Number one. Be careful who you get advice from. On Yedda you will get a lot of people who have no idea but have googled the subject and then use those answers to sound like they know. Many more of these answers will be "they say" and "I heard", so skip those.
If you buy gold, NO you do not have to worry about tax deferments. You don't pay any taxes on the gold you own. So the advice about get annuities instead is nonsense. (Sorry Allie but that's the truth). You do not get better returns on your investments. I just lost almost 30% of my entire portfolio to this stock market crash, so I don't think you could call that better returns. At the same time, gold went up in price by as much as 20%. Anyone can see which was the best investment.
In the time since I started my portfolio, my stocks and annuities have averaged about 10% profit. In that same time, gold went from $240 an ounce to $1,000 an ounce. That is a 300% return. This isn't science, it's easy to see which was the better investment.
If you buy gold and it's value drops, you will only lose money if you panic and sell it out of fear. If you are in a position to just let it ride, then do so because gold will go back up and in the mean time you still have the gold in your physical possession. My uncle is a stock broker and has told me countless times to just never look at the account and to leave it that way until I reach the point where I need to start drawing from the investments. That's how you should be with any investment. People who see their stock dropping often panic and sell out of fear, typically losing money. If the stock market was to completely hit bottom, stocks and bonds would be worth absolutely nothing. Gold will always be worth something. It is and has been the most tradeable/valuable asset in existence. It may go up and down slightly in value, but it will always be worth something.
If I had put my own money into gold when I started saving, I would have a package worth 4 times more than what I ended up with by trading stocks and bonds instead. I'm okay, but I sure could have been a lot better if I had taken the gold instead of the stocks.
Here's a huge point to ponder. Most insurance companies will only insure $1,000-2000 worth of gold in your home for insurance purposes. That means if you had the $4,000 worth of gold and you got robbed, they would cover only 1/4 to 1/2 of what you have. So you MUST have a safe deposit box to keep your precious metal in, in order to be completely safe.
By the way. Silver is not a better value. It has been increasing in value, but there is asolutely no comparison in value to gold. Although it has increased steadily over the past couple of years, as gold has, it has not gone up as much as gold. Silver has only doubled in value while gold has quadrupled in value over the same time period. Silver looks like a lot more because it is only $16 per ounce. So your money would buy a big pile of silver, but it is not worth as much and is not increasing in value as much as gold is.
I have been in the business of gold for just over 25 years. I am a gold consultant. I am a gold prospector. I buy and sell gold. I eat, sleep and breath gold. Believe me when I tell you, that buying $4,000 worth of gold now will likely earn you another $4000 over a period of the next 18 months. Do your homework and see if the "experts" aren't saying gold will reach $2000 an ounce soon. Trust me to be telling you the truth. No "they say", no I heard", just get the gold, put it in a safe deposit box, and then leave it alone until your rainy day comes along. You won't be sorry.
Buy gold from a coin shop. They will give you the most honest deal. Check kitco.com to see the spot gold prices. This is the price that the world trading markets have set and it is updated every hour. Once you have the spot price, go to the coin shop and expect to pay $40 - 60 over spot per ounce. You will be buying gold coins from the USA (Gold Eagles), Canada (Maple Leaf), or South Africa (Kruggerand) or you might get Swiss ingots. Kreugerands and ingots are $40 per ounce over spot and the Gold Eagles and Maple Leafs are $60 over spot. The Canadian gold and the USA gold are the purest of the pure (Canada is the purest), and the others are also pure (99.99% pure). The difference is ridiculously small, but some people are just that picky. Because 3 of your choices are going to be coins, they may also have some coin collecting value in the future. None the less, you will be getting a pure ounce of gold in each form, and you will have something beautiful to hold in your hand. In the event that the apocalypse does occur in your lifetime and money is absolutely worthless, guess what will still have value? Yes, it will be your gold.
Think hard abou what you are about to do as far as investing goes. If you aren't in it for the long haul then you might be wasting your time. Gold will ncrease in value in the short term according to the way thigs look right now, but who knows what our politics will do to change that. If you are ready to put your money to work and you can commit to leaving it alone and never looking at the graphs and charts until you want to convert your gold back to money to cover your retirement, then go for the gold.
