Podcast 215. Why Gold and Precious Metals Should be in Your Portfolio with Dana Samuelson

Average Joe Finances:
0:01

Hey, Welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is Dana Samuelson with the American Gold Exchange. So Dana, I am super excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Dana Samuelson:
0:14

Thank you, Mike. I'm honored to be here with you.

Average Joe Finances:
0:17

Absolutely. Hey, I wanna kick this off the same way I start every podcast episode, and that is by learning more about you and who you are, what you do. This will help me out and it'll help my audience out to learn a little bit more about who Dana Samuelson is. Speaking of, who is Dana Samuelsson, please share your story.

Dana Samuelson:
0:36

Thank you. So I guess the easiest way to sum it up is I was, I got out college in 1980 with a German degree, and I was completely unhirable because of high interest rates, high inflation. I couldn't get a job anywhere, much like most graduates who got outta college in 2008, 2009, 2010, when the economy was, in, in the tank because of the great financial crisis, I ended up getting a job working in a vault. A precious metals company that my brother worked for because I could be trusted to handle the merchandise. So I literally started in the precious metals industry. If it were a restaurant, it would've been the kitchen sink, and I got my lucky break. Two years later, I. When I got a job offer from Jim Blanchard, who was the man who was most personally responsible for the private re legalization of gold ownership in the United States in 1974, when we went off the gold to dollar peg in 1971. Jim understood, the dollar would lose purchasing power. So he started the grassroots movement to get private ownership of gold re legalized. It was illegal to own gold in the United States from 1933 to 1974. Jim was successful and then people said where do we buy this now that we can buy it? He said I'll sell it to you by 1980, he had the largest mail order coin company in the business. So I spent 10 years with Jim in the eighties and early nineties, and I became a senior trader. I spent 50 million or more of his money with the industry and some of my peers now are, we've all risen to heights in the industry that we never fathomed, we might've been able to do back in the day, but this is all I've done for 43 years in my professional career. I'm pretty good at it. I've painted myself into a golden corner. Don't ask me to do much else.

Average Joe Finances:
2:24

That's a good pun right there, painted into a golden corner. I like that.

Dana Samuelson:
2:28

Yeah. But that's exactly it. So I'm married, I've got two kids. I'm an older man, and I've got a five-year-old daughter and a 10 year old son.

Average Joe Finances:
2:34

There you go.

Dana Samuelson:
2:35

That's who I am. Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
2:36

They'll keep you young though, so you got that going for you.

Dana Samuelson:
2:39

Oh, they do. They do.

Average Joe Finances:
2:40

That's great.

Dana Samuelson:
2:41

It's so much fun. Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
2:42

That's awesome. Yeah. I have, I have two kids 13 and 11, and. They are awesome. But man, those teenage years, woo. Let me tell you.

Dana Samuelson:
2:52

Yeah. I'm not looking forward to it. And you're in the thick of it good luck with that.

Average Joe Finances:
2:55

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I'm working through it though, okay. So that's awesome. Now I've had people come on the podcast before and talk about precious metals and, one of the things that I like about it is just, How much you can use it to hedge against inflation. But you also talk about it from a different aspect, which I think is gonna be great for my listeners because a lot of the folks that listen to this podcast invest in real estate. We talked a little bit off camera about this, so I'm really excited about your version of why owning precious metals is important if you're a real estate investor. So if you could if we could just dive in a little bit deeper into that if you could share that with me Dana, that'd be great.

Dana Samuelson:
3:36

Absolutely. We're in an inflationary environment, which we haven't been in since the seventies, right?

Average Joe Finances:
3:40

A significant one.

