If you’re starving, what is worth more—food or gold? Gold won’t save you from inflation in that scenario, because if you want to buy some of my, say, potatos, I’m going to charge you quite a bit of yellow metal. Hell, I might just turn you down and find someone trading something I actually need, like goods and services, or usable commodities. Shiny metal won’t cut it.
Food has always been my #1 priority...everything else will be traded for my food.
BTW, when investing in gold/silver, I've always bought coins that were legal currency, Krugerrand, Pandas, Eagles and etc.
Also nickels:
I think the idea is that on the way down, you can sell gold for dollars at the current exchange rate that have the same buying power as the dollars used to buy the gold to begin with.
We are all too old to survive to a Mad Max situation.
Or, put another way, if you survive to Mad Max, that means you passively acquiesced to having your guns taken, your gold taken, your land taken, your stored food taken.
I am starting to regularly buy bags of beans and rice from the restaurant supply.
After I dry them in the oven overnight, I vacuum seal one pound quantities in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.
Voila! The People’s Currency!
I am also partial to .22LR which should always be acceptable for small purchases.