Saw this post over at FerFal's place. After thinking on it for awhile I decided to do a post here instead of commenting over at his place. Nothing wrong with FerFal's ideas but let's just say I have probably thought about this scenario a bit more.
The basics of survivalism/ preparedness obviously apply. Have food to eat, water to drink and the means to purify more, medicine for when you are sick and arms and ammunition to protect your family. That statement is a mouthful we do not need to get bogged down as the specifics of each of those are another series of posts.
These folks have some cash in an IRA. I definitely wouldn't mess with what is already there. Maybe depending on what they are contributing in comparison to other savings they could slow IRA deposits but that is getting into the weeds. Remember folks, we do not know what is going to happen. Maybe my grand kids will be living on a hard scrabble little farm in the woods shooting small game with home made bows and defending their lives with ammo I have stored. Then again it is probably a lot more likely that things will keep on ticking and in 40 years when I'm bouncing grand kids on my knee it will be nice to have some money.
As FerFal suggested keeping a good portion of your liquid emergency fund in cash is prudent. I wouldn't keep it all at home as accidents can happen when you are away. However keeping at least 2-3 months essential cash expenses (food, fuel, medicine, etc) worth of money makes sense. You could make a good argument for keeping more beyond that up to say half of your liquid savings in cash.
The benefits of owning some precious metals were mentioned and are pretty obvious. They are a good hedge against inflation and currency failures. Don't go crazy here. Buy an ounce or two of silver when you can (or save it and make bigger orders to cut down shipping costs and take advantage of better deals) and over time it will add up. If you have a bit more money buy some small (1/10th and 1/4 ounce ish) gold.
The topic of off shore accounts came up. Let's move forward assuming this money isn't best spent elsewhere and we want to keep it in some sort of currency. I wouldn't worry about off shore accounts unless you have serious money to stash. If you have a few grand I would put some in the gun safe and maybe hide the rest in a well thought out cache. The hassle wouldn't be worth it and the potential benefit's are iffy. Anywhere they will take a card cash will work, the opposite is not true. Now if you had fifty thousand dollars maybe it's worthwhile to take a trip to the Cayman Islands or someplace.
As FerFal noted the military and security folks like police are going to get paid unless things fall apart entirely and go totally Mad Max. I am going to get the exact amount of dollars and cents on the first and fifteenth. That does not however carry any guarantee that the money I receive will be able to purchase a given amount of goods and services.
Inflation is coming, heck it is here now. I fear that the best case is for it go get worse, like 10-20% real inflation for a few years. If things get crazy it might be worse than that. I don't see Zimbabwe/ 1920's Germany hyperinflation happening but 30-50% inflation would be ruinous.
The one big thing I would add to FerFal's post is to decrease your standard of living now. Be balanced and don't do anything radical overnight. Try to pay off some debts and maybe eliminate bills by canceling various nonessential services. If you can start doing things for yourself [Guys buy a shaver and cut your hair at home. If I can do it you can. Gal's put a lot more stock in their hair so unless somebody is good at cutting it then get it done at a good but sanely priced place. That's just my .02 cents.] to eliminate bills. Buy stuff on sale and take advantage of coupons. The point here is to decrease your basic household expenses. Again be balanced with this and do it over a period of time so it is less uncomfortable.
Reallocating money you are used to spending on whatever is very hard. I know because have done it. Cutting twenty bucks from the grocery budget means you don't get Digorno pizza on Wednesday, the Mrs doesn't get the soda she likes and you both have to drink less beer (or whatever). The point is that it sucks. Sorry, wish there was a better answer. Being smart and doing it over time helps. Also seeing the benefits of what else you can do with that money helps considerably. The savings account may grow as could cash and precious metals on hand as well as preps put away.
For military folks or anybody else with a fairly predictable salary schedule there is another option to use in conjunction with decreasing expenses. When you get a raise make some intentional choices with this money. Instead of letting it slip into your budget with a few small lifestyle increases save that money, put it into precious metals or preps or whatever else makes sense. Do that a few times and you will have a nice gap between what comes in and what you actually need.