Dana Samuelson:
3:42

A significant one, right? A real one. Now, when in when inflation's 2% or less like it's been for most of the, the 20 teens, you don't really feel it, but what the cycle we're going through now, everybody's feeling it. So what's that really mean? The dollar continues to lose purchasing power. It's not that gold is going up so much in price, it's that the dollars that we buy gold with or other things is just losing more and more value. So I think real estate's one of the best inflation hedges you can have because it, it goes up with real estate. You've all seen your property values going up and your rents go up, right? It's a great inflation hedge because they're not making any more land. They can build more houses, but they can't build more land. Precious metals are similar in that it's really hard to get gold out of the ground. It's a limited supply in a growing pie of people to accumulate it, right? So it's a dirty business. It takes a lot to get gold outta the ground. What gold really has that almost no other asset class has real estate included, is no counterparty risk. You don't have to depend upon that, an ounce of gold to do anything but be an ounce of gold, right? And it's universally recognized. It's true, portable, transferable wealth. That's really what gold is. And silver too, although silver takes up a lot more room for the same amount of value, and what gold is an excellent hedge against is inflation. If you look at gold over the last 20, 23 years, It's averaged about 7% or 8% gains annually, average now on an annual basis in almost every currency around the world. Now it's lumpy because it could go up 10, 15% one year and drop five or 10% the next, but if you track our debt, our governmental debt, The gold prices actually tracked the debt higher on a very consistent basis over the last 20, 25 years. And I think the fundamental point about the debt is this. From 1795 to 1995, 200 years, the US accumulated $5 trillion in debt and in the last 28 years, We've multiplied that six more than sixfold to over 30 trillion. Our debt has exploded, and this is why the gold price has gone up in dollars, because it's tracking the debt it's holding, its purchasing power where the dollar is not, and what gold and silver really allow you to do better than almost anything. Bitcoin can do this too, is to get your money out of the banking system and into something that has no counterparty risk, right? And out of the dollar. It's a way for you to get some of your hard earned wealth out of the dollar, which is gonna continue to lose purchasing power. Now, cryptocurrencies have been volatile. They're settling down now after, big run higher and back down. It's hard to get gold over borders, which is what Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are really best at, moving gold, inter moving money internationally. But gold is one of the best store values you can have, and it's liquid. Real estate's a great investment, but it's not necessarily liquid. Gold is liquid anywhere you wanna sell it. So if you have some of your savings in precious metals, you have something that'll hold up better against inflation than almost any other currency. It's immediately liquid if you need to raise cash.

Average Joe Finances:
7:12

Yeah, no I love that, Dana, because, and even the fact that you compared it to cryptocurrency as well, right? With Bitcoin and how it's the whole point of any of these alternative currencies, right? Such as precious metals or cryptocurrency is, like you said, pulling that dollar out. And pretty much removing it from, the cycle, right? Of inflation. Because now this stuff that you're buying as the value of the dollar goes down. It's not, like you said earlier, it's not necessarily that the value of gold or silver goes up, it's just that it's holding its intrinsic value, but the dollar's becoming weaker, so you now can get more dollars with this gold. So it's still worth the same. It's still gonna hold itself and hold its value. So that's one of the things that I like about it too cause we talk about, to hedge against inflation, let's say inflation is three, 4%, right? What do you need to do to beat that? You need to have an asset that's making you more than three or 4% to hedge against that inflation. Whereas gold, you don't need to buy gold and hold it and hope. That it go, that it keeps up with inflation. No, as the dollar goes down, the gold will remain the same. So the way you put that made it much more digestible, I think, for me, and probably for a lot of my listeners. So I definitely appreciate that. And it was interesting though. I did not expect you to compare. Precious metals to cryptocurrency. So that was you threw me off there. And I wanna get your thoughts on this, thinking, versus precious metals versus like Bitcoin, right? What would you say besides the fact that you said, it's easier to move money internationally through cryptocurrency, but what would you say is some of the biggest differences between pulling your dollars out into crypto? Versus pulling your dollars out into precious metals.

Dana Samuelson:
9:03

Gold is the oldest, most trusted form of money there is. Now, it was also currency for most of man's existence on the planet. Money and currency are two different things. Money has intrinsic value. A barrel of oil could be considered money, but it's not a good way to, to pay somebody. And what for a court off and pay somebody and change you can't do that. So that's, gold has the most trusted history of money. Now we have currency that's not backed by anything. It's fiat currency. It's just paper and political promises. And we know the policies.

Average Joe Finances:
9:38

Yeah. It's based on the faith of the people that it's worth what we think it's worth.

Dana Samuelson:
9:42

Pretty much politicians can't manage a checkbook properly as we're gonna, we've learned and we're gonna continue to learn, right? Now cryptocurrencies are relatively new. What's Bitcoin been down since 2010? Yeah, 2011, if I remember correctly. And it's had a very wide ride in value. Now it's, they're settling down now into a more stable asset class, but it's still a speculation. Many regards. Much more than it is an asset that's tried and true, which is really what precious metals are. Now it's gonna, we're gonna have central bank digital currencies that's coming and we're gonna have a bank account that works like a credit card with a card that is your central bank digital currency cards. And they're gonna try and make the cryptos that are private go away. That's what's gonna happen, cause the governments don't want the competition. So I don't know how that's gonna affect the established cryptos, going forward. I'm a more of an old school guy, right? So I like what's tried and true, which is precious metals, and it's more boring than the volatility of the cryptocurrencies have been over the last few years. But I think you'll see that. If you follow cryptocurrencies now, they're becoming much more mainstream. They were becoming ubiquitous and established, so the volatility is gonna go out of them, which was what was attractive to many people when Bitcoin was red hot on its way from 20,000 to 65,000. Now, if you had it from 65 back down to 17, you wouldn't have liked it so much. Gold's been much more stable over that same period of time, and it's had some solid gains too.

