Over the past few years I've been widening my scopes as far as investments are concerned. As someone with an ecological consciousness, my main investments for my future (and for the next 7 generations) is to care for the land through tending a small plot of earth. Through our blogs you know we are planting fruit & nut trees which will provide into the future, berries and perennial vegetables, know our neighbors and barter, and have zero debt. Yet we could be doing more.

A few years ago a friend of ours recommended "Rich Dad Poor Dad", the book by Robert Kiyosaki that is all about financial literacy and playing the financial game a bit differently and with more smarts. It invited me to think about passive income and what true assets are (as opposed to liabilities). Many of us aren't given much financial literacy though financial matters likely touch each day of our lives and his book was a wake up call for me.

Another way to do this is to invest in gold and silver and the other day in a post by @indigoocean, she mentioned investment jewelry, specifically Menē.

_{My first investment}

After a bit of research I was very intrigued and I ordered my first piece!

A bit about Menē

You may be asking why a back to the lander like me is interested in investment jewelry. I don't wear much jewelry, it's true. Most of the time I see it as a liability of sorts or a somewhat useless adornment- especially the expensive stuff. I have a habit of losing one earring out of a set of two and I definitely cannot wear bracelets, rings or anklets given my profession of digging in the dirt each day. Yet when I started researching I was "sold" on the concept of their 24K gold jewelry.

_{Arrived in this cute little packaging}

Here's Why

While most jewelry in the West is not pure gold (we are told it is too soft) and has added alloys making it (18K or 14K), jewelry worn in China and India, respectively, is usually 22 or 24K gold. They follow the same pricing structure that Menē does which is as follows:

(Purity of Gold x Weight of Gold x Daily Gold Value) + 7–10% markup for design

In this article, one of Menē's founders, Roy Sebag, says,

Pure gold jewelry, as practiced in the East, was the only true gold standard.

Jewelry in the East today remains consistent with the ancient tradition dating back 10,000 years: Jewelry as a vehicle for gold ownership, a store of enduring value that enables humans to measure, store, and transport an earned surplus of savings generated through cooperation with fellow man.

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Being a student of anthropology, I have been trained to realize that just because my culture of birth says a thing is impossible or impractical, doesn't mean that this is what the consensus is all over the world. It doesn't make it true. We are told in the West that 24K jewelry simply doesn't exist, yet when we look at the historical record and present day consensus in the East we see a vastly different story!

_{A sampling of ancient pure 24 karat gold jewelry dating 7000BC to 1000AD. Photo from the above mentioned article.}

He goes on to contrast this with the current jewelry culture in the West saying,

Today, the average jewelry item in the West has 90% subjective value attributed to gems and design and merely 10% pure gold value, the result of which is that most Western jewelry becomes worthless almost immediately after purchase. Taking that same example: A western jewelry buyer will spend $1,000 buying a ring that has at best $100 intrinsic gold value.

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This really stuck out to me- a 24K gold jewelry item doesn't lose its inherent value! While the subjective price of a piece of a Western jewelry is affected by its brand, design, age, and of course constituents (metal, stone, etc), jewelry that is 24K gold is basically a pure investment (besides the markup by the artisan.)

Essentially when you choose a 24K piece, you're wearing a raw investment. $100 here, $300 there and you can weigh it, look at the current per gram price of gold and know roughly what it's worth. It's an investment you can wear and enjoy! This is much more appealing to me than hoarding gold and silver coins or bars, haha!

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My First Investment

Today in the mail my first investment arrived. It is a 24K gold necklace! I am sure I won't wear it every day as I do have quite a rough lifestyle, but it's good to know its weight and also that the price of gold is currently down. The value of this item is almost surely to go up!

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If you would like to sign up for Menē, you can use my referral code and get $5 off (I get $5 too!)

I am not sure "how into this" I will get. I can get obsessive about researching things, but I am excited to have my first piece of "investment jewelry" that will shine and retain value throughout time. I'm also excited to see how it feels to wear pure gold jewelry, an act dating back to antiquity!

I may have to get some charms and/or a pendant to wear on my chain :)

And for the record, I still trust fruit and nut trees in the ground and clean water a bit more, but it's all about diversification! ;)

_{And if you're worried about where this gold is sourced (I was too), here is their blurb on it:}

Menē jewelry is crafted from pure gold that is ethically sourced from gold mines in Nevada, USA and Ontario, Canada. Our gold carries the coveted London Bullion Market’s Responsible Sourcing Certification.

Additionally, we only source metals mined by publicly traded precious metal miners who are held accountable to stricter environmental best-practices. We specifically audit these mines to ensure there is little disturbance, minimal impact to local communities, and a reclamation plan that ensures former gold mines will be terraformed back to nature within two decades or less. This video shows an example of the types of mines we feel comfortable sourcing from.