This gap building we are has a couple benefits. First it lets you go into overtime paying down debts, putting away cash and precious metals, storing preps or whatever your goals are. Doing these things helps improve your situation even further. It is a positive feedback loop.
Second and more on topic this is your inflation protection. Living on 50-60% of what you make means there is some room to absorb inflation. Of course you would want to change your standard of living to still save, etc but you would have time to figure that out in an orderly manner. Not a fun option but I fear it is very realistic.
Think about it like this. If Fate left a message saying that your income would drop by 30% on a given date you would start doing things to get ready for it. If that date was in 6 months or a year you could pay off that credit card and ease out of $5 coffee every day, mani/pedi's or whatever, and other luxuries. Might even trade in a car for an older model, eliminating another payment. You would darn sure save some money. Now if that date was a week away all it would do is be depressing. By getting in front of this problem you have the luxury of time to make things as pleasant as they can be.
Anyway those are my thoughts on the matter.
The basics of survivalism/ preparedness obviously apply. Have food to eat, water to drink and the means to purify more, medicine for when you are sick and arms and ammunition to protect your family. That statement is a mouthful we do not need to get bogged down as the specifics of each of those are another series of posts.
These folks have some cash in an IRA. I definitely wouldn't mess with what is already there. Maybe depending on what they are contributing in comparison to other savings they could slow IRA deposits but that is getting into the weeds. Remember folks, we do not know what is going to happen. Maybe my grand kids will be living on a hard scrabble little farm in the woods shooting small game with home made bows and defending their lives with ammo I have stored. Then again it is probably a lot more likely that things will keep on ticking and in 40 years when I'm bouncing grand kids on my knee it will be nice to have some money.
As FerFal suggested keeping a good portion of your liquid emergency fund in cash is prudent. I wouldn't keep it all at home as accidents can happen when you are away. However keeping at least 2-3 months essential cash expenses (food, fuel, medicine, etc) worth of money makes sense. You could make a good argument for keeping more beyond that up to say half of your liquid savings in cash.
The benefits of owning some precious metals were mentioned and are pretty obvious. They are a good hedge against inflation and currency failures. Don't go crazy here. Buy an ounce or two of silver when you can (or save it and make bigger orders to cut down shipping costs and take advantage of better deals) and over time it will add up. If you have a bit more money buy some small (1/10th and 1/4 ounce ish) gold.
The topic of off shore accounts came up. Let's move forward assuming this money isn't best spent elsewhere and we want to keep it in some sort of currency. I wouldn't worry about off shore accounts unless you have serious money to stash. If you have a few grand I would put some in the gun safe and maybe hide the rest in a well thought out cache. The hassle wouldn't be worth it and the potential benefit's are iffy. Anywhere they will take a card cash will work, the opposite is not true. Now if you had fifty thousand dollars maybe it's worthwhile to take a trip to the Cayman Islands or someplace.
As FerFal noted the military and security folks like police are going to get paid unless things fall apart entirely and go totally Mad Max. I am going to get the exact amount of dollars and cents on the first and fifteenth. That does not however carry any guarantee that the money I receive will be able to purchase a given amount of goods and services.
Inflation is coming, heck it is here now. I fear that the best case is for it go get worse, like 10-20% real inflation for a few years. If things get crazy it might be worse than that. I don't see Zimbabwe/ 1920's Germany hyperinflation happening but 30-50% inflation would be ruinous.
The one big thing I would add to FerFal's post is to decrease your standard of living now. Be balanced and don't do anything radical overnight. Try to pay off some debts and maybe eliminate bills by canceling various nonessential services. If you can start doing things for yourself [Guys buy a shaver and cut your hair at home. If I can do it you can. Gal's put a lot more stock in their hair so unless somebody is good at cutting it then get it done at a good but sanely priced place. That's just my .02 cents.] to eliminate bills. Buy stuff on sale and take advantage of coupons. The point here is to decrease your basic household expenses. Again be balanced with this and do it over a period of time so it is less uncomfortable.
