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Cash is trash. If the debt markets implode, so does the value of the cash in your wallet, as every single dollar in existence is a note of debt.
You need real, tangible assets, not funny money. Silver I believe is the best asset to have going forward.
I agree...Silver Eagle coins because the amount is small enough to be used transactionally...to buy gas & food. Gold coins are useless because they are worth too much, & you'll be given plummeting Dollars as change for your $2,000 gold coin. In a crisis, Silver Eagles will likely be worth $50-$100.
I've got a medium-sized safety deposit box stuffed full of them, & no credit card debt or debt of any kind...we'e been debt-free for 10 years, & will never have to borrow again.
We use credit cards to buy gas, event tickets, internet purchases, and that's about it. They get paid off each month, and we get cash back.
My company uses credit cards, but the balance is paid off most months.
I agree...Silver Eagle coins because the amount is small enough to be used transactionally...to buy gas & food. Gold coins are useless because they are worth too much, & you'll be given plummeting Dollars as change for your $2,000 gold coin. In a crisis, Silver Eagles will likely be worth $50-$100.
I've got a medium-sized safety deposit box stuffed full of them, & no credit card debt or debt of any kind...we'e been debt-free for 10 years, & will never have to borrow again.
We use credit cards to buy gas, event tickets, internet purchases, and that's about it.
Silver eagles are the iPhones of silver bullion- extremely well known, and very overpriced.
1oz American Silver Eagle coin: $42
1oz Buffalo Round: $28
Silver is silver. Just get the most silver for your cash.
I think that silver could reach a 1 to 1 value ratio with gold. The fact is that there just is not a whole lot of silver to go around.
I've always wondered why silver and gold and other precious metals are seen as "tangible" assets. After all, they only have value because other people consider them valuable. In and of themselves, they have no more practical utility than a nicely decorated piece of currency. To me, real tangible assets are things that people need or want to have, no matter what. Food, shelter, clothing, toilet paper.
Gold and Silver are used in industry, so they are not just pretty shiny metals. They do have intrinsic value:
It makes false claims for purposes of ramping up advertising revenue.
It's also bad form to post a tertiary source when the primary source is readily available.
Total household debt rose by $148 billion, or 0.9 percent, to $17.05 trillion in the first quarter of 2023,...but credit card balances were flat at $986 billion.
So all of you peed your pants over absolutely nothing.
Also, not even remotely shocking, is that none of you understand data.
There are 131 Million households so it amounts to a tiny $7,526 per household
If we go back to the same quarter in 2008 when household credit card debt peaked at $866 Billion just before the recession, there were 116 Million households and it works out to $7,465 per household.
$7,465 per household and 15 years later $7,526 per household and you people think the sky is falling.
That's a whole $61 dollars. And you all are peeing your pants.
If we take into consideration that both population, households, and wages have increased, then why wouldn't household debt increase?
Finally, from the peak of 2008 to present is a percent change of only 0.82%.
That is <5% and therefore not statistically significant.
To add insult to injury, the average annual income in the US in 2008 was $41,334.
The average annual income in 2021 is $60,575 so wages have increased at least 46.5%.
I am one of these statistics. I am buried in CC debt. Over 40K. And I once considered myself to be pretty money smart. So how the heck did this happen to me? The balances just seemed to snowball out of nowhere on me and I ended up in a situation where there simply isn't much money left over to pay over the minimum balance. If I only pay the minmum, it will take me 20-30 years to be debt free and that's assuming I never use the cards again.
The credit card companies have carefully designed this trap for Americans usually psychological techniques and math. I believe they have it calculated to the penny how much credit limit to give a person so they will likely fall into this hole of being unable to dig out of debt. The credit card companies offer cash back because they want you to have the mindset of using your card to pay for everything. But unless you spend time every nite and watch your spending, it is extremely easy to run up a balance even with small purchases. Can't pay off the balance at the end of month? No problem, just pay the minimum and get another card with that free interest period.
