Don’t have the money to buy gold in the first place, and still essentially with my parents still for college, so what can I do to prepare for what’s probably coming?
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Make yourself valuable, rather try and hold value in finances.
Another user pointed out buying tools and appliances, but you'll also want to invest in yourself to make the most of said things. One that some people might not think of (especially outside America) is also getting a gun and getting into hunting. Hunting your own meat can be a massive financial saving, though you'll need to invest in a decent sized freezer to be able to store the meat from the carcass, along with ensuring you know how to strip and prep the animal for all the various cuts.
Gold only holds value if it has a use. In a true collapse, nobody is going to give two shits about gold, because while it holds a modern use in electronics, most people won't be able to manufacture that in a collapse. What they are going to care about is food, goods and services that they can use.
There are a lot of resources out there about homesteading, and how to get the most output out of small areas. IIRC, an acre or so can provide for many with the right setup. And while you want to be independent, you don't need to be. Start small, start alleviating pressure. Don't try and do everything all at once, grow with your skills not with what you want. You over-expand and you'll burn yourself out. It's not so much a skill as it's trying to foster new habits. And I'm not going to pretend you'll have access to an acre of land, but you plan according to what you and your associates can manage. Your associates? As someone else pointed out, make friends with your neighbours. Get involved, and do simple things like swap excess produce. For example, if someone has room for chickens, and you have room for bees, swap eggs for honey. You grow tomatoes and they grow carrots? Swap 'em! Get involved, or build, a community. Get others involved, and get them motivated with you.
I know that I've posted a fair bit of information here, and it's easy to get bogged down. But the key points are to begin small, one step at a time and don't overwhelm yourself. You're still in college, so you don't have an excess of free time, so you'll be forced to start small. It's also good to find what works for you. Some things, like beekeeping, can also have some rules and regulations depending on nation (Australia for example used to be very strict (and still mostly are) since they were trying to keep out a rather dangerous mite that up until this year was virtually only ever seen at border control), so it's not terrible to look things up, but most will be fine.
Also, look into what is a necessity and what isn't. Things like gold and silver do have value, but they're not necessities. In a collapse, people can live without them. Sure, they might return as a form of currency, but that's just a representation of value and not value itself. Gold/Silver holds little usefulness outside of being a representation. Skills and needed goods (like food) inherently hold value as they are needed for life.
This is essentially taking up a new way of life. It doesn't need to be all at once. It doesn't even need to be all of it. You could simply find that you like growing a couple veggies and that's about it. Maybe you want some chickens and nothing else. These are things that can just take the load off and alleviate pressure because it's just one less cost. Or it could legitimately grow into a passion and you get more and more independent and self-sustaining as you get into more and more elements. You're free to pick and choose on your own schedule, and scale it as per your desires. And most importantly, have fun. This should be a way of life, and you can't be hating it. If you're not enjoying it, you need to look at something you will enjoy that will alleviate pressure.
A freezer and a side of beef is going to be a more valuable investment than almost anything you can buy right now.
Meat is a big thing to be able to have, and if you can hunt and fill a freezer, that can last a good few months just for yourself. If you can hunt and sell/barter/swap with others, that will be insanely valuable.
Freezers, and general meal prep, is a MAJOR cornerstone of any sort of frugal living and should always be incorporated into efforts at self-sustainability. There are going to be days you won't feel like doing much. There are going to be days when you're too busy. Not having to worry about your next meal alleviates a lot of pressure.
This is incredibly wrong. If gold was only valuable for its use in electronics, why were ancient civilizations using it? Gold ,and all precious metals, hold value because they....hold value. Thats it. They were the first forms of money for a reason. 1) Last a long time without degrading 2) Rare 3) Compact and thus easily held and traded. In a collapse I would question they're worth, because they really only work in a stable society that values "value". But it wouldnt hurt to have some anyway, not like the dollar is gonna be any better
Gold only held value due to the rarity as a stand-in for currency. That was it. It was used to represent value, but it itself was not valuable outside of it's rarity and limited status which allowed for it's value to remain relatively fixed due to a mostly static supply. New gold could be discovered, but rarely enough to truly alter its value. This is what gave gold it's value over other commodities. Most other goods were either in abundance or more could be made. Having a natural resource that couldn't be massively expanded resulted in a currency that maintained it value as per supply vs demand.
And currency of any kind is nothing more than a representation of value, often now associated with labour. That's why any Standard (most often idealised as the Gold Standard), where you tie something tangible to a currency (so as to not be fiat) is considered rather important by most economists that aren't blitheringly retarded.
Whew, that's some brilliant circular reasoning. Don't hurt yourself on that one.
My point is that investing your dollars into yourself (and those directly around you, eg family) is a far better investment long term than anything else. Gold is only valuable so far as someone else wants it. If nobody else wants it because it holds no actual usage for them, then your gold is worthless. A shiny and rare trinket to admire, sure, but no usage beyond that. I could just as easily buy an NFT and claim the same thing, but the reality is that NFTs could only hold value if there were people willing to buy them. And when it's getting to a situation where banks are starting to control more and more and more of how people spend, people aren't going to care about using gold, they're going to care about getting the things they need, like clothing, furniture, shelter, food, water, medicine, etc. A shiny metal that can be made into a ring or necklace isn't of much value when those are the priorities. And if you have the skills to be able to provide those things, you're going to be a very valuable person that won't struggle for much as a result.
Gold is a meme for faux-preppers that think they'll outlast a nuclear apocalypse but have no idea how to make a splint for a broken bone, couldn't grow a tomato to save their life, and thinks their 23 rifles are going to make them into the local warlord so they'll be fine. You wanna be prepared? Make yourself valuable. Doesn't matter if it's an apocalypse, economic downturn, or if things are going great. The more you invest in yourself, the more valuable you are. Don't be a low value person when you have the means to better yourself.