I have been on STEEMIT since September of 2016 and have tried hard to get everyone I know at least signed up for the platform. I see huge growth in our futures especially to those who buy in and who post. Lately I have been trying to get my parents to get a chunk of their retirement money out of the stock market and diversify into Silver, STEEM and straight up just putting cash and coins into their safes. I, for one, do not trust big banks.
I see the data of what if you invested $10,000 five years ago and of course it hurts to see what you knew would happen but hey, I did not have $10k to throw into BTC that I saw at $1,200 then at $300. Too big of an investment in my eyes and too much risk for loss. Silver is my bread and butter and owning the physical has given my family the savings that gives me piece of mind with a huge possible upside in increasing value. I also own some Gold and about 50 cryptocurrencies from when I mined them with a few Radeon 7850's and an i3-2120 (smiles). The learning curve was high but I had motivation, due to a poor move, however unwitting.
When I was younger, as I am now, I was a dork. I was in all-Honors and Accelerated classes in school and began College as a 17 year old. I also played a lot of video games growing up leading to my dorkiness. At 15/16 I was one of the highest ranked Pokémon TCG in my state (NY), country (USA) and even ranked in the world. As such I had a huge collection of Base Set and 1st Edition cards. I also had MTG cards. Now I am selling them graded on eBay for, well, more than what I make monthly as a Nurse with five College Degrees and a decade of experience and this has been great for me and my family, buying a vacation property, getting out of debt and saving a lot of capital, in various forms.
I was also the type of dork that had purchased BTC when it was worth nothing, and being worth nothing, thought nothing about it when my PC got outdated and my not yet techy butt let it go into the landfill. No doubt millions of dollars sitting under banana peels. Oh well, spilled milk right? (oh the pain!!!). Now I work hard, raise two children, have opinions I put onto STEEMIT and make pennies and sometimes a few bucks, try to prepare as much as possible by diversifying my funds and not keeping too much capital in the banking system (I am the guy buying $500 Pre-paid Gift Cards at CVS to pay bills and the guy buying a $1,000+ Money Order at the USPS. Just don't trust 'em (banks).
I have thousands of $20's rolled up and stuffed into shoes in my closet that no one knows about. I have a silver stack that would be difficult to carry at once. I own guns and ammo, months of long-term food and water because I trust very little in a fiat-based monetary exchange system. So this leads me back to the beginning, convincing others to follow in my footsteps.
At under 34 I have lived an experienced life thus far, but not nearly as much as my parents who grew up poor, one the youngest of five, an immigrant from Ireland, the other the oldest of seven, a daughter of a German Mother and Italian Father, both immigrants to the USA. They earned their wealth, my father working seven days a week for my entire childhood and my Mother going from housewife and Mom back to College in her late 30's to become a Teacher and now they are both millionaires, true success stories. I am a US Marine Corps Veteran, enlisting in 2001 after 9/11, dropping out of College to do so and leaving behind a full Athletic/Academic Scholarship (did I mention on top of being a gamer and a dork who played a Pokémon cards at 16 I was also a 3-Sport Athlete in Cross Country Running (scholarship), Basketball and Lacrosse?)
So now as I own a home (mortgage is 30% paid off) with two kids and parents retiring in the next 5 years I am Long-term to the fullest and try to get everyone sincsn to diversify in every way possible financially. I say "buy silver 1oz coins, bars and rounds at $16 spot!" I say "take out $5,000 from your savings account and just keep it in your safe along with rolls of coins, right next to your silver", and also "good you finally bought a rifle or three, don't forget to buy ammunition while it's still cheap (and available). I also say buy food and water but when they don't listen I buy double when Ingo to the grocery store and store it away should any currency crisis arise with the USD. But my biggest push lately has been to get them not out of their 401k's, 403b's, IRA/ROTH IRA'S or liquidating their entire portfolios but simply trying to show them the upside of investing in cryptocurrencies, something which they have s hard time grasping as a concept ("but you can't even hold it"). You know the talk.
I show them charts of how much I would be worth with those Bitcoin sitting in the landfill five miles away, should I have been smart enough to have saved the HDD. I show them how precious metals, especially silver is being manipulated and more so how easily a bubble in the housing market, credit market or the like could turn their investments into headaches. Bit by bit (no pun intended) Intry to get them to remove money from the bank and to even take a small penalty and take $10k out of their retirement accounts (they both have pensions and social security income to rely on too as well as a $700k house on Long Island when they retire as assets). But no matter how hard I try they just won't budge, thinking the stock market is making them great money, not knowing what the Petro-Dollar is, despite their decades of hard work and inexagerable (is that a word?) work ethics.
