In all honesty, I feel like anyone who puts all their money into precious metals is just as bad as someone who puts all their money into the stock market, and vice-versa.

Like any good financial adviser will tell you, you first need to get to the point where you are living within your means, and you need to stay there. That's the hardest part, because our inquisitive human nature always wants us to seek out the latest and greatest, which we mentally try to justify purchasing (and often succeed). It's also worth mentioning that, living within your means includes making sure you are properly insured and have proper health/medical care, which are again, sometimes difficult prospects nowadays.

Once you have that, then it comes time to put together an emergency fund. If you or your significant other (or both) lost their job, for example, would you have enough readily accessible money to support yourself for a while? Say six months at a minimum? This money needs to be reasonably isolated from the ebb and flow of the world (i.e. not in the stock market), and it needs to be reasonably accessible. Meaning, you will likely want to keep some of it in your place of residence, in case you need emergency cash at 3am on a Tuesday or something. However, you don't want to keep it all in your home either, for obvious reasons. Once you have that fund, it needs to be left the h*ll alone unless dire circumstances arise.

That emergency fund is where I think having some gold on hand is good, as gold is a hedge against (hyper)inflation/currency devaluation. One tends to balance out the other. When currency value is down, gold is usually up. When gold is down, than currency is usually up. Gold also has an added benefit that, it's usually able to be recovered after a fire, flood, or bug infestation. Whereas, paper money is much more fragile. That's why, wherever I keep emergency paper money (say in my safe or my safety deposit box), I like to keep a little gold and silver with it. Usually in an equivalent amount.


In the end, if you're living within your means, you've got proper health care, you've got proper insurance, and you've got an emergency fund that can cover standard living expenses for a while...well..then you're already doing better than most people. (As people typically have a liquid savings of less than one month's living expenses; with a quarter of the population under two-weeks.)