Hi Hive account@steemitguide.

I'm not allowed to give financial advice but I can tell you what we do and why, being firm believers in putting our money where our mouths are.

When making your decisions bare the following in mind. All markets are rigged and manipulated including the gold and silver market and there is no reason to believe it will stop anytime soon. With the advent of hft (high frequency trading) over the last decade or so, trading on any market becomes very risky since you have computers making automated decisions which can affect prices wildly.

Physical silver and gold coins are ideal for small budgets (which let's face it, applies to most working people - ourselves included). They are also one of the few "assets" that you don't need a loan to pay for and they are highly unlikely to go to zero in value (which they have never done in the past 5,000 years).

How about using silver as a regular savings account? If you have $20.00 a month to save, buy a 1 oz pure silver coin, instead of putting it in a bank account. Since all currencies are affected by inflation and consequently devalue over time, after one year you will have 12 oz of pure silver which can appreciate in value vs $ 240.00 in currency which will only depreciate as time goes by.

Physical gold and silver can also be very easily moved across borders. If your family decides to move countries you can take your metals with you and they can be exchanged for any local currency, giving you a very liquid asset. The same doesn't apply to Forex Market contracts or Company stocks.

If you wanted to trade the gold and silver price an ETF might be your best solution. ETF's give exposure to the underlying metal price but not access to the the physical metal. That basically means you will not be able to exchange your shares for the physical metal.

If your risk tolerance is high and you think you can make money trading prices on the Forex Market your budget constraints will reduce any meaningful gains due to any dealing costs you will likely incur.

We have also explored the option of investing in mining stocks, which are the most volatile and risky stocks on the planet, but they do have good leverage against the underlying gold and silver prices. For this you would need to pay for a subscription to a well known and respected newsletter, that has people analysing and doing the due diligence on these stocks, since about 60% of all mining stocks are just names of companies which will not make any money. Again risk is ever present.

Personally we wouldn't risk safeguarding our parents wealth at all, since you never know when they might need to draw on that in the coming years. Look to the long term, there are no quick bucks to be made. Accumulate as much physical gold and silver as possible although many can only afford silver. It has exceptional purchasing power protection over that long term.