get $1,200 in food for an ounce of gold. More likely, these precious metal “trinkets” will be nearly given away by desperate people trying to get food, water, candles, shelter or even toilet paper for their families. In a system collapse, “value” is determined by need, not some jackass sitting at a non-existent commodities market. Anyone with toilet paper and other critical items people REALLY need will be more than happy to oblige these fools. You can’t eat silver…
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I concur that one should not solely rely on precious metals to weather the storm during SHTF, and while I don’t endorse stockpiling large amounts I see no issue with having an emergency stash. Why not diversify the SHTF portfolio and have a sleeve or two of silver eagles or something similar? You are completely correct in that you cannot eat silver (or gold), and that post SHTF most would laugh you off if trying to exchange precious metals for food/water. BUT…these items will always be valuable to someone. ALWAYS. Whll you be able to trade an ounce of gold for $1200 worth of food? Probably not. But what if the surgeon down the road already has enough preps to last himself a lifetime, you are offering up beans and bullets in exchange for services and someone else has 20 ounces of silver. Maybe he’ll take the silver if it’s more valuable to him…
Looking at it solely as a currency is somewhat short sighted. Just about every single prepper out there stocks some type of barter items or has a skill that they plan on trading for other goods and services. These items are no different than precious metals in a lot of instances. Immediately following TEOTWAWKI barter items are going to have very little value (not discounting the fact that extra rolls of toilet paper can be utilized), if any at all and expendable items will have more value as a trade/barter system starts to be re-established post SHTF.
Eventually a trade and barter system will be re-established post-SHTF. It may take months or even years, but man has been trading goods, services, and currency for thousands of years. It will happen again. At that point, you will see scrap silver and gold increase in value and not before.
Now, if you are talking specifically an economic collapse and the total devaluation of the dollar as the trigger event to TEOTWAWKI, then having gold and silver makes perfect sense because, just like with all the other preps one has made, your “money” is what you happen to own and have control of.
Of course, owning gold or silver is one of those things that is a personal decision. I own gold and silver and I have incorporated them into my preps. However, it took me years of prepping before I got to the point where owning gold and silver became practical or even an option. If you do not have preps to get you through six months, then I would put the money I am considering putting into gold and silver into preps that help me get to that six month point. Then I would probably consider some scrap silver (primarily dimes) and grow it from there. If it came down to buying food for six months or buying a couple ounces of gold, I would go for the food. It all comes down to each person’s personal situation and how their preps line up.
It is no different than the preppers that stock piles and piles of ammo but do not have enough water to get their family through a week. Back off on the ammo and stock up on some water.
It really depends what kind of collapse scenario you are prepping for. If you think the world is going to turn into complete collapse for years on end, like some Mad Maxx scenario, then PM’s don’t have a lot of value where everyone is always scraping for the basics of food water and shelter.
But our collapse could easily be like what Russia experienced, or any other country that went through Hyperinflation. The Gov’t didn’t collapse, Everyone didn’t die. The system started over. Maybe a new gov’t, maybe, and new standard of living, but a system was still in place at the end.
It is very likely that we will have a temporary system collapse followed by a temporary time of chaos. But the gov’t will reset things eventually with a new currency. If at that point you are storing gold and silver and are able to cash into the new currency you will have stored your value through the choas into the next system.
Use your preps to survive the chaos. Cash into the new system with PM’s.
It is simply a possible plan. (One that would have worked well for many of the SHTF scenarios our world has seen.)
Really late to the party, but I had a thought to offer.
Gold and Silver as barter has both pro and con points.
What about Copper?
Copper is more useful for every day living as it is a metal that the average person could adapt to useful items. Gold and Silver just sort of sit there until someone agrees to its value.
Gold is extremely heavy in meaningful quantity, Silver is not far behind. Copper is lighter. Copper is readily available and not a big target for theft right now. Don’t leave it laying out, but thieves walk right past it during a break in.
Also, copper wire and magnets are the basis for electrical generation on a small scale.
I’d suggest adding Copper sheet stock and wire in several gages as well as learning some smithing, fabrication and basic motor building skills.
A basic jewelry making class can teach you a lot of the smithing and fabrication skills, it’s just a smaller scale.