This is yet another guest post from Bill. Bill likes to reach out to my readers again and again and, now I am afraid if you all are going to leave OCAAT for Bill’s blog. Anyway, as usual, this is another great post from Bill, enjoy the post! In case you’re wondering about my absence from blogging, life caught on, I’ll be back soon.
It’s never too early to prepare for retirement. In fact, the earlier you start, the better off you’ll be once you reach your Golden Years, since you’ll have extra money to do the things you’ve always wanted to do.
This blog post will tell you how you can start preparing for your retirement and how you can protect your money by investing in the one asset whose value is guaranteed to increase over the long-term.
Why This Matters
If you have not yet started your retirement accounts, you should start now. There are a whole range of informative articles that you can read on this topic, including:
1. The Ultimate Roth 401(k) Guide by Robert Farrington: This blog post tells you everything you need to know about the Roth 401(k), a retirement account that is ideal for young people just starting to save for their retirement, since it allows their money decades to grow on a tax-free basis.
2. How to Rollover a Traditional IRA into a Gold IRA – The Ultimate Guide: Well, in this content you’ll learn how to rollover a traditional IRA into a gold IRA. There are many advantages you can get by employing this strategy. One big benefit you’ll get is the stability of gold as an investment asset. Gold and silver have become increasingly popular ways to hedge your investment money against the possibility of loss from factors such as weakening international currencies and global political tensions.
3. How to Pick a Roth IRA by Ramit Sethi: This blog post features a great instructional video about how to pick the best Roth IRA, focused on new college graduates who are interested in already putting aside money for the future.
4. How to Start a Roth IRA (And Where to Do It) by JD Roth: If you’ve decided that a Roth IRA is the ideal vehicle for your retirement savings, this article will tell you how you can choose a financial institution to start your account.
Why all the focus on Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)’s compared with the traditional versions of these retirement accounts? Basically, because they give you a wider choice of investment options compared with regular retirement accounts.
Whereas the traditional 401(k)’s generally restrict you to mutual funds and stocks, Roth accounts allow you a wider range of investment assets. In fact, you can hold almost any type of investment in a Roth with the exception of collectibles, life insurance and some types of derivative positions.
If you want more information on how to allocate assets in your investment portfolio based on your current age, read Planning for Retirement: Ideal Asset Allocation for Your Age.
One investment asset that is highly recommended is gold. The basic reason is that the metal appreciates in value over the long-term, making it ideal for retirement savings compared with stocks and other securities which may fluctuate wildly in value over the period the account is being maintained and constantly need to be managed to ensure that they will generate the value required.
On the other hand, with gold, you simply have to hold on to it and let the value increase until you’re ready to sell it to fund your retirement. In recent months, the price of gold has been steadily rising; currently, it is just over $1,360 per ounce. Of course, you should not only have gold as your only investment, but it should represent a significant part of your portfolio.
You have two choices when investing in gold: you can either invest in the physical metal itself or you can invest in gold index funds. These funds are securities that track the value of gold and can be traded as if they were stocks. If you choose to invest in physical gold, you need to buy gold coins.
These coins should be at least 99.5% pure gold and be legal tender to qualify under IRS rules. Currency that qualifies includes the American Gold Eagle, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf and Kangaroo-Nuggets from Australia.
How to Protect Your Roth Account with Gold
- Open a Roth IRA if you don’t have one yet. Make sure that the plan you open is an IRA that lets you add gold to your account.
- If you have an existing Roth IRA, ask your custodian if you can invest in gold; if not you need to set up a separate gold Roth IRA plan.
- Transfer money from the account to buy the gold. Your IRA representative will buy it for you from a reputable dealer.
- To get more benefits out of your retirement account that is backed by Gold, I’d recommend you buy gold coins and instruct your IRA associate to buy for you the Gold coin.
- Make sure you submit paperwork to the new IRA custodian so as to open your Gold-Silver IRA account. According to IRS rules, the Gold must be stored at an approved depository.
- To go beyond your investment, kindly ask your IRA associate if you can add Gold to your current IRA account.
- When you’re opening a Gold-Silver account make sure that its administered with an experience Gold dealer who will manage your investment profitably and securely.
Some of the Benefits of protecting your Roth Account with Gold
- Gold will offer your investment some diversity, this is because it does not depend with a particular industry or any part of the economy. When other investments are falling, Gold will be rising.
- Gold has never reached a total worth of zero i.e it has never lost its value completely. When you invest in Gold the rate at which you’ll lose is very small as compared to other investment.
- Your account will have a potential growth even if the worldwide government are experiencing instability, your retirement account will be intact and positively.
Yes, it really is that easy to invest in gold. While we may not be as lucky as Dakota Johnson to land the role of a lifetime with her casting in 50 Shades of Grey, there’s no reason we can’t secure our future starting now by adding gold to our portfolio in order to protect the value of our retirement accounts.
Feel absolutely FREE to share the content and leave comments below for discussion.
The Roth IRA and its new 401K cousin are some of the most valuable financial tools available today. Thank you for showing how to interface them with precious metal investing.
Thanks Mike i appreciate your valuable insight.
I’m not a huge fan of investing in gold, particularly as a large part of your portfolio. It’s historical real return is right around 1% (http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Gold) and the only real reason to expect it to rise in price is that you hope someone comes along and values it for more. It doesn’t produce anything like a company does. It’s just a metal that people could decide to value or not at some point in the future. And you say that gold has never gone to 0. Well neither has the stock market. Or the bond market. And they have a better historical return (no guarantee of the future, but it’s the best indication we have).
As a small piece of a portfolio to protect against inflation, sure I get it. As a dominant part of your investment plan, it’s just not a strategy that I would follow.
We max our contributions to our 401(k) and Roth IRA accounts. We also maximize annual i-bond purchases and save in taxable investments. We have a moderate asset allocation of stocks and bonds. Due to high interest rate risk, our bond money is in short and intermediate term bonds. I just don’t see any need to own gold. Even though it is shiny, kind of pretty, and has good electrical properties.
Hehehehehhehe, i like your thought of shininess and prettiness of the Gold, but all in all it depends how you invest it. What do you think Bryce?
Hi Bill, I am a buy and hold investor in low-cost passive mutual funds, not a speculator. That’s why I do not trade commodities, including gold. If I held gold, I would likely be setting myself up for sub-par returns. My dad had a coin collection that contained some gold coins that were neat to look at. That and panning for gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills is as close to owning gold as I have ever come or desired.
I appreciate precious metal as an inflation hedge, as well as just looking pretty.
However, if I were to invest in gold, I would buy the physical gold. At $1600/ozt, it doesn’t take much space to build a sizeable stake. And then you’re less interested in the cat and mouse discussion around the paper trade of gold, and who will end up with the actual physical gold if something bad happens, and who ends up with nothing. Even with “physical gold” ETFs, I suspect there is still more gold being claimed than extant, and that’s not a good sign.
I was never a fan of gold! My portfolio is set for growth and I like it that way.
I’m staying away from precious metals at the moment, but I do see it as a (small) hedge against inflation. I’m into mostly stock and some bond market index funds, and have been happy so far. Bogleheads all the way 🙂