yes there is something I see on youtube channels a lot, it's called minimalism. Living with less than more. And you would be suprised. Riding a bike to the store and work. Avoiding impulse purchases, or luxury, and go for practicality. When you want something, make a buy list. And pray over it. I had a buy list of stuff I didn't buy for a year. They were small items but not necessary, so I waited till I was working overtime. I technically needed them but not immediately, so I waited till I could afford it. Instead of living paycheck to paycheck. Save an emergency fund. Gold does hide wealth. It's more of what is called a diversified asset. See you don't want all your money in fiat funds. You don't want all of your retirement in stocks and bonds. What happens if bond market crashes? Or stock market crashes. You lose your nestegg, as we have seen this last month. But what I am saying is that Gold is just insurance. There are ways to store gold at home and not in a bank. I put a link for that. But I would store it in many places not just one stash. So if say a criminal comes up to you and says....where is your gold, you can lead them to one stash, and give him everything in that one stash. Then use your remaining stashes to up your security or whatever, or move. Burying it is a very good idea, metal detectors can't go below I think 4 feet. put a planter box over it or whatever. That way the dug up dirt looks normal, it also shows you where it was. But really gold is just your insurance, you hope it never gets to where you need to use it. But just as you would buy life insurance, or car insurance or fire insurance you should have financial insurance in the form of a diversified gold holding, physical bullion. Use bitcoin to buy it on apmex to be anonymous. But if it's over 10,000 you have to report it on taxes with makes it not anonymous. But technically government can confiscate gold, but I think before they do that, they will confiscate IRA's, pensions and 401k's. There is billions of dollars in that, where american gold holdings is only in the millions. But see my other posts in venezuela and other countries that redenominated their currency or reset their currency to gold. Gold went up 2000 to 5000 times. So a 30 dollar half ounce piece would literally be worth nearly 100,000$ of inflated money. So in other words a 30 dollar insurance policy could pay off your house, in a fallen economy. That is just what I am talking about.
Looks like you've put plenty of thought into this.
Let me run something by you that directly relates to the OP; something I'm thinking about now. There was a direct prophecy given about three months ago that we have this year alone to prepare for what is coming, because the US economy is going to suffer severely and China is going to emerge as the dominant economy in the world.
The prophecy is somewhat troubling, but again none of this should disturb the peace of those who walk close to God. The Lord will still guide them step by step so long as they keep turning to Him for help and direction.
But the prophecy stated as follows:
"2020 is a year of preparation. From 2021 on... the President of China will arise mightily and strong like the mighty statue of Nebuchadnezzar. He will seek to bring all nations under his control. He will gain great strength to dominate the world's economy... once a nation becomes economically strong, other nations will bow down to listen. Thirdly, the United States of America. It will weaken in strength and dominance. It will be like a molting eagle without strength or vigor. Its feathers will be plucked away. Its beak will be broken and cast away. Even its eyes will be gouged out and thrown away. It will become helpless, purposeless."
The Eagle is the national emblem of the US, so the symbolism is playing off of this, and when an eagle goes into molting it indeed becomes helpless. It can't fly, so it must scavenge for food as best it can, which leads to further weakness and deterioration of health.
Time will tell if this comes to pass, but the analogy speaks of our economy suffering terribly, and here is why I think it is at least plausible:
China is a communist nation. Human beings are one commodity they're never in short supply of, and when it comes down to choosing between human lives and their economy, they will choose the latter so long as it doesn't completely annihilate them. They just opened Wuhan back up for business yesterday, despite many in the populace thinking it is too soon, and being nervous about going back to work. But their leaders are not elected (at least not by the masses, anyway), so they have no fears about making decisions that will lead to more deaths if they prove necessary to keep the economy strong.
The United States is a different animal entirely. No politician in his right mind would ever even hint at taking "acceptable losses" to save the economy. Trump might, of course, but it could prove to be his undoing. The left would just eat him alive over it. So all things considered, the US is likely to go all out using welfare measures to save lives, but the longer that goes on the more the welfare state will take hold, and our once powerful economy will grind to a halt. And when a nation's populace becomes ever increasingly unemployed, they will indeed become "purposeless" in life.
I should also add that Trump's whole "art of the deal" approach is based on coming to the table from a position of strength. If the US has to approach from increasing positions of weakness, the "art of the deal" turns in favor of China, and they will increasingly begin calling the shots. We would eventually have little choice but to acquiesce, i.e. "bow down" as the prophecy suggests...
I'm not that up on the world economics, so I thought I would bounce this off of you and ask if there are other economic reasons why such a prophecy could be plausible. Again, I'm not certain this will definitely come to pass or not, so I would not be asking you to guarantee such a thing either. Just asking for your thoughts.