FYInance

Archive for August, 2008

In countries where online investing is not common, people actually keep gold in their home. Farmers and supposedly low income people sometimes have gold hidden away in their home in far of anyone stealing it. In countries where the government cannot be trusted, they prefer to keep money or assets in the form of gold rather than leave them at the bank.

However, in the US, most people don’t keep gold in their home. So, what would someone in the US do if he/she has a bar of real and pure gold that is likely to attract attention? Would gold investing come to mind?

“If I had a bar of pure real gold I would hold onto it and be watching the price of gold on the stock market for at least 15-30 days. I wouldn’t let anyone know that I had it for fear of someone breaking into my house and stealing it.

The price of gold is up right now and if it continues to rise, my gold bar would go up in value. If I started to see a decline I would either try to sell it for the gold market price or try to find someone who would pay more than it’s worth just to have a bar of gold.”

If you're new to FYInance, we're going to make it worth your while to subscribe to our FYInance RSS feed. It will keep you up to date, on your terms!

We have talked a bit about gold but never actually talked about gold investing yet. Gold is a commodity and if you think inflation is a major problem you may want to invest in gold or other commodities. Silver is another popular commodity.

We are going to interview one person who said that he wants to invest in gold but his circumstances do not allow such investment. So, we ask him for fun, what he would do if he had a bar of gold. He said:

“If I had a bar of pure gold, the first thing I would do would be to evaluate the market and see if I could determine whether it would likely increase or decrease in value in the next few weeks. I would then sell the bar when I thought I could get the best price. I would not look back to see if the price increased after I had sold it. Once I had the money for the gold, I would pay down my debts with half of the money, put one fourth into savings and use one fourth for travel, taking my mother to England.”

So, this reader has the right general idea of gold investing and how prices fluctuate. However, gold investing is not a short term type of investing so timing is not right for him. Anyone has any ideas?

Today we are going to have some fun and ask everyone to join in to tell us what they would do with some extra cash. Let’s make it educational and also fun. You don’t have to spend time thinking and come up with a perfect answer, just whatever you feel like doing with the cash.

I will start by interviewing one of our readers below. But please join in whenever you like.

“If I have lots of extra money, the more the better of course, then I would purchase a cruise to Alaska for my mother, a destination which has been on her wish list for more than 60 years. If there was any money left over from the sale, I would prepay her expenses in the assisted living facility she is residing at for the next 6-8 years. If there was still more funds left over, I would pay on my mortgage which I am 7 months behind on. Any further monies would be donated.”

Thank you for sharing. Anyone else wants to share what they would do with some money?

If you have gold bars, you might want to trade them in for something else. I actually never had a gold bar so I cannot comment. If anyone has any experience with gold bars and can comment, I will really appreciate it.

Trading gold bars for antique coins

“I would trade the bar of gold for antique gold coins, as gold antique coins would not have to be turned in to the government, due to a recall on gold bars or ingots.

I would then keep the antique gold coins, in a safe place, to borrow against for financing a business.

I would at the end of my life, or when I thought the time was right, hand the coins down to my children, as a solid nest egg to be borrowed against if necessary, but the coins would always be worth their “weight in gold”!

The economy is hard on many people. Not only individuals are struggling to pay bills, nonprofit organizations, churches, and other charitable organizations also need help. After all, most charitable organizations rely on benefactors to donate money so that they could turn those money into good use to help others less fortunate people or animals.

When the economy is bad, less people have disposable income to donate and as a result charitable organizations also suffer. As a result, the people who rely on those charities also suffer. We interviewed a lady whom is struggling herself with bills what she would do if she had some money today. While many people would say they would go on a vacation or save for some purposes, this lady would like to help the world. It’s nice to see people who are very charitable even in bad economy.

“if I had a significant sum of cash, I would pay my bills. I would also stock a local food pantry since so many families are struggling to survive. Since the food crisis is global, I would also send a donation to an aid organization that helps overseas. And lastly, I’d keep some cash to pay taxes on my found money.”