It is heresy even to suggest it, but the answer ultimately depends upon why you bought it.

If you purchased silver as a hedge against inflation, then you are sorely disappointed: Despite a 40-year high in inflation, silver spot is currently priced at a paltry $23.20/oz.

Similarly, if you purchased silver for investment purposes, counting on near prices still less than half of their peak in the 2007-2011 crisis, you have been rangebound for years, making silver one of the worst annual yield performers you could choose.

On the other hand, if you purchased silver as an insurance-based commodity for the purchase or barter for goods and services, then the jury is still out.  Like carrying a life insurance policy, you have bet against yourself, and may have been buying silver for 20+ years with no benefit to show for it (or paying 30% premiums if buying it today).  The decades go by, and my worthless fiat currency still buys bread at the store.  But if it couldn’t, would people who have bread still give it to me for metal?  

In Zimbabwe, they did, but that may be because hyperinflation was specific to their  country (ie., the people with food could sell the gold and silver and replenish their supplies in other countries.

But if the hyperinflation was global, and cheap food wasn’t available anywhere, would you still be able to get bread for metal?

I know I wouldn’t sell you mine at any price: I can’t eat metal.

Basically, I’m starting to reconsider whether silver is a prudent prepay all.  Perhaps money is better spent on beans, bullets, and bugout land.

Reminds me of that scene from John Wayne's "Chisum"

"Did you bring any gold"

"No"

"Silver?"

"No, just lead"

"Ah well, lead can't get you anything in these parts. I guess I'll just have to kill you and take your horses"

Jєωs manipulate gold, silver, digital currency. Its all mammon. Unless there is a Catholic monarch (who actually sees to it that money issue is free of fraud, manipulation, usury, and the usual tricks of Jєωs), than it’s bound to be a tool for Jєωιѕн power.  Tally sticks were probably one of the closest currency to something free of fraud/manipulation. I think they were issued during the reign of a Catholic King (would need to double check). Along with gold coins that was not being manipulated by banksters. 

Sadly most Catholic monarchs fell to usurpers themselves to finance their own ambitions. 

Maybe gold and silver will bounce back, I have some as a hedge. But I don’t count on it. 

I think when the bombs start falling no amount of preps will compare to the Rosary. 

Once they allowed the JMFs to trade cryptocurrency as ETFs, the writing was on the wall that crypto would be manipulated to their benefit and our misfortune.

It's getting harder day by day to fight off the aphorism: "every.single.time"

Yes, the Rosary!

Silver/gold is only a good idea to park your excess "wealth" -- after you bought all those more important things. Energy security (solar panels, solar hot water heater, rain catchment/water storage tanks, professionally installed pond on your acreage, acreage, sheds, equipment for gardening/raising animals, etc.

And of course preps, and any home improvements. Do all that stuff first, and if you have cash sitting around left over, then yes you want to park it in something less vulnerable than USD.

But I will say this: most of us will never get that far: what to spend our "extra" on, where to park our excess liquid wealth. Many of us have none.


BTW, yes you can still spend your fiat currency for bread, but have you noticed the loss of value? Every possible thing you look at, the USD has lost about 50% of its value over the past 4 years or so. It's horrible.

We just bought a new dishwasher to replace one we bought in 2017 that just died. Same dishwasher, about 50% higher sticker price. Amazing.

Not only do our dollars buy less, but what they do buy seems smaller: Beer bottles went from 12oz to a stealthy 11.2oz; chip bags have more wrapper and less content (family sized bags today are the regular sized bags of yesterday); grocery bags are the size of lunch bags to hide the shrinkage; hamburgers shrunk, and look what happened to Ding Dongs:

https://kffm.com/new-hostess-ding-dongs/

I've avoided gold/silver for this very reason.  They've been deliberately suppressing their value, and if in a SHTF scenario, nobody's going to give up anything of real value for some metal.

All true. Peter Lynch said that doctors would invest in computer or tech stocks, and computer people would invest in medical stocks, when they should have been investing in what they knew. It's the grass is greener in the other side of the hill. My experience with inflation and how to handle it comes from working in hyper-inflation countries like Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, what people did in those countries was just keep enough money in their currency to live like 1 month, and the rest was in the USA or Europe. Real estate, gold and stocks, were not liquid, meaning you could not turn them into cash quickly. Keep your money in another country was the answer. BUT, that is of no use to us, we live in the country where they kept their money.

The #1 solution to hyper-inflation and inflation is to have a business or job that just adjusts with inflation. That does not help people on fixed incomes, but it is the best solution. We were in the steel business in the late 1970's when the price of our raw material (scrap rebar) fell by 50% almost overnight. We had to swallow the loss in the sale of what we had produced, and then buy at the new price and move on. It was hyper-inflation in reverse. It could have gone the other way, prices doubling after we had already bought at the cheaper price, and we would have made a mint. That's a business that adjusts with inflation.

As far as keeping extra money, I would put it in what I know. For instance Mark79 mentioned ammunition, which he says he knows, and is something people will always need. If that is what he knows maybe he would have bought certain calibers that are like commodities. I was involved once in a perfume business. I had $60,000 worth of top of the line ladies perfumes in my house closet. I was shocked to see that it occupied like an area of only 3'x3'x3' in my closet. 

…For instance Mark79 mentioned ammunition, which he says he knows, and is something people will always need. If that is what he knows maybe he would have bought certain calibers that are like commodities. …

Who could be adequately prepared in that regard? 

I do not envision bartering or selling it.  By the time ammo is that valuable a commodity, the last thing in the world you want is for "the other guy" to have ammo that he will likely use against you.

I would not barter with any stranger unless I was in Level IV body armor had overwatch from at least two different vantage points.

Who could be adequately prepared in that regard?

I do not envision bartering or selling it.  By the time ammo is that valuable a commodity, the last thing in the world you want is for "the other guy" to have ammo that he will likely use against you.

I would not barter with any stranger unless I was in Level IV body armor had overwatch from at least two different vantage points.

It was an example, there are problems with anything valuable, like say one's wallet. One just has to learn how to deal with whatever the problem is. Besides I was talking about extra money, and how it is better in an inflationary environment to have it in say bullets or perfume (if that is what someone knows) than in paper money. One does not have to be concerned with inflation on their paper money, if they have instead hard assets, like bullets and perfume (or if you owe $100,000 on your house mortgage )