When calculating how much silver a prepper should have there are a couple of things to consider. Most people who have a personal SHTF situation, such as being unemployed they will find a job after 6 months on average. Most people will get unemployment pay, but as a prepper, it is a good idea to have 6 months’ rent in silver just to be on the safe side. If your rent is $1000 per month then you should have around $6000 worth of silver. The current price of silver is at $27 and $6000 will get you 222 oz of silver.

The price of silver is always going up, so when you are calculating how much silver you would need to pay at least your rent for the next 6 months then always check the current price of silver.

You can get silver in various forms like coins, bars, and bullion. My recommendation is to start with silver coins Click here to check it out on Amazon.com

If you look around in our modern history to what happened in Greece, Argentina, and Venezuela that really got hit hard by a local economic collapse where people still managed somehow to survive where the value of the currency was almost 0. Silver gives you the ability to pick up supplies and things that you don’t have or you can’t get.

Stockpile on food and other supplies which you may be needing in an SHTF scenario but also keep in mind that if the SHTF crisis takes a long time to pass or settle you will be needing some type of item which holds its value even if the local currency is worthless. Have a plan to put some silver aside, if you are not able to do this maybe look at other types of items that you can use as bartering like food, ammo, and so on.

Having some silver will give you a lot of options because nobody knows what could happen in the future. A lot of preppers have mixed ideas on stockpiling silver for SHTF and a lot of preppers will say that you can not eat silver, which is true but you can’t eat money as well, the point of having silver is to have some sort of ability to barter for other items which you may need. Silver has been the currency for mankind for a very long time and it will be used as a currency for a long time even after the current FIAT currency is long gone.

It is vital that you invest some money in silver as part of your SHTF plan, it is all about being prepared for the future. I am not an economist or a silver expert, I am a simple prepper but what I like about silver that it is a hard asset, it is a currency and it has a known value. Silver has a number of different pros and cons over gold as there is less silver in circulation in the world than gold. One of the great thing about silver is that is being used in different kind of industries mostly because it is a superconductor of electricity. If you want to know why a lot of preppers should invest in silver then check out my recent article Why preppers invest in silver? ( Top 7 Reasons ).

Financial crisis and unemployment

One of the things that happened in Argentina back in the early 2000s in one of their economic collapses was when things were going bad with the economy a lot of small shops opened up that would barter with silver or ones that would buy silver. People would go to grocery stores and use it as an alternative currency instead of the local currency as the value of the silver was more stable than the local currency.

Silver allowed people in Argentina to use silver as an asset to protect their wealth and to have something with which they were able to buy everyday necessities. There are a lot of silver exchange shops in the US also which have opened up recently and even some local businesses that accept silver or gold as a currency like pawn shops.

In the case of an economic collapse the local currency will be worthless as the governments in times of crisis tend to print money thus diluting its value and in the long run, this will have a snowball effect of inflation making the currency worthless. If you don’t think that your local currency one day cannot be worthless in an economic situation upheaval you just have to look at our recent history. If you want to know which kind of silver is good for prepping then check out my recent article Best silver for Preppers ( Top 5 ).

Tangible assets

There have been several economic collapses through our history like the one which happened in 1929 the only difference from an economic standpoint between now and then is that back then the money had a tangible value due to its gold standard. This means the value of the US dollar was directly linked to the value of the gold this made the dollar or any other currency that used the golden standard to have an inherent tangible value.

In 1971 president Nixon abandoned the gold standard and in the following years, most countries also abandoned their gold standard. This means that the inherent value of the current US dollar comes from how much money is in circulation and how much debt it is producing. I don’t know about you but I would feel a lot safer in a world where money has the gold standard instead of the current situation. If you want to know how to store your silver safely then check out my recent article How to store silver safely ( In 10 Steps ).

Silver keeps its value

There is an old saying, money talks and bull crap walks, the current currency is like an IOU note or a promise with 0 actual value other than our own perception of its value, for some people $100 is nothing while for others it could mean food for a month. Having some cash in an SHTF event is also a good idea but if the economy collapses you will have some fancy toilet paper at best.

One of my favorite methods of investing in silver as a prepper is to buy junk silver which means that I buy coins that have a high amount of silver in it. A lot of people will buy collectible coins, these are graded and have a certain value due to their rarity but my recommendation is to stay away from these. The big problem with the collectible silver coins is that they are only valuable due to their rarity, in a turbulent economic situation where people will use silver commercially they are going to look at the value of the actual silver and nobody is going to care how valuable the coin is due to its rarity.

For example, the Walking Liberty coins are minted in the US and they are 100% silver whereas your standard coins are only 90% silver and 10% copper. Usually, coins made before 1964 are 100% silver all others produced after 1964 are diluted with other metals making them less valuable. The amount of silver these coins contain has been lowered, a lot of coins produced in 1966 are around 40-50% silver and coins, and today they have so little silver in them that they are considered junk.

I have bought most of my silver at $5 an ounce but this was years ago, today an ounce of silver is a lot more expensive but this will keep going up as time goes by. Gold is around $1300 an ounce and when I was buying most of my silver an ounce of gold was around $300 an ounce. What this really means is not that the value of gold and silver went up but the value of the dollar has gone down.

As a prepper, you should always have a plan B, if you hoard up a lot of silver but for some reason, you can not rely on it in an SHTF situation you should also think of owning different types of items which you can trade such as ammo and food. Having a good amount of silver stockpiled is very important for any prepper and if we are lucky and there will be no major SHTF situation you can always sell your silver with a good profit as its value keeps going up over the years. Some SHTF situations can have massive consequences for humanity, like a pole shift, for more information check out my recent article Pole shift effects on humans ( Top 16 Effects ).

In Conclusion

You should have enough silver stored away in the event of a major disaster that you can use as a bartering item. Who knows how long will the SHTF scenario last and if you don’t have silver or any other precious metals you might be forced by circumstances to trade other essential items like ammunition or even food. In addition to having silver keep in mind to have them in a smaller form like coins which you can quickly trade, if you have a 100 oz silver bar it will be extremely difficult to barter with especially if there is no rule of law.