Average Joe Finances:
11:25

Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely appreciate your perspective on that, Dana, because I always looked at cryptocurrency a little bit differently. Like I always looked at it like as an actual currency itself, because again the value of it, I believe is what we believe. It is similar to how the stock market works. Which is why like now seeing Bitcoin, traded publicly the way it is now, like you can go on Robinhood and buy Bitcoin, right? And to me, That I feel like that's the right place for it. And that's where it belongs, because it is supposed to be its own currency, eventually replacing whatever currencies we're using. Not sure if, when that'll ever happen, but like you said, with the global currencies that digital currencies are gonna come out, that is gonna change the game big time. So I guess right now we're in a period where it's like we have to wait and see. Then we're gonna be in a transition period once it happens. And it's gonna be very interesting. I think at least for the rest of my lifetime, things are gonna just be, you gotta play it by ear, pay attention and play it safe. But one of the things that will always be tried and true, like you said, Precious metals, right? Gold will always have value. Silver will always have value. The way I look at it too is like silver's one of the best conductors out there yet. If you have one of these in your pocket, it's loaded with silver, right? So those things, it's something that will always be used. It'll always be needed. So silver will always be needed. Gold is just, it's valuable because it's pretty, people like it. You make jewelry out of it. So it's always gonna have that value. So I like that side of things. Now talking about using it as a way to, get cash. If you need cash in a certain situation I know you could cash it out, you could sell your gold, you could sell your silver. But are there ways where you can use that, like similar to the way that you use a piece of real estate like me? I took a HELOC outta my personal property because I needed cash to buy more real estate. And I was able to do that'cause I had all this equity. So can you do the same thing with gold and silver and say, Hey, I've got all these precious metals that are valued at this, I wanna borrow against it and not cash it out. Are there ways to do that as well?

Dana Samuelson:
13:39

Yes, there are. There's a couple of storage facilities in the country. Not many of them, two or three that we recommend. That also have lending businesses on the side. And if your metal is stored at one of these storage facilities and they have a lending facility, which two of them in particular I, that I know and trust do you can get a loan against your precious metals. They're already holding it. You just have to sign the paperwork. Pledging the metal against the loan. And once you do that, you can get funded very quickly. 48, 72 hours. Now the interest rate's gonna be a little egregious. It's not gonna be that competitive because it's a niche business. They're gonna get prime plus a couple points. So it's not the most cost effective way to borrow money, but you can own precious metals and get a loan against it if you want to.

Average Joe Finances:
14:30

So if you're in a pinch and you don't wanna sell those precious metals and you know you're gonna get that money back quickly, this might be a great way to, to get money quickly, to take care of whatever you gotta take care of, and then pay it off as soon as you can.

Dana Samuelson:
14:44

Exactly. You can do that very effectively. Yeah. That's awesome.

Average Joe Finances:
14:47

Yeah, I was just curious about that because, every time I talk to somebody about precious metals, it's always it's great because you can cash it out whenever you need to cash it out. Someone's always gonna be willing to buy. Gold or silver, right? But then I'm like what if I don't wanna get rid of it? What if I just wanna borrow from it, and keep my precious metals? So I think that's awesome. So I definitely appreciate you you sharing that with me. Now, what are some of the best ways that real estate investors can utilize precious metals in their real estate practices?

Dana Samuelson:
15:17

One of my friends, Russell Gray, of the real estate guys, has come up with a strategy. He calls his precious equity strategy, and I've actually done this myself, which is if you buy a property and you take a mortgage out, say you can pay for it in cash, right? But you take a mortgage out and you can borrow money from the bank at it works a little bit better at lower interest rates than we have today. Say you take a loan out and you take half of that loan value and you buy precious metals with it, right? So you own gold and you've paired it with debt and real estate, right? You take the other half of the value that you have and you find a high interest note that you can invest in. Right now, they're a bit more risky, but there are businesses say that. Between manufacturing, buying raw goods for manufacturing and producing a good that takes three to six months. They borrow against their receivables, right? So they're gonna pay you nine, 12, 15% for that privilege and they're, these are good sound businesses, right? But you can get more than you could get an interest having that money in the bank. Hopefully the arbitrage, the difference between your interest rate that you're paying on the mortgage and what you can get on a short-term private note pays for the service of the mortgage, right? So there's no out of pocket expense. So it actually cash flow is neutral right? Over time.