Reallocating money you are used to spending on whatever is very hard. I know because have done it. Cutting twenty bucks from the grocery budget means you don't get Digorno pizza on Wednesday, the Mrs doesn't get the soda she likes and you both have to drink less beer (or whatever). The point is that it sucks. Sorry, wish there was a better answer. Being smart and doing it over time helps. Also seeing the benefits of what else you can do with that money helps considerably. The savings account may grow as could cash and precious metals on hand as well as preps put away.
For military folks or anybody else with a fairly predictable salary schedule there is another option to use in conjunction with decreasing expenses. When you get a raise make some intentional choices with this money. Instead of letting it slip into your budget with a few small lifestyle increases save that money, put it into precious metals or preps or whatever else makes sense. Do that a few times and you will have a nice gap between what comes in and what you actually need.
This gap building we are has a couple benefits. First it lets you go into overtime paying down debts, putting away cash and precious metals, storing preps or whatever your goals are. Doing these things helps improve your situation even further. It is a positive feedback loop.
Second and more on topic this is your inflation protection. Living on 50-60% of what you make means there is some room to absorb inflation. Of course you would want to change your standard of living to still save, etc but you would have time to figure that out in an orderly manner. Not a fun option but I fear it is very realistic.
Think about it like this. If Fate left a message saying that your income would drop by 30% on a given date you would start doing things to get ready for it. If that date was in 6 months or a year you could pay off that credit card and ease out of $5 coffee every day, mani/pedi's or whatever, and other luxuries. Might even trade in a car for an older model, eliminating another payment. You would darn sure save some money. Now if that date was a week away all it would do is be depressing. By getting in front of this problem you have the luxury of time to make things as pleasant as they can be.
Anyway those are my thoughts on the matter.
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7 comments:
If its not gold or silver coin ;ITS NOT MONEY. Keep all the worthless script you want.But undestand that uncle Ben has ALLREADY trashed the Federal Resurve Note. Its Worthless NOW. Sorry but you want to buy stuff from Me? Best have coin,I don't need TP.
Cash may not be king, but its still at least a prince. Having a nest egg in PM is good, but you don't want everything in it now in case something happens - then you have to liquidate, below spot and lose money.
Cash on hand is still unavoidable if your in the system. New car, medical bills, disaster and you need capital to flee - whatever. People still accept FRNs everywhere. 90% of people wouldn't know a walking liberty quarter from a piece of slag.
@3:36, Let's try an experiment. Take some 90% silver to the grocery store and explain to the teller that it is worth X (13-14 or whatever it is today) times spot price. Try the same at the gas station for a tank of gas or a package store for a cold 6 pack.
See what happens.
Archer, I think that the cost of buying and selling PM's frequently would be problematic if you wanted to hold the majority of your savings that way. Let's say selling above and below spot could equal out over time (a big assumption) but effectively adding 5-10% in surcharges would add up for sure.
Ryan: You are absolutely correct! In normal times PM's are a non-interest producing investment that costs you to buy it and to sell it and you have to pay to store it. But PMs are not for normal times. So if you think the next 10-20 years are going to be "normal" then don't buy PMs. Simple as that. One last point. Let's try an experiment. In the depth of the coming depression/collapse take some greenbacks and some 90% silver to the grocery store (or where ever you can find food) and see which of these will buy you some food. Oh! You don't have PMs. Never mind then. Good luck...
Who's established law and order in this TEOTWAWKI Costco so that you can go in with junk silver and peruse the aisles?
You're not driving (fuel) into town (full of starving, angry, violent marauders) to the grocery store (full of other, desperate people that see you as a "have" with your spendy bags of PMs) in that scenario.
In that particular scenario I would go long in arable, defensible land.
PMs do have a place, I'm not arguing that. I would say that they are a useful vehicle to preserve your wealth until AFTER the scenario you describe. That way you can convert back to whatever fiat is established next. No government wants a gold standard, they can't manipulate it. Even Rome (who had a PM standard) debased their currency!
A few years ago I knew my income was going to drop nearly 30% take-home. It was a hard wake-up call but motivated me to slash our lifestyle before it was a crisis. Life is a lot easier on the debt-free side but a lot of the luxuries I don't miss and haven't added back in.
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