If you’ve watched any prepper television shows — you know the ones, where they have a bugout bag and a 1976 Chevy Nova parked somewhere in the wilderness, then they plan on driving across the border and into another country, likely Mexico, but possibly Canada, and you can tell we’ve watched too many of these shows — you are aware of the SHTF acronym.
If you haven’t, let’s just assume it stands for “things get really bad.”
Watching the news, you might think the world is going to heck in a handbasket, but…well, all is not bad, because at least the car insurance ads tell you you can save tons by switching.
We’re here today to give some ideas — not advice, not counsel, see disclaimer below — and maybe these can help you if…well…you know.
This advice is culled from a few places, plus our own crypto experience. YMMV is another acronym and THIS one we can define for ya: “Your Mileage May Vary.”
So we need to tell you we don’t provide investment advice, and your experience may vary, and that we’re not responsible for success or failure. We hope you get rich, but, more importantly, we hope you stay safe and take care of yourselves.
*And…about that asterisk. This may NOT totally be a “portfolio” in the traditional sense. We’re not suggesting retirement money here, we’re suggesting different investments and platforms that can put you in the position to cut your losses when…well…when the SHTF moment happens.
Portfolio Idea #1: Cold, Hard Cash
You need it. If you’re in the USA, that means the greenback. If you’re in another country, your own currency may suffice, but (for now) the greenback is essential.
Recommended: $1000. That’s your emergency fund. Hide it somewhere, don’t tell anyone except the others in your house that need to know.
The inimitable Dave Ramsey recommends this amount as your emergency fund — this is the first of his “baby steps” which can help you get out of debt and right the ship.
However, in a super duper emergency like the one that necessitates the SHTF portfolio, getting out of debt might be the least of your worries.
Portfolio Idea #2: Precious Metals
These are the most fungible when they’re in smaller denominations. Recommended: a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars worth. Small units of gold, like 1/10 or 1/5 ounce, are great. Silver bars and coins and rounds — an ounce each — will get you by when the crazies come out. Hey, how much for that bag of groceries? How bout two ounces of silver? Great!
Now, a note about precious metals as an investment: your guess is as good as mine. There are analysts who follow gold and silver, and the stock prices of miners that get the stuff out of the ground; these people will tell you that they can only go up in price because of supply and demand and the inflation of the US Dollar. Great.
There are others, like the inimitable Dave Ramsey (referenced above) who think gold and silver are dumb.
Portfolio Idea #3a: A Coinbase Account
THIS PART INCLUDES A CLEARLY MARKED AFFILIATE LINK: Coinbase Affiliate Link. If you use that link to sign up and buy your crypto, we can both get a bonus after a qualifying purchase.
One reason you want to get on Coinbase if you haven’t already: ease of use. You will need a tool like this to move amounts of your crypto out of their wallets and into an actual bank account.
Another reason: some of their tutorials can pay you money. Here’s a list of a few, and, again, THESE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS:
- EOS tutorial on Coinbase Earn.
- Stellar Lumens (XLM) tutorial on Coinbase Earn.
- Compound (COMP) tutorial on Coinbase Earn.
We’ve used Coinbase for the past couple years and, if you need to move coins lickety-split, it’s one of the best ways to do so.
Portfolio Idea #3b: Crypto.com
HERE’S ANOTHER CLEARLY MARKED AFFILIATE LINK: Crypto.com. Our experience with this platform isn’t as long as ours with Coinbase, but we’ve gotten a decent ROI from a couple things.
One is the staking — which, in this #DeFi economy, is quite profitable, since platforms are paying interest in order to recruit people. You can get a percentage return — ours was about a 30% bump from when we bought in — just by parking your coins on their platform for a few months.
The other profitable angle: staking led to a bonus of $50 into our account, and $50 into the referrer’s account, too. (So yeah you can build a little empire if you want.)
Big, also, is the debit card from Crypto.com. Here’s the Black Card, which is slick. Ours is burgundy, and equally slick but took us less money to get started. It’s authorized by a US-regulated bank.
Portfolio Idea #4: Get Some Ethereum — ETH — Now!
We recommend two things here: a few hundred dollars of Ethereum, and a Metamask wallet.
WHY ETH and not BTC?
Simple: over the past couple years, while Bitcoin has ebbed and flowed, the use case — other than being the big 800-pound gorilla of the crypto universe — has been meh. Ethereum, however, has more of a use case, in our opinion, than XRP, which hoped to displace SWIFT for bank settlements.
Who cares about bank settlements, we think, when all of the #DeFi developments going on in 2020 rely upon ETH to make the transactions.
Sure “gas” prices could be high (that’s the amount of ETH needed to transact), but there are few alternatives that make sense.
Ethereum is still relatively cheap, down 72% from its all-time high of $1444. (That’s after a healthy morning bump to over $400.)
Recommendation: buy some — a few hundred dollars if you can spare that money — and score the Metamask wallet here: Metamask link.
Coming in Part 2…
Next post will look at a few specifics: some random coins, some basics, and some ways to potentially monetize right now if you need to. (And we’ll include ways that link back to the first part…)
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