Average Joe Finances:
17:29

Yeah.

Dana Samuelson:
17:30

The value of the real estate's gonna go up. The value of your gold is gonna go up and at some point in time you may be able to sell the gold, half of it. Pay, but the rest of the mortgage off. Then you've got the other half of the gold free. So you've added to your balance sheet in the process.

Average Joe Finances:
17:47

Yeah I like that. And in order to get to a place like that, you have to be in a pretty good spot financially already, cause you have to have the cash to pretty much buy out, buy the home and then borrow against it and leverage it that way. But, what a way to, to take, A mortgage payment and completely cancel it out. Like a lot of real estate investors do that. They'll buy a piece of real estate and they'll be able to, go cashflow positive or cashflow neutral because they're renting the property out. Imagine doing this strategy and doing that, and now you have the note that's paying for the actual mortgage itself, and then you've got a renter in the property that's a hundred percent profit for you. That is fantastic. That is a really great strategy. I really like that. And I'm pretty sure I listened to that podcast episode of the Real Estate Guys, and that's where I've heard you before too, that's awesome, Dana. And I really hope that my listeners are really thinking about that and the value that can add, especially if you have the cash right now to do something like that. What a great strategy.

Dana Samuelson:
18:47

It worked perfectly from 2008 to 2011. During that period of time, gold doubled in price on the back of the financial crisis and real estate values actually fell. So if you would arbitrage gold in real estate during that period of time, you would've had a great hedge. And when properties were cheap, you could have sold gold at a profit to buy into the market cheap. And I do think we're going to get a buying opportunity in real estate that's significant in the next. Year to two years, and I'm gonna be a buyer myself cause I don't have enough real estate myself. I'm heavily correlated to the precious metals markets because that's what I know and understand.

Average Joe Finances:
19:25

No that's awesome. And that's something again that we all have to keep an eye on, for those that are still buying real estate now, one of the things that you always hear is the best time to buy real estate was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. As long as you're buying with the intent of holding it for a long time, you could buy real estate any time and it's gonna be a great deal for you. But that is definitely something to keep an eye out because with the way interest rates are going we've seen it and it's very market specific. We've seen some markets really have these significant dips. And, that could be coming in other markets and it could be coming rapidly over a short period of time. So as long as people are, prepared for that. There might be some really great buying opportunities in the future. So I don't have a crystal ball. If I had a crystal ball, I would use it right now and I would tell every single person, Hey, wait until this date and then bye bye bye bye bye. We can't, we can only look at these indicators and try to figure out our best guess of what we think that might look like.

Dana Samuelson:
20:16

One thing I'd like to add is that gold. If you own gold and you have that liquidity, you can sell it immediately and get paid for it. What's happened with bank lending standards over the last few months as we've gone through these bank failures with SVB Bank lending standards have tightened up, right? So not only are bankers becoming more selective of who they loan to, the points are up. So the fee, the cost of financing is higher. But the point is it's harder to get a fast loan, right?

Average Joe Finances:
20:44

Absolutely.

Dana Samuelson:
20:44

So if you have some, if you have some gold on the side, it's liquid. You can sell it if, when you have that opportunity. So you don't have to always rely on bank financing, which may be more problematic when, how should we say the stuff hits the fan?

Average Joe Finances:
21:00

No, Dana, that's a great point. And it brings me back to when I took out my HELOC right to buy more real estate. I took it out at a time before. It really got crazy, so I got a decent interest rate on it, locked in for five years, but it actually got to a point like a couple months after I took out my heloc. A lot of banks. Stop doing heloc. Like Wells Fargo for example. They just said, we're not doing HELOCs anymore. And a lot of other lenders were just like, yeah, we could do a heloc, that guaranteed rate's gonna be up there. And it just started to get really tough. And then the same thing with loans. If you wanted to take out a personal loan or anything like that, interest rates were really spiked up. And that was if you would even get approved for the loan and you could have had great credit too, and you're going to the bank saying, Hey, I'd like to take out a loan for A, B, C, or D. And they'll be like, oh, now's not a good time. Sorry sir. Have a good day. And that's a great point because we do go through these cycles. Where, with the banks, where they, it's a great lending time or there's times where they just won't lend at all. So having that liquidity which I love that word because that is a key word. It's one of the reasons why I took out my HELOC as well as so I could tap into my equity and have liquidity. I think that is so important because if you don't have any liquidity at all, Like you said, when that stuff hits the fan, it's gonna spray everywhere and you're not gonna have anything to shield yourself with and you're gonna be covered in that stuff or you might, I think that's..

