Since the value of the US dollar is crap, what can I invest in to save????

Let's face it, the US dollar is crap and I don't see t's value getting any better any time soon. Since, I just got a job offer for a pretty well paid job, I have plans to save more than 50% of my paychecks for the first year and I want to put my money into something strong that can't crap out like the dollar is doing.

Any good advice?

p.s. Please don't say stock market cause I consider that crap as well.

I guess you could put it into a long term high percentage rate CD(Cash Deposit) or you could put it into an IRA where it is not taxed.

I heard gold would be good to buy if the economy crashes; so you might want to look into gold? Something thats profitable, and well sought after, i would choose to buy gold, i guess IMO.

Gold is your best choice is gold, CD and IRA's are just you putting money into the bank, in turn the bank says we will hold this and then give it back to you. If the economy crashes, and everyone runs to the bank to get their money out, it isnt going to be available for you to get it back. I would invest in gold, and either get a safe deposit box, or invest in a good safe. That is, for the time being the only smart investment to make, imo. I would if I were you invest 40%, and invest the other 10% on storable food, water, etc, that is as good as currency in certain situations. In this day and age, all the crap going on in this world, it never hurts to be prepared you could have all the gold in the world, but if the stuff hits the fan, you cant eat gold. Invest in some firearms and ammo also.

reply to post by dominicus


Good question.

I remember hearing about a hacker that bought the iPhone when it first came out for the sole purpose of disassembling it to find out who the manufacturer of the hard drive was.

Gold is probably your best bet, but I've also heard they are expecting IPv6 upgrade to be the next big internet boom.

I wonder if Dollar General would be a good one to invest in.

Gold is but an instrument to hedge against inflation. So if you got in on gold in 2003 you would have doubled your value vs the dollar. Getting on the bandwagon now im not so sure but I would buy some even in todays market prudently

its innate value in reality is only what the market places on it.

The US economy is still the strongest and natural cycles with the lower value of the dollar vs the euro now will only help exports.

Id say diversify

-precious metals including silver and gold ( silver being undervalued more imo) are a good place to go. Gold mining stocks,

-foreign investments in China, and Brazil. Stocks traded on our exchange or a fund specializing in discovery

-Alternative Energy solutions, nuclear, Solar, water desalination.

There are some ideas.

Please try and be rational before resonating doom and gloom propaganda because frankly it isnt true.

[edit on 15-12-2007 by romanowski]

[edit on 15-12-2007 by romanowski]

reply to post by dominicus


There is no investment without risk or opportunity costs.

Cd's, treasuries and cash are the safest for maintaining units of said currency. What you aren't safe against is those units of currency being able to buy the same amount of goods tommorow, next year or decades into the future.

Other currencies, while they may appreciate against the dollar, also can depreciate against the dollar.

Precious, metals and gold are just a bet as well. Since the 1970's gold is basically flat while prices have tripled, thus gold is not even a good hedge against deflation.

Stocks. They go up and down. However, even in the worst of economic times people buy things, and thus America's greatest companies will stay around, and over time, grow. Inflation makes their assets worth more. A weak dollar makes them more money overseas. These companies have record amounts of cash and cash flow from earnings.

Since you will be saving money, probably for decades in the future, I would stick with a diversified basket of mutual funds (retirement acct's) or ETF's (taxable acct). Take advantage of dollar cost averaging. If the markets fall like you think, then each month when you invest, you will be able to buy more and more shares with the same amount of money. If the market goes up, you will buy less shares. This will serve to reduce your average cost per share below the average price paid for each share. Split the investments up into, Large Cap Blend 2X; Midcap Blend; SmallCap Blend; International 3/4X; Emerging Markets 1/4X. Set it and forget it, with the exception of an annual rebalancing into original allocation.

The above has worked for all time periods. Imagine if you had started this plan a year before the great depression and stuck with it for the next 40 years. Do you realize how much money you would have made? We are talking tens of millions of dollars.

The right real estate could work as well.

Then again you could always just spend it, sinced the world is probably going to end in 2012 or so.



[edit on 16-12-2007 by disgustedbyhumanity]

Right now's a good time to buy into the market since it's so low. You can get a good mix of stocks and mutual funds on "sale". It really depends on how old you are to determine what you want to invest in. For example, me. I'm 23 so I have stocks, some of which are more high risk than what my parents would have. But I'm in a position that if I lose my money, which I have because of our little "crisis", I can make it back and it won't hurt me like it would them.

This is what I have now: 4 mutual funds, and 5 stocks. They range from Small Caps to Large Caps and from small companies to multinationals. I'd say that I have a good blend but with the market the way it is, it really doesn't matter. One of my companies, Johnson Controls Inc(JCI), beat their expected targets easily. To bad it didn't matter because the stock promptly went down and it's still going down of today. Then I have risks like Ford(F) and US Global Investors(GROW). Ford I bought knewing that I would have to wait, however, GROW has been going down; and it's hard to figure out why. They make/sell mutual funds, and theirs are in the top tier, yet their stock has kinda bottomed out. And then just for fun, I invested in a company called TGC Industries Inc. (TGE) and they pretty much search for the oil. It's fairly small, market cap of $133 million or so and it's done fairly well.

My mutuals I have a small cap, an emerging market fund, a world market fund, and a large cap growth. To be totally honest, I've made the greatest returns from the mutuals. The emerging market fund, before all this happend, I was making a return in the neighborhood of about 115% or so, its only 77% now, but that one is more risky than the others. The Large cap constantly makes me money, enough in fact to sell some off and then reinvest in other stocks.

Thats what I have, and kind of how I've done. I think it really depends on your age as to what you invest in. If you're 35-45 you'd probably want more mutual funds than stocks, but you'd still want some more stocks. Disgustedbyhumanity has a pretty good way of investing into the mutuals, that'd probably get you going onto the right start....but remember, there is always risk.