5 Things to Be Thankful for This Thanksgiving

As millions of Americans start to move around the country to be with their families for the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s time to start thinking about what we can be thankful for. While the past several years have been rough for many people, there are still a lot of positives. Here are five things we should all be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

1. Peace

While there may be wars going on in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and while those crises may even be affecting our friends and loved ones, here in the US we have the benefit of peace. We may take it for granted right now, but we would surely miss it if ever we lost it.

Fear of a wider war or even World War III is growing, which is helping spur demand for safe haven assets like gold and silver. And while it’s good to prepare yourself against the possibility of war or other calamitous events, we have to hope that we don’t end up facing the worst.

War is destructive, to lives, to financial well-being, and to dreams of a prosperous future. Looking at what’s going on around the world today, we should be thankful that we have peace in this country, and we should hope that we never face the dangers of war on our shores.

2. Tax-Advantaged Savings

Tax-advantaged savings and investments are one of the greatest advantages that Americans can leverage to improve their financial well-being. Whether it’s investment accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs, 529 educational savings accounts, or other tax-advantaged accounts like health savings accounts (HSAs), there are numerous ways for Americans to protect their hard-earned money from taxation and grow their wealth.

Most Americans today are allowed to shelter nearly $30,000 every year from taxation on their investment gains, allowing them to build up a nest egg that can benefit them in retirement. While not every person has the financial means to max out contributions to their IRA and 401(k) accounts, every little bit can help.

3. Falling Inflation

While we’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to inflation, inflation is at least headed in the right direction, down. There’s still a ways to go yet before it falls back to the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target, but the Fed seems committed to getting inflation in check.

Both the Fed’s balance sheet and the money supply are decreasing steadily, prices in some areas of the market are starting to pull back, and there’s at least some hope that we’ll return to some normalcy in the near future. Assuming everything continues at its current rate, there’s a chance that the worst of inflation is behind us.

4. Normal Interest Rates

While inflation may be higher than it has been, the other side of that coin is that interest rates are back up to more normal levels. The return to more normal rates has impacted the housing market negatively, which for years had benefited from ultra-low interest rates.

But ordinary Americans who can now park their money in a savings account, money market account, or short-term Treasuries and earn a nice 5% interest rate are reaping the benefits of normalized interest rates.

How long rates will remain at these levels is unclear, as markets expect the Fed to start cutting rates again next year. But while things last, parking money in savings accounts, CDs, or money market accounts, even if only temporarily, will still bring you a little bit of a return.

While many people have already started buying precious metals like gold and silver in anticipation of a market crash, there are still many people who are sitting on the fence, waiting to see which way markets are headed before pulling the trigger and making a decision. And with interest rates where they are right now, they can afford to do that.

5. Time

As precious as your savings and investments may be, be they conventional financial assets like stocks and bonds or alternative investments like gold and silver, by far the most precious thing to us is time.

It’s precious to us in numerous ways. On the one hand, there’s the time we spend with friends and family, especially around the holidays, which provides us with the ability to really cherish being around those we love.

But time plays an important role when it comes to building up our finances too. Compound interest, often referred to as the eighth wonder of the world, takes time to work its magic.

We also have had the benefit of an unusually long amount of time to anticipate the next recession, which seems to be taking its sweet time in developing. But that time has given millions of people the opportunity to protect themselves and their financial well-being ahead of time.

For some people that has meant parking their money in money market accounts or just holding cash. For others it has meant moving assets into alternative assets, such as a gold IRA or silver IRA.

And there are likely still others who haven’t taken any steps to protect themselves, oblivious to the impending danger of recession. Thankfully there is still time to prepare, no matter which course you’ve chosen to this point.

Enjoy the Holiday

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, and for many of us there are other things to be thankful for, such as good health, increased pay, new grandchildren, etc. No matter what you have to be thankful for, we hope that this holiday season brings you plenty of joy.

From all of us at Goldco, Happy Thanksgiving!