Not bad for 5 years: My Gold IRA journey and returns
- •I'm coming up on 5 years with my gold IRA, and looking at the numbers, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.
- •Decided to allocate about 15% of that, roughly $120k back then, into a gold IRA.
- •It wasn't a "get rich quick" play, that's for sure.
I'm coming up on 5 years with my gold IRA, and looking at the numbers, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. When I first started looking into it back in late 2019, fresh off a good year running my logistics company here in Memphis, I was sitting on about $800k in my overall portfolio. Decided to allocate about 15% of that, roughly $120k back then, into a gold IRA. The idea was primarily to hedge against inflation and just generally diversify away from traditional stocks, especially with all the talk about market volatility even before everything went sideways in 2020.
It wasn't a "get rich quick" play, that's for sure. I really just wanted some stability and a safeguard for my retirement savings as I started thinking more seriously about succession planning for the business. Watched a lot of YouTube videos, read a bunch of articles (some good, some total garbage, let's be honest), and ultimately went with a well-known custodian. The process itself was fairly straightforward; rolled over some funds from an old 401k, topped it up with some post-tax cash. The fees were a concern initially, but compared to the peace of mind, they’ve been negligible.
Fast forward to today, that initial $120k is sitting closer to $180k. That's a roughly 50% increase over 5 years. Annualized, that’s about 8.4% without compounding, which is actually a bit better than the S&P 500's average over that same period, especially when you factor in some of the wild swings. I know some of you probably had 10x gains on meme stocks, but for a bedrock asset designed for stability, I'm genuinely pleased. It definitely rode out the initial Covid shock much better than my other holdings.
Anyone else hit a similar milestone with their gold IRA? How are your returns looking? And for those who've been in it longer, say 10+ years, where do you see its role in your portfolio now? Thinking about potentially increasing my allocation slightly next year, maybe another 5% or so, just to bolster that defensive position even further as I get closer to stepping away from the daily grind.