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| Friday, March 14, 2008 |
| Oh that glittery gold |
With gold now over $1,000 an ounce, is it time I bugged my parents about this topic? Last week I printed out the Wall Street Journal article: Turning Old Bling Into Fresh Green for them to read and they both mentioned gold jewelry they would be interested in selling.
Whenever I try to help my parents with financial stuff I start to worry. Am I really helping them or am I trying to push them to do something? When they seem interested in something I mention are they just being polite or do they really want to take action?
I asked them to gather their gold items together and let me know when they had done that and I would help them look the stuff over. A few days after reading the article they had me come over and look at a pile of chains, charms, rings, and watches. So I guess they were right in saying they had some stuff - I was pleasantly surprised by the quantity. But after helping them group the items into 10K, 14K, and "can't read such tiny markings" piles things have kind of stalled.
It seems that to get them to the next step of going to a store and having someone weigh and price the items, I will have to go with them. This is where I start to feel like perhaps I am pushing. Or would it really be just helping them at least get a quote or two of what their items are worth?
Initially I had hoped together they could visit a couple of local places to get some quotes and then I could help them with the downtown jewelry exchange building or perhaps working with the Internet broker mentioned in the WSJ article.
If they do decide after getting some quotes to not sell and instead hold onto the gold that is fine with me and I have told them that. I have also pointed out to them that if they do sell the jewelry and then just stick the money in savings, their rate of return on dollars might end up being lower then if they held onto the gold jewelry (if the dollar continues to fall and gold continues to rise).
Ugh, things just get more complicated when it is not your money. What would you do? Do I need to stop being so pushy or should I try to be more helpful?Labels: Gold |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 1:22 PM *
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| 7 Comments: |
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Unless they want to finance something like putting solar panels on their roof, I don't think it hurts anything to hang on to the bling. You can think of it as part of their broad, diversified portfolio of assets. The only reason to sell now is to speculate and say the market is peaked (and assuming they can get a low transaction cost). And if they hang onto it, it will be there waiting to sell at the bottom half of the next business cycle when they may be cash hungry. Plus, interest on cash in the bank is taxed.
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Andrew,
Is that a not-so-subtle dig at me and my solar panel splurge? Tisk, tisk :)
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It's funny, i printed out the same article to stash away for future reference - mostly because the store that the reader eventually used was in NYC which is just a short bus-ride away if i ever wanted to sell any gold in person. The topic of inflation has started to come up a lot. I was at happy hour on Wed with a few friends and one of them mentioned that he's now buying bars of silver as an investment. The sky is falling!
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I pushed my parents towards a financial situation a few years ago to sell their old place across the country.
I rented the place out for them before because I live in that city. But it made sense to sell since I was moving away and there would be no one to take care of it. They tend to let things go when they become to bothersome, and a rental property across the country would be just that. We tried using a property manager without much result after half a year. So they sold the place.
Now that market is red hot and although mum and dad aren't saying anything I feel really bad because they lost out on that market. It's worse because it's their loss (not my own).
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Ok....I think its time to buy some...its looks like it will continue its up. Of course it could go down but its been going up for a while.
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Provocative....what would be their reason for selling their gold? Is this necessarily the best time to sell gold if the price is rising?
I have some gold I bought for my sons when they were very young and I am flabbergasted with the current value. My recommendation is to sell stocks and bonds and buy gold or other precious metals if they are on the rise.
I have considered continuing to pay down my debt, then, having used extra cash to reduce debt, sell the gold for a down payment for a house/condo when the housing market ceases to plummet.
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Unless they want to finance something like putting solar panels on their roof, I don't think it hurts anything to hang on to the bling. You can think of it as part of their broad, diversified portfolio of assets. The only reason to sell now is to speculate and say the market is peaked (and assuming they can get a low transaction cost). And if they hang onto it, it will be there waiting to sell at the bottom half of the next business cycle when they may be cash hungry. Plus, interest on cash in the bank is taxed.