Dana Samuelson:
22:23

You might miss a great buying opportunity too.

Average Joe Finances:
22:25

Yeah. Yeah. But because you're too busy trying to dodge the stuff flying at you, where if you had that liquidity, you already put that to the side and you walk past the fan and now you're like, okay, cool, I can see all of the good air conditioners that are available. I don't need a fan. So. That's great point.

Dana Samuelson:
22:41

Getting that HELOC sewn up before and having that available to you was a smart move. Very smart.

Average Joe Finances:
22:46

Yeah. It again, it was, I wanted to buy more real estate and I didn't have any more liquidity myself. And I said I bought this home in Hawaii and the appreciation shot up over the pandemic, like it was insane. I said, I've got all of this equity. I want to tap into that and use that to buy more real estate. And that's what I did. It helped me scale a little bit quicker than I would have if I didn't take out the heloc. Or if I had to go borrow money from someone else, I was still able to do things in-house, and I liked that I was able to, I was able to turn my personal property into an asset because I was able to buy cash flowing assets with the equity of my home. So.

Dana Samuelson:
23:24

Right.

Average Joe Finances:
23:25

To me, I thought that was awesome. So yeah, liquidity Dana, that is a word that is near and dear to my heart. So you had me at liquidity when you talk about, how precious metals are liquid, and that you can sell 'em at any time. People will always be willing to buy gold and silver. So I definitely appreciate that. Now, talking about about that Back in 1974 When Jim Blanchard when he was doing what he did to build up this, the largest, precious metals business and having all of this gold, like he was the guy to go to. And then you had the opportunity to work for him, and see all of that stuff from the inside and build up to what you have now today with the American Gold Exchange. How were you able to take some of the practices that you learned while working for Jim? And use that today with the business that you currently run?

Dana Samuelson:
24:20

Basically created the same type of business that Jim had, which was a national mail order business. And the beauty of my positioning with Jim at the time in the eighties were the contacts that I made in the industry, right? So when I started my own company in 1998, I had a lot of friends who helped me, and they basically gave me more credit than I deserved at the time. They knew I was honest and a hardworking guy and I ran a tight ship, which is what I've always done. Very conservative. So it's more about the contacts that I've had and the experience that I've gained. I put in 18 years in the industry learning and I learned all the facets of it. I'm also a vintage pre 1933 US gold coin expert. And I've just built a career. Like I said, I painted myself into a golden corner over 43 years. Yeah. I'm a member of the Professional Numismatists Guild, which is a fancy way of saying the leading organization of rare coin dealers in the country. And I'm a past president of the Professional Numismatists Guild, of which there's only been about 40 over the last 80 years. So it is a, it's a prestigious thing. So

Average Joe Finances:
25:29

Awesome.

Dana Samuelson:
25:29

I'm trying to give back to the industry now. That's been good to me and I'm trying to teach others. About precious metals, which is why I wanted to be on your podcast because one of the other people I've got to meet over the years is Robert Kiyosaki. And Robert is a great guy and his whole life is about getting people out of Wall Street and into Main Street, and getting them to have their own financial freedom for own financial empowerment, which is what you're trying to do.

Average Joe Finances:
25:56

Yeah, absolutely. No, and that's why I appreciate having you on, because being able to talk about. Different asset classes, besides just real estate and the typical standard, what you see every average Joe and Jane getting into, right? The American dream of having that high paying W-2 job where they have a 401k and their employer matches it and they think, oh I'm good. I could retire at 65. And then they get to 65 and they realize they don't have that much money. They realize that I might have to work a little bit longer. This American dream isn't the dream that everybody thought it was. It's slightly a nightmare, right? So what I really wanna do is get you away from that nightmare so you can have sweet dreams at night, right? So that's one of the things I love about doing this podcast and then having, Expert guests like you come on and share what you do. It's just absolutely amazing. Now I do wanna touch on one more thing that I was checking out in your background. When it comes to, 'cause some people get skeptical with gold and silver because there's a lot of counterfeits out there. So I know you were part of something that you know a counterfeiting task force, anti counterfeiting task force that you worked with the Secret Service and Homeland Security, to help seize some of these. So what was that like? How did you get involved in that and what are some things you've learned from being part of that task force?

