ISO: Advice for protecting long-term savings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greetings!

Mine is a good problem to have but I am very uneasy about it and hoping for advice.

My family is low income by DC-area standards ($90k household). I have a low-level mommy-tracked job, my husband has a labor job with a union. We should be right in there with the people who have high credit card debt and barely making ends meet. Instead, I can hardly believe my fortune because the precious metals that I've been stashing away for years have exploded in price to where I now have about $70k at the moment. This is a collection that I'd like to leave untouched for the next 10-15 years, and have it be money for the kids when they reach adulthood. But because I've never had savings like this before, I am worried about losing it because sees too good to be true, especially with the price predictions going forward.

Please give me advice for the long-term of how to preserve this. Right now it's all eggs in one basket (physical precious metals only) and I'd like to mix it up to ensure that this opportunity doesn't slip away through some preventable misfortune. Thank you.

Sell your gold later this year after rate cuts start and QE begins nationally. Maybe in November. Start a Schwab taxable brokerage account. Take your proceeds and invest them in a low cost domestic/international like Vanguard’s “VT”.

Don’t touch that for 20 years and your kids will have hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gold is a good thing to hold, but you’re better off having your money in index funds.

+1 VT is unrivaled when it comes to diversification. No need to spend even a second thinking about: international vs US, small cap vs large cap, value vs growth, tech vs other sectors, which developing country will come out on top, etc.

It really reduces much of the behavioral issues that causes people to underperform the market.

[Anonymous]

You are doing amazingly well for a family that only makes 90K a year. But you could try to make more.

In terms of savings you'd want ideally:
-6 month emergency fund
- diversified investments (not just the UPS stocks). Are those held in a 401K? If so sell 90% and buy VT.
-Open a Roth and put money in that too.

[Anonymous]

You got lucky with precious metals, because government keeps printing money.
It's time to start investing away from precious metals. If both of you max out your Roth IRA for the next 20 years, you will have over million dollars. One million dollars can give you $70k nearly tax free forever.
Again, its not even about the precious metals going up, but that you discovered investing. The account you should use is Roth IRA, buy VOO, VTI, QQQ ionside of it (do your own research).
My earned income averaged $30k for 30 years. Invested ca $400 a month, but unfortunately real estate first and then stocks. I'm at one million now. I learned so much from living on less and investing.
Made many mistakes too. My kids won't have to make them, which saves them a lot of time and money. 18-year old started Roth IRA as he works while in college.
Start reading personal finance books. Give your kids the knowledge and the experience, and maybe then the precious metals if you still have them after reading the books.
I'm not touching real estate for example any time soon. Live and learn.

[Anonymous]

Diversify. https://www.investopedia.com/investing/importance-diversification/

[Anonymous]

Gold will hit $5,000 or high this year based on like 50 things going on right now. I’d hold the gold until the stock market crashes or shows sustained drops over like a aeveral week period. Then sell it and put the money into VT. Gold survives stock crashes. It inverses the stock market. So your gold will be higher when the stock market crashes or drops and VT will be lower in price. So you kind of want to sell high and buy low if you get what I’m saying. A lot of folks will say you can’t time the stock market and that’s true, but I am telling you, gold is still going up. There is a ton of sht going on right now where everyone in the world wants to be in gold because it’s trustworthy and “real” and can survive inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gold will hit $5,000 or high this year based on like 50 things going on right now. I’d hold the gold until the stock market crashes or shows sustained drops over like a aeveral week period. Then sell it and put the money into VT. Gold survives stock crashes. It inverses the stock market. So your gold will be higher when the stock market crashes or drops and VT will be lower in price. So you kind of want to sell high and buy low if you get what I’m saying. A lot of folks will say you can’t time the stock market and that’s true, but I am telling you, gold is still going up. There is a ton of sht going on right now where everyone in the world wants to be in gold because it’s trustworthy and “real” and can survive inflation.

On the other hand: https://www.kiplinger.com/investing-in-gold-prices-inflation

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/dave-ramsey-thinks-gold-is-a-bad-investment-5-reasons-why/ar-AA1EcVNf

https://creativeplanning.com/insights/investment/gold-not-sound-strategy/

https://www.tedkerr.com/blog/why-gold-is-a-bad-investment

In other words, consider yourself lucky so far, take your winning off the table, and diversify into better alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Sell them and put the money into s&p then don’t look at it for at least 10 years.

[Anonymous]

OP, go to bogleheads.com for sensible investing advice. Lots of helpful articles there. Good place to start your research (it mirrors the advice here to put your money in a broad index fund). We put all our money in an S&P 500 fund.

I agree that securing your own retirement is the best gift you can give your kids.

It makes sense to consider how this wealth will affect college financial aid. Money in retirement accounts isn’t counted in those calculations.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I think with gold's recent run, it's actually beat the s&p500 on an annualized basis over the past 25 years. However, liquidity is much better in the stock market so that could be a trade off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make sure you're maxing retirement. That's the best advice anyone can give you.

It's crazy how well this simple act works.