I spesk to my despair about bubbles and how their retirement could be severely affected but to no avail. The only Silver they have is in jewelry, Gold in Wedding Rings, food in cabinets (and my storage space) and ammo enough to shoot at the range next weekend while I, as a military veteran and self-proclaimed prepper, have an arsenal of AR-15's, AR-10's, .22LR's, a crossbow and all the magazines and thousands of watertight (airtight) ammunition and magazines to protect my wealth and family should SHTF, (because it ALWAYS can). I even buy ammo for them because Inknow they won't. I even own 100 acres of "paid-for hunting property" that they think I rent every summer vacation (AirBnB when I'm not there, paid off in less than 8 years), just in case we need a place to get away from the madness of a currency collapse/crisis.
I have all my ducks in a row so to speak and yet can't convince them to buy into a different way of thinking. What am I to do besides save food and water just in case and hope they cash out before the market bubble pops? Does anyone else find themselves in this predicament? I have a job that will always be needed as both me and my wife are working on our Masters Degrees in Nurse Practitioning and can live anywhere should we need to cut living costs. Our jobs pay our tuition and furthermore will be paying for our kids College tuitions should they not get "full-rides" for Academics and/zor Athletics (we work at a State University Hospital and have great job security and benefits). I have turned hundreds of dollars of 1996-1999 Pokémon and MTG cards into Silver Bullion, weapons, property and a diversified, prepared existence. But what is there to do about all those you cannot convince?
What do you say to those who never thought a bubble would wipe out half their retirement and even afterwards feel safe since the housing market and their pensions and 401k's and retirement accounts have recovered, however short term it may be? I hope I am wrong, I hope I am paranoid and overly cautious and never have to trade Silver for water or worse, bullets for protection, but what is the best way tonsay to the non-prepared mindset that 'hey, sh*t may never hit the fan, you might be fine and everything might work out great for you, but if it doesn't and your company goes out of business and you each aren't making a Quarter of a Million/year, than prepare now while you still can and diversify your funds, not just your retirement accounts in the stock market and bond markets.'
I think the thing that scares me most is knowing my wife and kids will be fine because of their slightly tin-foil hat wearing Dad but that is really all I can prepare for while still paying off this mortgage in 15 years and having a healthy level of credit and money saved and diversified. I just can't get through to others who have more 'means' than I do and it's frustrating. I wish I could say "take out ten grand and kiss it to the wind and let me manage it and I promise it will not negatively effect your financial status but it isn't going to happen."...and I am the responsible son!
I wish I could take $2,500 and buy them into STEEM and some BTC and another $2,500 into physical precious metals. I wish I could take a grand and buy them full load out gear for when we need to haul ass out of state into the mountains where my off the grid retreat awaits us. I wish I could turn around in five-10 years and say 'hey remember when I hassled you for a decade to let me prepare you for anything and now your Silver coins are worth 20X as much, your BTC doubled and that STEEM stuff you had no idea about went from fifty cents to fifty dollars and that huge stock market bubble didn't cripple you?'
But I know the talk is just that. Something they know is coming and will brush off, going from ketchup soup to self-made millionaires, thinking they will be ok no matter what and possibly missing out on not just security but some nice profits to end out their careers at 70 years old. But what can I do? Is anyone else out there in this kind of situation, where you just want to shake them and say "the banks don't care about your retirement plans!"?
So I continue to talk, show them charts and explain lost opportunities, and will continue to make sure they have me stocking up like the ant I am, preparing them with emergency food, water clothing, a safe place to be, along with my Grandma, Brother and his family (food is cheap now so stock up while you can... fuel and ammo too). But shake my head as 0.01% of their money could ensure no fist currency could bring a lifetime of work to worthless paper and a stock market in a shambles with pensions gone and a home they will get nothing for while others are selling to survive. I hope I am just a little paranoid, truly I do. I also wish they would be a little too.
So I don't have to worry so much, and so they don't see their basket of eggs fall to the floor as I watch, in slow-motion as they hit the ground, eyes closing, head shaking, at what could have been. So now all I do is try to live stress-free and make sure I can live in the mountains off-grid, so my family doesn't have to change their plans. But oh what peace of mind I would have if they too had buried silver in airtight containers, months of food and water stored and an arsenal to rival any National Guardsmans Road Blocking Abilities.
Does anyone else feel this way too? Like no matter what you say or do you can only effect your present and future and can't influence even the smartest and closest people we have in our lives? Does it stress you out as it does me? Or should I just relax and hope when I wake up the lights still turn on...