Dana Samuelson:
27:15

As president of the Professional Numismatists Guild in 2015 to 2017, it came to our attention that there was a modest but growing problem of spurious merchandise coming into the country through online auction platforms and private sale groups like online. I don't wanna name 'em, you know what they are. And the counterfeits were relatively crude. They wouldn't fool a professional like me that sees the metal all the time, but they were good enough to fool people on the street. And the pricing was such that you thought you were getting a deal or someone misrepresented themselves as, a government employee selling this stuff. So we had to do something and it was a problem that was bigger than just the coin dealers alone. And in my capacity as PNG president, I conceived of. And help to establish the industry anti-counterfeiting task force, which helps to work with which works with Homeland Security to interdict shipments as it comes into the country. And with Secret Service, whose responsibility is to protect the integrity of what the US Mint makes. And what the US mint makes are gold and silver eagles, right? Precious metals, coins, and we we're successful in getting this done. It's one of my greatest accomplishments in the industry in a way to give back. The US Mint changed the design for the first time on their gold and silver Eagles in 2021 to update the picture on the coin to make it harder to, for the Chinese to replicate other mints around the world have been doing it for a couple of years before that. The biggest thing is if you're doing business in physical, precious metals, do business with a longtime dealer of the community, preferably a member who's a business that's a PNG member like myself and who has a good chain of custody on their product. So there are mint distributors I buy from a Mint distributor and go direct to the public. But it's not a big problem. But if you try and if you go to a pawn shop, they don't know what they're doing in there. They buy stuff and they can get bad merchandise and they don't know it. And there are sellers that, try to resell to the public who can buy out of China themselves. So you just have to be careful. So there are anti-counterfeiting devices that have been added to the designs of the Canadian. Maple Leafs, which are another big product, gold and silver. Maple Leafs minted outta Canada since 1979. Austrian Gold and Silver, Phil Harmonics, British Britannia all these mints have added anti counterfeiting design elements to their coins. They're hard to see. If you don't know where to look, you may miss 'em, but they make it really hard for the Chinese to replicate. And we even had Gucci. The handbag company came to us and said, how did you get the Secret Service to help you? We've been trying to get em to do it forever. They're counterfeiting US mint product. That was a little easier for us, but the reason I was able to think of this so easily was I was in the room when Jim Blanchard, I came up with the industry lobbying organization that we've worked with to help get sales tax issues and other, regulatory stuff as an industry. So I was in the room in 1982 when Jim thought up that organization. So when the problem was presented to me as b and g president 2016, it was a no-brainer. This is what we have to do.

Average Joe Finances:
30:31

Yeah. You were able to go back to that and you had, you already had this in your mind that this is the way to go that's awesome. Yeah, Dana. So I definitely appreciate you sharing that with me. I just as I was looking through your background, I was like, oh, I wanna ask about this. I was like, working with the Secret Service and Homeland Security to like battle, like counterfeits. That's awesome because like I said, I've seen a lot of that stuff. I. In the past stuff for sale it's at a much cheaper price than what the going rate for gold is. And you're like, why? Why are you selling gold at a much cheaper price? Is it real? Exactly. That's the thing. You gotta start asking those questions. No I appreciate that because, a lot of people will get a little hung up on that. Same thing with money, right? With the counterfeit currencies. That all the time you might not know that the person paid you with a counterfeit a hundred dollars bill. But if you take it to a store and they swipe that little marker on it, and they can tell right away, sometimes they, they get good, they get really good at making it look legit. So to the naked eye, you might think you're good to go. But it's very important that you know that you've worked with somebody that's trained and they're giving you a good product. That's why the American Gold Exchange is probably a really good place to buy your gold.

Dana Samuelson:
31:37

Well, it was incumbent upon us to help protect the integrity of the product.

Average Joe Finances:
31:40

Absolutely.

Dana Samuelson:
31:40

Or else we don't have business anymore without that, what do we have? We don't have anything.

Average Joe Finances:
31:44

Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. Dana, I wanna go ahead and transition this into something that I call the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on the show, and it helps us dig a little bit deeper into your character when you're put under a slight little bit of pressure. So if you're ready to go, we'll get that party started.

Dana Samuelson:
32:04

I'm ready.

