First, you might ask me what is "Gold Guilt".... Its that feeling after listening to ALL the commercials, pundits, other preppers that say that EVERYONE needs to be owning gold.
I admit it - I sent away for the Goldline packet - December of 2008, and THEY ARE STILL CALLING ME.... I have half a mind to send them the info back, but I am afraid it wont stop them and then I would be out my time, postage and their DVD ;)
I had that feeling that I should have some gold - I did the math if I had bought 12/2008, how much it would be worth now.... And yes, I would have made some bucks. It kind of made me sick to my stomach and thats when I knew I needed to take these thoughts captive. I was falling for COMMERCIALS.... Doing the math gave me a panicky feeling.... I knew I had to take a step back and decide for myself what was the best avenue for my family, act accordingly and throw off all the other crap.
So, this is where I went....
I thought through my objective - WHY I am doing what I am doing for my family....
I thought about what would be the BEST way to reach those desired goals....
I decided that Gold wouldnt get me where I needed to be by the desired deadline....
Here were my thoughts. I prep - I store food - I store supplies - I store resources - and I do it to best take care of my family regardless of what is going on whether it be circumstances brought on by weather, Washington or whatever. Life happens -- I want to be able to keep on rocking.... Gold will not do that - Its like having bucks in a bank - it does me no good when ice has taken down the power lines.
We are in the middle of building - yes, if I had put our house fund into Gold, I would have a lot more money now - that would do alot in regards to what we could do with the house - but we would still be in the drawing stages. It would have put us 2 years behind schedule and not about to move in. Gold would have cost me time and no matter how much gold you have, you cant buy time with it....
Look, I am not saying that if you are squared away, got a good refund, saved your pennies and you want to, that Gold is not a good buy. It is - but it isnt what will keep the world from burning down around you. What if we are heading towards high inflation? Wiemar Republic inflation.... What will Gold do for you? You would still have to cash it in and then run to buy what you need before those dollars are useless. OR You will have to wait until everything stabilizes and then cash in your coins. So, during the crisis, you are in the same boat as the person who doesnt have gold. (I understand that your gold will likely go up and therefore you would have more dollars to buy items, but if there is massive inflation, even if you have more dollars, the buying power of said dollar goes down, you may come out ahead, but I am not sure you would be that much ahead. "Prepper" type items will undoubtedly go WAY UP, maybe to the point saving and purchasing with gold wasnt the best option....)
Honestly, I would rather use my funds to buy the utmost BEFORE any event and not wait until DURING or AFTER. But thats just me. I also maintain that if I have extra funds, I would purchase silver and not gold. But that was an entirely different post....
And it bears mentioning again - this was the conclusion I came to for MY FAMILY....everyones' situations are different as well as their motives, their state of preparedness and their bank account. Make your own financial decisions or at least discuss them with someone who does this for a living or at least plays one on TV.
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6 comments:
Gold is a stupid investment. Look at the historical charts going back to 1980. You wouldn't have broke even until 2000. After inflation, that's a negative return for 20 years.
As a prepping item - it's also kind of stupid. You can't eat it, burn it for fuel, and it has little industrial application.
Investing in commodities is an easy way to get burned unless you really understand the commodities markets. Investing is also not the same as prepping. But either way - gold has little utility beyond making jewelry.
Glad you didn't get sucked in.
Great to see you posting again. As for gold guilt, I had some, but being unemployed for three months has pretty well gotten me over that, as I have been able to feed my family, which I could not have done with gold.
Only gold I have is in some of my teeth...and my hair is LOADED with silver! Guess I'm in good shape there, so I'll stick ith food and the like!
Good thinking on your part...and I agree!
I guess I had thought of gold in a end-of-culture type collapse (Brin's "Postman", Niven and Pournelle "Lucifer's Hammer", Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold", Dickson's "Wolf and Iron", etc.) That is, there will be no currency.
Then gold would serve two values - one, you could carry something fairly compact with intrinsic value (something that doesn't depend on the government to be stable and functional and solvent). You could use gold to buy a house, a horse, maybe a dowry (like an engagement ring).
Unlike a pantry, a pouch of gold would be moderately portable, if more susceptible to theft and squandering. But if you needed to move all you have to somewhere else, and be able to obtain food and shelter at your destination, gold might well serve a purpose.
This presupposes that people re-learn to value gold appropriately, something easily overlooked. How much gold should a dog be worth to me, or a month's room and board? How much gold should the corn, or beans, or peas I can raise on 10 acres be worth? Gold as a barter item, it won't be a pretty picture to bring it back.
Brad. K - you should read why gold fell out of favor as currency. Money is simply a medium of exchange - and gold is relatively heavy for that.
In a barter society - I don't think gold would be of much use. Like I said, it has no industrial application, you can't eat it, and you can't burn it for fuel.
Think of the things you would want if you were stranded on a desert island. Gold would be of very little utility.
I said a lot of what you did in a recent post on my blog:
http://emergencyprepblog.com/?p=42
I failed to mention the "portable wealth" aspect, though.
Basically, I say that buying gold and silver in the hope of using it for barter is not realistic. I don't think it will work.
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