Inflation got me thinking about my parents and gold

• •Anyone else feeling this squeeze lately?
• •I'm watching the CPI reports and the grocery bills, and it just feels like everything is getting more expensive, faster than ever before.
• •Being a principal, and teaching financial literacy to our students, it really hits home how important it is to protect your savings.

Anyone else feeling this squeeze lately? I'm watching the CPI reports and the grocery bills, and it just feels like everything is getting more expensive, faster than ever before. It immediately brought me back to stories my folks used to tell about inflation in the late 70s and early 80s, and how stressed they were trying to make ends meet. Being a principal, and teaching financial literacy to our students, it really hits home how important it is to protect your savings.

That's honestly a huge part of why I started looking into a Gold IRA a few years back. I've got a decent chunk of my retirement in traditional investments, probably around $70k in my Gold IRA right now, which for Little Rock feels like a good cushion. I'm not looking to get rich quick – just want to preserve purchasing power and have some diversification in case things go sideways, like they seem to be doing now. It’s hard not to feel a little anxious about what the future holds for our dollars.

My biggest concern right now is how this all impacts my future RMDs. I'm still a good decade or so away from needing to worry about them, but I'm trying to plan ahead. I actually found a pretty neat tool online, this RMD Calculator at goldirablueprint.com, that I've been playing around with to get a better sense of what those required minimum distributions might look like down the road. It helps visualize things a bit better, especially when you're trying to factor in different growth scenarios for gold versus other assets.

So, wanted to open it up: is anyone else feeling the inflation fear driving their gold demand? What strategies are you employing to protect your retirement from erosion? Are you leaning more into physical gold, or are gold stocks and ETFs part of your inflation hedge? Always great to hear what others in similar boats are doing.