No, I'm not a financial expert. In fact, many of my past "investments" have resulted in utter failure. For one, I trusted a financial planner to invest MY MONEY in options.  In just a couple of weeks over $20,000. I studied the option market, discovered that my advisor was an idiot,. Then, I fired him. I am not good at hiring financial advisors, but I recognize truths when they are presented in a simple, logical manner.

I read a book in the 1980s, "The ALPHA STRATEGY - The Ultimate Plan of Financial Security", by John A. Pugsley. It is still available from Amazon. The message of this book (what the author calls "The Alpha Strategy"), put simply, is to avoid holding assets in the form of non-redeemable paper money. The work begins with an explanation of why this is necessary, and then moves on to accomplishing it.

 The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan of Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor

In 1999, one reviewer wrote,

"The book is divided into two halves. The first teaches the reader about inflation, the money supply and the workings of the Federal Reserve System. The second half encourages the reader to employ a stockpiling strategy. The first half of the book is truly outstanding and is a MUST read for anyone seeking to understand investing. I strongly recommend the first 100 pages to everyone with money on their mind. I found the stockpiling strategy to be less useful."

In June 2008, someone else writes,

"Part I of this book should be required reading to graduate high school. If everyone read and understood this, the world would be much more prosperous and we would all lead richer and fuller lives. Part I is a primer on the economy, the history of money, the federal reserve, and how our government reaches deeper and deeper into our pockets with every passing year.

The remainder of the book goes into what we can do about it - how we can hope to hold on to what we have worked so hard to accumulate. This part is interesting, informative and useful. But Part I is an outstanding education on the way money works, or should work, and how inflation serves to devalue money at the hands of the federal government we elect and trust (to our financial demise). It also reveals how traditional assets (stocks bonds, etc) fail to preserve value over any extended period of time.

The "Alpha" strategy is the "first" line of defense we have against the hand of big brother. The logical extreme of this strategy would be to buy everything we need to live on for the rest of our lives in today's dollars and stockpile it all. Since not everything has a sufficient shelf life, the book offers the best compromise. This strategy may seem possibly a bit extreme but it is interesting and thought provoking none-the-less. Still, the idea is to try to stockpile the things of value, the tangible assets, in order to best preserve against the ravages of inflation resulting from the blatant and unbridled printing of money by the federal government. A must read. "

Here's that link to Amazon where you'll find these reviews, and more. 
The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan of Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor

I have located a copy of the book in pdf format. It is 99 pages in length. If you have a Kindle you can transfer it and read it that way. Some of the used copies on Amazon are selling for under $2.00. That might be a good resource if you don't have a Kindle YET. I've placed a pdf copy of the book on my website., It doesn't cost anything. Just click HERE and it will open in your Adobe Reader.

Adobe Reader is a free program. Click HERE if you want to download the most recent version. It is a safe program.

 Click HERE for complete information about  the Kindle on Amazon