Should Gold and Silver be used as an Emergency Fund?

Should Gold and Silver be used as an Emergency Fund?

  04 Jan 2019

When preparing for disaster, the first things on a person’s mind are usually how to purify water, how to protect the family, etc. But what about your economic well-being?

We all want an emergency fund in case the economy tanks, but is buying gold and silver really the answer? A lot of “what people say” is just advertising, a way to get the public to buy precious metals.

After much back and forth, the analysts have finally made up their minds in the recommendation to buy up gold and silver.

Your credit card will get you nowhere if the world falls back to a barter system. Whether you need fuel, food, or medicine, having a reliable commodity is important. Trading precious metals has been a key element of commodity trading since ancient times. And gold and silver have always had value as intermediate commodities.

Gold VS Silver: Is one better than the other? 

Gold is expensive. In other words, gold is great if you’re keeping it in a lock box, but not so great if you’re carrying it in a backpack. And since it’s hard to shave off tiny pieces of gold, trying to trade with it will be like walking into a grocery store with $1,000 bills.

Silver, on the other hand, is less expensive and easier to carry around. At current prices, one ounce of silver is worth $20 while an ounce of gold is worth $1,320. If you were, say, trying to purchase a $5 chicken, you would have to purchase nearly 300 chickens to spend an ounce of gold, but only 4 or 5 chickens to spend an ounce of silver.

Where should you keep your emergency fund? Well hidden. And not in the same place. While a safe seems reliable, anyone seeing it will assume there is wealth inside. We recommend hiding your “emergency fund” inside:
• Bags of frozen food
• Air ducts
• A sealed bag inside a toilet’s water tank
• A spare tire
• Hollowed out book

The biggest problem when preparing for an emergency is you never know exactly what is going to happen. That being said, it’s important to diversify your investments. In other words, buy gold and silver, but keep other things handy as well. Many believe that barter items like bullets, tobacco, and alcohol are the way to go. Additional barter items we recommend:
• Batteries
• Canned meat
• Antibiotics, aspirin, etc.
• Synthetic oil
• Seeds
• Shampoo
• Allergy medicine
• Animal traps
• Can openers
• Candles
• Baby formula
• Coffee
• Flashlights
• Toilet paper
• Tools

When preparing for societal collapse or a similar disaster, it’s important to maintain balance. Remember, every dollar you spend buying precious metals is a dollar you haven’t used to buy water, land, education, etc.

There’s a good chance the world won’t be destroyed before the end of your lifetime. In that case, gold and silver will remain a great investment, as well as stocks and bonds. Just be careful not to put all of your eggs in one basket – even if those eggs are made of gold.