Well, I've been making inventory of all true money I have: 1 silver certificate dollar, one silver Cinco Pesos 27 7/8 g, twenty five silver dimes, one pound piece Two diamonds, and about and once of scrap gold. If the cash goes to trash, that isn't much. Time to analyze your true worth.
The only "real" U.S. money that is readily affordable and comes in small denominations are the U.S. coins containing silver. Pre-1965 dimes, quarters, half dollars, and silver dollars contain 90% silver. 1965 thru 1970 Kennedy half dollars contain 40% silver, as do 1971 thru 1976 Eisenhower silver dollars. In addition, nickels minted during WWII (1942 through 1945) were made of silver, because nickel was needed for the war. The current U.S. Silver Eagles contain one troy oz. of .999 pure silver. Since all of this U.S. coinage contains "real money" (ie: silver), and is easily recognized by people, it will be worth having a supply to use when "bartering of goods and/or services" is impractical. As of today a silver dime contains close to $.90 of silver. While my crystal ball is broken, the dog chewed up my tarot cards, and my ouija board's batteries are dead, I feel fairly safe in predicting that in the event of a meltdown of the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Notes will become so much pretty paper, and metals values will increase. 1 oz. gold coins may be nice, but try to buy a loaf of bread with one and get change. Silver U.S. coins shouldn't have a melt value that is so high that they're difficult to use. A good source of information is: http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html which gives the current melt value of US and Canadian silver and gold coins. You can set up a spread sheet on Excel and keep track of the value of your silver coins at any day's current price. You can also determine the exact weight of silver in any U.S. coin. If you IM me with your e-mail address, I'll gladly send you the Excel template I've developed, or, given the information on Coinflation.com, you can set up your own in about 30 minutes. I buy silver at or below the melt price, simply by going on eBay and looking for silver US coins. I then go to Coinflation, get the total melt value of the coins I'm looking at, then subtract the shipping charges. As an hypothetical example: <!-- / message --><!-- sig --> One lot of 10 1964-Roosevelt dimes are for sale on eBay, with a shipping charge of $2.00. These dimes are 90% silver, and have a melt value of $.8926 each with silver priced at $12.34 per Troy Oz. The ten dimes then have a silver content worth $8.93. Subtract the shipping charge of $2.00 and my maximum bid at melt price is $6.93, (although I seldom bid that high). If I win, my total cost is at most $8.93 (the melt price of the silver in the dimes). Obviously, I don't win a lot of these auctions, but when I do, I've gotten silver in a recognizable form (U.S. coinage) at a great price, much lower than from a dealer. Occasionally, I get a coin that either because of it's date or condition is valuable to collectors. I promptly put it back on eBay, take the profits and buy more coins.