Seriously considering a Silver IRA to recession-proof my future. Any Columbus folks with experience?

• •Okay, so the economic news lately has me a little freaked out, no lie.
• •I'm a teacher here in Columbus, and while I love my job, the retirement fund isn't exactly bursting at the seams.
• •I've been doing a ton of research into precious metals, specifically a Silver IRA, as a way to kind of recession-proof things.

Okay, so the economic news lately has me a little freaked out, no lie. I'm a teacher here in Columbus, and while I love my job, the retirement fund isn't exactly bursting at the seams. I've only got about $30k in my current IRA, and with all the talk of a recession swirling around, I'm really starting to panic about protecting what I've managed to save so far. I've been doing a ton of research into precious metals, specifically a Silver IRA, as a way to kind of recession-proof things.

The idea of having something tangible, something that historically holds its value when the stock market goes wild, is super appealing to me. I'm trying to figure out how much I should even consider putting into silver. I've seen some discussions suggesting diversifying maybe 10-20% of your portfolio, but for someone with a smaller pot like mine, does that advice still hold up? I'm picturing a future where my nest egg isn't totally wiped out by another market crash, and silver really seems like it could help with that.

Has anyone here, especially anyone local to Ohio, gone through the process of setting up a Silver IRA? What kind of challenges did you face? I'm a complete newbie to this whole side of investing, so while I understand the basic concept, the actual mechanics of getting it set up and choosing a custodian feel a bit daunting. I used the Gold IRA Calculator on Gold IRA Blueprint a few times to play around with potential growth scenarios, which was actually really helpful for visualizing things, even though I'm looking at silver mainly. It made me realize how much even a small amount could grow over time.

My biggest concern right now is probably liquidity, though. While I'm looking at this as a long-term play, life happens, right? How easy is it to actually sell silver if you need to, especially within an IRA framework? Any advice for a fellow Cincinnatian (or anyone, really!) looking to dip their toes into precious metals would be amazing. Thanks in advance!