Average Joe Finances:
32:05

Alright, let's do this. So Dana the first question of the final round is, what's the biggest mistake you've ever made when it comes to your finances? Investing real estate or just business in general?

Dana Samuelson:
32:17

I didn't pay enough attention to my own investments in the, in stocks and bonds. When I first had the wherewithal to do I was a passive investor, more of a buy and hold investor.'cause I was busy running a business and I didn't pay enough attention to them. So I underperformed dramatically at times and it's just something that you have to just be continually monitoring and you have to continually educate yourself. On what's happening. So I spend a lot of time looking at the markets right now, macro events to understand what's coming so I can be nimble and be more effective in managing my own money. So you have to, you just can't do it the way it used to be. Buy a mutual fund and just let it go, that stuff doesn't work anymore.

Average Joe Finances:
33:01

No I love that now. I do buy mutual funds a little bit myself, but it's very little. I like to diversify. I love real estate and I buy real estate in different markets because just like everything else, even my real estate, I wanna diversify that as well.'cause markets are, can be very specific. Definitely appreciate that answer. So the next question I have ties into the last one, and that is, what is something that you've learned? That you wish you knew when you first got started?

Dana Samuelson:
33:28

How to build real wealth over time. I was so busy building my career with Blanchard and Company, then establishing my company that it wasn't until the last 10 years or so that I've really learned the most effective ways to build wealth. And if I learned these things early on I would have a bigger pile of wealth today. But that doesn't mean it's too late. That's right. And tax advantages, how to use the tax code to your advantage is a wonderful strategy to help compound your wealth over time. I didn't learn these things until I got to be friends with Robert Kiyosaki and part of his team, and real estate has some of the best tax advantages you're gonna find anywhere. That's why it's, I love it too.

Average Joe Finances:
34:14

No I love that. I love that. Thank you so much Dana. Okay. So the next question again, ties into the last one, but do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today? Let's say the average Joe that's working their W two and they just paid off their consumer debt, and they're like, I wanna put my money somewhere, or, what should I do?

Dana Samuelson:
34:38

Invest in your own financial education, right? You really need to learn how to manage your money, how markets work how to compound your wealth and find what you like to do, and then study it. Go find a mentor if you can, someone to help you, someone that has experience. I had a mentor in my career, which was Jim Blanchard. I wouldn't have the career that I'd have today if it wasn't for Jim. But that wasn't about financial investing. Also, find seminars where you can learn more and that, and there's so much information that's at your fingertips today that it's never been before, like podcasts like this where you can learn at the push of a button or go into 10 seminars or conferences. Where you can learn from experts and meet them in person. So just invest in your own financial future. That's one of the things that Robert Kiyosaki is so upset about is our educational system doesn't teach us how to manage money properly.

Average Joe Finances:
35:38

No, I love that answer. It's actually almost the same exact way I would answer that question as well. Because it is very important to invest in yourself and invest in your financial education. Go buy the book that's gonna help you go pay for the conference or the seminar that you're gonna learn something at, whatever it is that you're interested in. Put your time, money, and effort into that, and it's gonna pay off in dividends. Whatever you put into it, you will get back 10 x. Yeah, I absolutely love that. And speaking of Robert Kiyosaki and just the financial education and financial literacy of the education system today, I gotta say, I've got the cashflow game for kids, and my kids love it. They wanna play it all the time, and they kick my butt. They go in there and they get all the good real estate and I'm stuck here with with some stocks and bonds and I'm like, you guys are kicking my butt. And oh look, I'm financially free. Where are you at dad? I'm like, I'm still like$2,000 off and I'm in debt.

Dana Samuelson:
36:34

Good for you because you're investing in their financial future. Oh, absolutely. And they're young. They're 13 and what, 11 and 13? Yep. Yep. That's fantastic. That's fantastic.

Average Joe Finances:
36:44

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So Dana, final question of the final round. And that is, do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Dana Samuelson:
36:59

I do. Rich Dad, poor Dad because it's so basic and everybody can grab ahold of it. I'm sure you've talked about it before. From my personal, oh, there you go. From my personal perspective this is a great book for people to learn about. The financial system, how it was, and how it's transformed. It's called Three Days at Camp David by Jeffrey Garten, and it's written in the layman's terms, but Jeffrey Garten's also an an economic expert. This explains how the monetary system worked up until the 1970s. When we went off the gold standard, this is about going off of the gold standard in 1971, that's when Nixon shocked the world and did that. But up to that point in time, currencies didn't float against each other like they do today. They were pegged against the dollar, which was pegged against gold. Markets don't have the volatility that they had. So this is a great historical reference to how markets used to work and how they evolved into the markets that we have today. So I like it from a book standpoint as a educational tool. The first 30, 40 pages sum up most of what I've just said in really good detail. Then you go to the details of what you know, how they did, what they did to get us off the standard, and how the dollar came to float freely in the world, which it didn't used to do before. For podcast, there's a podcast that I really love. It's called Macro Voices. And it comes out every week. There's a specific topic and it dives into the economic condition that we're in today, what's happening from a geopolitical standpoint, from a market specific standpoint. And it's really well done. So I like macro voices as well.

