A lot of online sources recommended buying some gold or silver. This was even some wisdom my old man gave to me back in 2011. Unfortunately, I scoffed at his advice and utterly rejected it. Back then, I only had about $15000 to my name. I had only been working for a year. In other words, I really didn’t have that much to lose. Back then, I really couldn’t see the value in precious metals. Should civilization end, I didn’t see what silver would do. If the power grid goes down and there is no more electricity, people will be raping and killing each other in the streets. When the world gets that bad, the most valuable investments will be commodities needed for survival. Food and water would become the new currency and you can’t eat silver.
Back when I was just starting out, I never went to my parents for financial advice. They were not the ones that showed me how to plan my life out on spreadsheets, keep track of all my expenses, and do everything I could to save as much money as possible. After graduating college, they had the aspirations that I would start my own business and become a made man that way. Unfortunately, they never gave me any real advice or ideas for starting or running a business. My dad kept on encouraging me to build some sort or building and sell products out of it. I’m sure he would have encouraged me to take on thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt and get started before even having an idea of how to make any money. They wanted me to take on a whole lot of risk for a shot of getting a decent reward.
My mom on the other hand told me that I was being foolish for not investing my money in the stock market. As much money as I was saving, she kept on telling me that all of it would devalue due to inflation. My counter argument was that I would keep my expenses down to as little as possible so that the effects of inflation wouldn’t be as harsh. Secondly and more importantly was the fact that the financial meltdown of 2008 happened and I had no faith or trust in the stock market. Thirdly, there was no investment that was safe and provided a good rate of return. It was my intentions to invest only in long term certificates of deposits which paid out a whopping two percent apy. At least they were FDIC insured.
Investing in some silver was a good idea. I just kind of wish that my dad could have explained it better than he did. Precious metals should be looked at as a sort of insurance rather than an investment. As the economic situation worsens, people will start to lose confidence in the dollar and try to look for an alternative currency. This is where gold and silver come into play. They are an alternate way to store wealth. Gold and silver are unique metals that don’t react with other elements. They will not perish easily. They have some practical usage in the electronics industry and they are used in luxury items such as jewelry. But the best reason I like gold and silver as an investment is the fact that the US government can’t dig out and mine gold and silver as easy as it can print US dollars. The supply of gold and silver will not be inflated crazily due to the mismanagement of politicians. As much as I wanted to buy some precious metals, I’d have to wait until getting employed again.
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