The Argentine blog writer Ferfal has a lot to say about the subject. http://ferfal.blogspot.com/

And yes, he really says it's a very gradual decay process, going from bad to worse.

About gold: I used to hold the view that buying gold and jevelry would be just replacing one useless currency (paper money) with another useless currency (gold). However, now I more think of it as a vehicle for moving wealth: Moving from one country with a rotten economy to somewhere better, or moving in time from a bad economic situation to a truly rotten situation and then to a (hopefully) improving situation. Gold or jewelry could be the one thing that stays insanely expensive through all those transitions, and allows you to keep and move wealth. At anyone time you can exchange some of it back to money and buy whatever service you need. The theory is that since paper money loses its value rapidly through hyper inflation you don't have any more money than you need at any given time, whereas gold cold keep its relative value. Paper money would be reduced to an intermediate medium between the transactions of selling gold and the transactions of buying expensive and vitally important services.

But I don't think you should expect anything to work that flawlessly ... finding someone who will give you good exchange rates for your gold (and not rip you off), the threath of being robbed when you have the family heirloom on your person... I don't think you can come through a recession without losses. But if a bunch of jewelry can act as a buffer that mellows out the real expensive PAY-OR-DIE emergencies then that is good.

Ferfal's advice: Basic preparations first (water/shelter/food etc). Then a bunch of cash. Then gold.