Average Joe Finances:
38:54

Awesome. Thank you so much. Those are two great recommendations. As a matter of fact, that is the first time I got the recommendation for three days in Camp David. So I'm gonna add that to my list and check that out. That sounds great. And then Macro Voices, I'm probably gonna subscribe to that podcast as well 'cause that sounds like it's right up my alley. Definitely appreciate those recommendations. Dana, that. Is it for the final round? However, I do have another question I want to ask you because there, there are people that are listening to this podcast or watching this on YouTube and they're saying, I feel a lot more comfortable about maybe getting into precious metals now and they wanna learn more about you. They wanna learn more about the American Gold Exchange. So where can people find additional information on you? Or the American Gold Exchange? Do you have a website you could share with us or any social media profiles, anything like that where people could check you out?

Dana Samuelson:
39:46

Yeah, So our company is American Gold Exchange. We're a national mail order precious metals business out of Austin, Texas. Our website is www.amergold.com. Our email address is info@amergold.com. My email address is Dana, dana@amergold.com. We have a pretty simple website. It's completely transparent. With live pricing, we only focus in the mainstream popular, competitively priced, widely traded items. We could have 2,500 items on our website. We have about 200 because why do you wanna Silver Skull made from some Caribbean country? If you wanna have a novelty item, go find somebody else. That's not us, but we stick with the mainstream products. Why? Because you. Have sellability liquidity easily. And we're very competitively priced as people will find if they do a little shopping around. We're also consultative in nature. People have questions. I have four hand trained account managers that will help walk you through whatever your questions might be. What product, what price, what metal. All those things. And no pressure. No pressure. Our business is based on repeat business and referrals, and we do quite well with that 'cause we treat people like we would like to be treated.

Average Joe Finances:
41:19

Definitely definitely appreciate that Dana. Even with you giving out your personal email address, you're brave, so definitely appreciate that. That's awesome. I'm gonna make sure we have all of those links in the show notes to make it easier for our listeners to go ahead and check it out. You can copy and paste or click away. Just again, please don't do it while you're driving. So that is it, Dana, but I wanted to ask you if you had any final thoughts for our listeners.

Dana Samuelson:
41:43

We're in a challenging environment, a more challenging environment that we've seen in a long time because of the higher interest rates. Inflation continues to drive the bus. I think inflation's gonna be a little bit more sticky than most people realize for a period of time. And that's gonna help the fed to hold rates up. They've said higher for longer and they mean it. But there's going to be some great buying opportunities in real estate in particular in the next six months, a year, 18 months. But you've gotta position yourself well and be ready. You don't wanna be setting it up in. When it happens. You want to do your setup now. So start getting your ducks in a row.'cause I wanna be a buyer for real estate then too. And I might use some gold. I'm gonna continue to just stack. I do is add to my own personal position on a regular basis, which is the best cost way to cost average in your portfolio in precious metals. But there's opportunity coming.

Average Joe Finances:
42:39

Yeah. Thank, yeah. Dana, thank you so much for that. That's awesome. And the opportunity is coming and we need to be ready Being liquid is gonna be the name of the game people for the future. Dana I, again, I just wanna thank you so much for taking the time outta your day to spend some time with me and chat about, something that's so amazing. And I really feel like I learned a lot more just from this conversation with you about gold and precious metals. Then I previously have known. So again, thank you so much for dropping all the knowledge and the quote unquote golden nuggets from your golden corner. Definitely really appreciate it. So again, thank you so much.

Dana Samuelson:
43:13

Thanks for having me, mike. It's been a privilege. Appreciate it.

Average Joe Finances:
43:16

Absolutely. And hey, I also wanna thank all of my listeners and just thank you all so very much for joining me and our special guest, Dana Samuelson, on the Average Joe Finances podcast. If you liked this episode and you liked what Dana put out, please go leave us a five star review and tell us what you specifically liked about this episode. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.