I know I provoked interest for buying precious metals, and I also know that, for most, buying physical gold might be impractical because the premiums for small quantities are prohibitive, and buying silver comes with VAT in the EU, and the buy/sell spread is painful.

However, there is an in-between solution, buying vaulted metals online that can actually be delivered to your address if you pay a certain premium, you can liquidate them instantly if you need cash, and is a very solid protection against inflation: it’s called BullionVault. This is a good way to both have your cake and eat it: you can protect your liquid assets against inflation, and you can still use them quickly without paying a painful premium for physical metals. You’re not protected against a “lights out” situation where some big disaster would temporarily or permanently block access to everything you don’t have in your home, and therefore it’s not something I would recommend as survival-insurance. However, as something that will save money on your bank account from suddenly losing significant portions of value due to currency fluctuations, I not only recommend it, I actually use it. You can put your savings there, and when you collect enough for a 100g gold bar, you can order it to be sent to your home address. That way you have medium-strength protection at all times, and you can gradually convert it into high-strength protection as it grows.