The Importance of Safely Storing Your Investments

If you’re like many hard-working Americans, you’re probably aware of the importance of saving up for retirement. And you’re likely working to build up the largest nest egg you can. That’s why you would do anything you can to ensure that your retirement savings remain safe.

Imagine waking up one day to discover that the savings you had worked years or decades to build up were gone. Overnight, the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars you worked to cultivate just disappeared. You would be pretty upset, wouldn’t you?

That happened to hundreds of Americans recently, and it could happen to you too. These hard-working Americans didn’t lose their money because of bad investments or market downturns. They lost it to the government.

The risk of asset seizure is something that many people assume can’t happen to them. After all, if you’re not a criminal or a drug dealer or a terrorist the government isn’t going to try to come after you, right? Right? Well, not exactly.

Sometimes innocent people get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. And making a mistake like that could cost you your dreams of retirement.

The idea of storage is especially important if you’re investing in precious metals like gold and silver. As physical assets, they need to be stored somewhere, and it’s up to you to decide where to store them.

If you decide to invest in precious metals through a gold IRA or silver IRA, you’ll have to store your assets in a bullion depository. But if you buy gold and silver directly and have it shipped to your home, you’re responsible for your own storage, so you need to choose wisely where to store it.

A Lifetime of Savings Gone

A recent FBI raid on a safe deposit box company in Beverly Hills, California resulted in nearly 800 people being caught up in a government attempt to seize $86 million worth of cash, coins, and jewelry. The government alleged in its seizure proceedings that the money it seized was the product of illicit activity such as money laundering or drug dealing. But because this was a civil asset forfeiture proceeding, the standard of proof is much lower than in a criminal case.

Many deposit box holders are pushing back at what they see as massive government overreach, nothing more than a plain old bank robbery. Some have proved to the government that the money they stored in their deposit boxes came from legitimate sources. But many others are still mired in court cases trying to get their money back.

Could you imagine having to fight the federal government in court to prove that your money is yours, or that your gold and silver coins were acquired with legitimate funds? Do you have years or decades of records, pay stubs, and tax returns to prove that your assets were legitimately acquired?

If you’re like many Americans who shred their financial information after a few years you may not be able to do so. And that could put your assets at risk. Choosing the proper storage for your precious metals could make the difference between having them when you need them or having them taken by the government.

Storing Gold and Silver in a Precious Metals IRA

Precious metals IRAs have become more popular in recent years as a means of investing in precious metals. A gold IRA or silver IRA allows you to invest in physical gold or silver coins and bars while still retaining all the same tax advantages as your current 401(k), IRA, TSP, or similar tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

You can even roll over or transfer funds from your existing retirement accounts into a gold or silver IRA tax-free. That allows you to lock in gains from your existing retirement accounts while benefiting from the potential for future growth in the gold price or silver price.

A precious metals IRA works just like any other IRA, and therefore your gold and silver assets must be under the control of a custodian. Your precious metals IRA custodian will work with a bullion depository to store your precious metals.

Storing precious metals with a bullion depository is probably one of the safest ways to protect your gold and silver. Bullion depositories are highly secure. And because of the nature of their business, they have to ensure that all their customers are on the up and up. The possibility of getting ensnared in a government raid on suspected criminals just isn’t very likely if your assets are stored in a depository.

Storing Direct Purchases of Gold and Silver

While precious metals IRAs are growing in popularity, the fact remains that direct purchases of gold and silver coins remains one of the most popular methods of investing in gold. After all, many precious metals investors remember the old adage that if you can’t hold it in your hand, you don’t really own it.

Having gold or silver in storage at a bullion depository is nice, and it certainly can be an effective way of diversifying your investment portfolio, but sometimes being able to hold your gold coins in your hand is the type of security you really want.

If you’re looking to buy gold and silver and store it yourself, you’ll have to think about the ways you’ll want to store it securely. Hiding it under the mattress or in your dresser is certainly a possibility, but you’re taking a big risk when it comes to theft.

While safe deposit boxes have always been a popular choice, the FBI raid in Beverly Hills has many people wary of deposit boxes. With a private deposit box company like the one that was raided, you run the risk of being caught up with criminals. Even though the FBI only alleged that 11 deposit box holders were engaged in criminal activity, it still wanted to seize all 800 deposit boxes.

Banks offer safe deposit boxes too, but you again run the risk of having your box seized, or even mistakenly cleared out. There have been stories of people who go back to the bank to open up their safe deposit box to find them empty, without explanation. If your bank goes bankrupt, you may also have a hard time getting your assets out of your box. And in the event of a systemic financial crisis, when you really need your precious metals, your bank may shut down for days or weeks, preventing you from accessing your assets.

That’s why many people choose to store their precious metals at home, in some sort of safe. Or even if you opt for direct purchases of gold and silver you could still store your assets in a bullion depository. How exactly you want to store your precious metals is up to you, and you’ll have to take into account the measure of safety you’ll need, the quantity of assets you’ll need to protect, and balance that against your potential cost.

Goldco’s precious metals experts have helped thousands of customers just like you, not only in selecting the gold and silver coins they want to buy, but also in helping them choose the storage options that are right for them. Whether you want to store your gold at home or in a bullion depository, Goldco’s experts can help you. If you’re in the market for gold and silver, talk to a Goldco representative today and learn all about your precious metals storage options.