I'm willing to bet that those here bragging about how they are so responsible and always pay off their card on time are people who are wealthy or at least never have to live paycheck to paycheck so of course, you can pay off the balance. The whole financial system really only helps the rich get richer. And if you are not wealthy, ask yourself this question honestly:
If you went out with friends to a restaurant and saw that the prices would exceed your budget, would you honestly tell your friends that sorry I can't come because I can't afford it or just charge it your card and worry about paying it off later? You know most people would charge. That's the culture the CC companies want. Buy now and pay later mentality. They are the only winners. I throw away $1100 of my hard earned money every month to their interest payments. It's disgusting.
I used to be one of those statistics. I remember the day I looked at my finances and decided someone wasn’t going to be paid. There just wasn’t enough money, and the stress was killing me, so someone wasn't going to be paid. I cushioned the blow as much as I could by choosing the CC with the highest balance to stop paying, and kept everything else current. They sent me to collections, threatened to sue me, blah, blah, and I encouraged them to, so I could tell the judge I was broke (they never did). Eventually, i got back on my feet, paid off all my debts, including the collection account, and bought a house. It took about 2-3 years.
And for the record, yes I would tell my friends I can’t go to a restaurant that is too expensive. I do that NOW, at 50 years old and pretty financially secure. That's what responsible adults do. But I probably had to go through that CC debt disaster to learn that.
You would be wrong. Believe it or not, many non-wealthy households live fiscally responsible. Work hard, live frugally, don't go out to eat, don't drink, don't do drugs, maybe pick up a side hustle to save up for a big expense, or a vacation, or when the budget gets tight...
I haven't carried a balance since I was 24 years old. I get paid by my credit cards to spend my hard earned money.
Sorry but you are a extremely rare minority. You get paid pennies in exchange for the high risk of falling behind on paying off a balance. It's not worth it.
I had that happen to me when I was very young. At 18, my boyfriend at the time arranged a friend who had a car lot, to let me pay mostly cash for a car, and leave $500 for me to pay off as a loan, in order to build credit. But when it was paid off, I had so many credit offers I couldn't keep them straight. I'm 18, and have a low wage job pumping gas (I brought home $62 a week and paid $50 a week to a friend's mom who let me live there). I used the credit cards for everything I couldn't afford, which was everything including underwear.
Before I knew it I was waaay over my head. I called every company and tried to see if they could lower my minimum payment, all of them said no. So in the end I felt I had no choice but bankruptcy.
I did build my credit back up, but I didn't over use it...until I was out of work for 10 months after a back injury, until my surgery. I had to use my entire Roth and all my emergency savings, but it still wasn't enough as I had to Uber to every PT chiropractor and doctor's appointment and had $14,000 in out of pocket costs. 6 or 7 years later and I'm about halfway done paying it off, but of course I won't have any more time to save all I lost and would have saved if I had been able to work. And I have arthritis everywhere, so taking on medical debt is going to be part of my future, like it or not.
The problem is the higher your debt is, the more you get punished with even higher minimum payments. It seems backwards to me. The people who are struggling the most to get their balances down are the ones getting charged the most in interest. I had things under control when my minimums were like $50 bucks. When it turned into $200 a month, I started finding myself with no left over money to throw at the balances.
Sorry but you are a extremely rare minority. You get paid pennies in exchange for the high risk of falling behind on paying off a balance. It's not worth it.
Nonsense. You incur no risk of not being able to pay off your credit card bill in full if you don't spend money you don't have.
The problem is the higher your debt is, the more you get punished with even higher minimum payments. It seems backwards to me. The people who are struggling the most to get their balances down are the ones getting charged the most in interest. I had things under control when my minimums were like $50 bucks. When it turned into $200 a month, I started finding myself with no left over money to throw at the balances.
Yes, it snowballs, add in late fees and everything else and you can get buried very quickly. I always thought if you ran into trouble, the credit card companies would rather work with you than have you just default, but that was not the case at all when I tried. If they had lowered the minimum payment to be manageable I could have paid them off over time. But all of them simply threatened me if I couldn't make the minimum payment here's all the awful things we will do to you kind of thing.
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