What good are PMs (precious metals) and coins? You can’t eat them, make clothes out of them or burn them to heat your house.
AFTER you have food, shelter, security and clothing squared away, put money into securities. Real Estate is a boom based on the runaway printing of dollars. The stock market is a boom based on runaway printing of dollars. Bonds – same story. Mutual funds, insurance, retirement, Social Security – all with a foundation of inflated dollars and exchange of same.
Diversify your savings.
Get some pre-’65 US coins, aka “junk silver”, also “90% silver”. The smaller increments of dimes and quarters will be necessary for more common transactions. Halves and silver dollars carry a “collectible” premium, but are nice additions to any good silver coin savings account.
Gold is popular too, but the increments are too big to work for everyday exchange. Plus it has that nasty black cloud hanging over its security from when the US government stole it for far below market value, banning private ownership from 1933 – 1975 to boot.
Get current-production nickels. Already worth 6.1 cents in metal content alone, they will be going away soon, but today can be bought a few rolls at a time from your local bank for $2 each (worth $2.40 melted, but a lot more later).
Get current-production pennies. Though only copper-clad tin, they are already worth 0.6 cents in metal… and with the dollar dropping in value at a 20% annual rate, the humble tin penny will be worth its weight in metal a year and a half from now. More importantly, they will return to utility in making small increments of change – as you can easily imagine if you read about life under Zimbabwae’s fiat currency that is slightly ahead of our stage of the game.
In the likely scenario where the dollar goes the way of all prior fiat currencies, silver and gold could go up by 1,000 times (probably more, but so hard to believe). Dollars become completely useless. You can’t trade and barter for everything. Currency is crucial for productive specialization. A dime for a haircut, two cents for a cup of coffee, a nickel for a loaf of bread … a whole lot of pre-inflation transactions will again become the norm.
It isn’t that far fetched when you realize that since the founding of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar value has declined by 96%. Today’s loaf of bread cost 3 cents pre-inflation. Put another way, today’s dollar bread will cost $1.20 next year and $6.19 in ten – if it doesn’t get worse.
While still redeemable for silver, it rose at a 2-4% rate. The stops were pulled off in 1971 when the US dollar stopped being redeemable for anything.
Each community will need quite a bit of real coins stashed just to meet the demand. When this gets figured out, prices as denominated in feral reserve notes will skyrocket. The alternatives have many precedents that include cigarettes, alcohol, ammunition and near infinite varieties of barter. Solid, stable money is not the only choice, just the best.
The US currency given away to the private Feral Reserve in 1913 will be no different, except this time you will be personally and deeply involved.