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Disadvantages of investing in gold (and why people still do it)

Gold has been used as a store of value for thousands of years. It has outlived empires, survived wars, crashes and currency collapses.

But despite its utility as a safe haven, there are some real disadvantages of investing in gold – well physical gold to be precise.

In this blog, we’ll explain the main disadvantages of investing in gold, why they exist, and how TallyMoney is solving these pain points.

1. Storing and insuring gold yourself is a hassle

One of the biggest disadvantages of investing in gold is having to store it safely and insure it yourself.

Unlike shares or funds that exist digitally, physical gold is tangible value that can be stolen or misplaced if not looked after.

Storing physical gold means either:

  • Storing it at home
  • Renting a safe deposit box
  • Paying for vault storage

Each comes with its own drawbacks.

Keeping gold at home means worrying about security and insurance. Safe deposit boxes have annual fees. Professional vaulting services can be expensive and complicated.

Do you really want this headache?

2. Buying physical gold can involve actual queues

Historically, even just buying gold often means queuing or being put on a waiting list. During periods of high demand, some dealers even run out of stock temporarily.

It’s not uncommon to see people queueing outside bullion dealers during financial crises. How does this make sense when you can buy stocks in seconds?

3. You usually pay a premium above the gold price

One of the disadvantages of investing in gold is that you often pay a premium above the global spot market price.

The reality is that dealers normally charge a premium to cover:

  • Manufacturing (minting coins or bars)
  • Distribution
  • Dealer margins

This means the gold price needs to rise enough to offset that premium before you actually make a profit.


4. Physical gold isn’t very portable

Physical gold might be valuable, but moving it around isn’t always easy. Transporting it securely can be challenging and even expensive.

And while a few coins might fit in your luggage, larger amounts are heavier and riskier to move around.

5. You can’t really buy things with physical gold

Have you ever tried paying for your groceries with gold? You’ll probably get some puzzled looks.

Modern economies have been designed to run on fiat currencies like the pound sterling. And even though they are losing purchasing power to inflation, they’re still the primary currency used for payments on everyday things.

Physical gold is an asset that is used as a store of value, not as a currency.

6. Gold ETFs mean you don’t actually own the gold

Some investors opt for gold ETFs (exchange-traded funds). These funds track the price of gold and trade like stocks.

At first glance, they solve some of the problems of buying physical gold:

  • No storage required
  • Easy to buy and sell
  • Available through most investment platforms

But here’s the catch…When you buy a gold ETF, you don’t actually own the underlying gold.

Instead, you own shares in a fund that represents gold exposure.

So what does this mean?

  • You rely on the fund’s structure and management
  • You usually can’t redeem your shares for physical gold
  • You’re exposed to financial system risks

For investors seeking gold as a true safe haven asset, this defeats part of the purpose.

So why is gold growing in price?

Despite all these disadvantages, the demand for gold is increasing and gold’s price is growing rapidly.

But why? Well, there are several drivers of gold’s upwards price trajectory and all of them are long term in nature:

Inflation

Inflation systematically eats away at the purchasing power of fiat currencies like the pound sterling. Gold has historically been used as a store of value during inflationary periods, which is why many investors turn to it when prices are rising.

Currency debasement

To deal with national debt crises and fund endless spending initiatives, governments and central banks are increasing the money supply at record levels.

When more money is created out of thin air, the value of each unit can decline. Gold, by contrast, can’t be printed.

That scarcity is one reason many people see gold as protection against currency debasement.

Geopolitical tensions

Periods of geopolitical instability often push investors toward safe haven assets like gold.

Gold provides stability during times of turbulence and uncertainty, and in case you hadn’t noticed, we are going through such a period right now.

Gold’s digital upgrade

For most of history, the disadvantages of investing in gold came down to one simple problem: Gold wasn’t designed for the modern financial system.

But that’s beginning to change.

With TallyMoney, your pounds are instantly converted into real, LBMA-certified gold.

Your gold is securely stored in Swiss vaults and fully insured on your behalf.

And here’s the part that changes everything…

You can spend from your gold balance whenever you want using your Tally Debit Mastercard®.

That means you can save in gold and spend in cash. 

In other words, you get the best of both worlds – the value preservation of gold and the speed and convenience of everyday banking.

No queues at bullion dealers.
No safes under the floorboards.
No worrying about how to spend it.

Just gold, upgraded for the digital age.

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Real World Examples

  1. Fancy a coffee? Use your TallyMoney Mastercard. Boom – paid. (Yes, you’re buying a flat white with gold. How amazing is that?)
  2. Need cash? Use any Mastercard ATM worldwide or spend across the globe. ZERO fees from us, ZERO markup. (When you spend or withdraw, your gold converts instantly at the global spot price. No catches, no hidden charges – just straight-up Mastercard exchange rates. Because your money shouldn’t cost you… more money.)
  3. Want some money back in your bank? Just tap ‘transfer’ in the app. (Though after a while, you might wonder why you’d want to…)

    Zero faff. Zero waiting. Zero fees when you spend tally.

Meet Cameron Parry

Meet the guy who wouldn’t accept being trapped in a ‘heads they win, tales we lose’ government-run monetary system that protects and benefits the financial institutions, to the detriment of the public. Where people’s deposits are constantly at risk, and losing value through inflation caused by central bankers and politicians.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then frustration may be the roommate’s cousin of motivation. In any case, he decided to stop getting mad and start a new monetary system with sound money. Where deposits serve the depositor, where savings build wealth for savers, and transactions are made in a familiar way. And he called it TallyMoney.

TallyMoney: Gold upgraded

With TallyMoney:

  • Your pounds instantly become physical gold (1 tally = 1mg of real gold)
    Stored in Swiss vaults (not under your bed)
  • Fully insured and allocated (actually yours, not a paper promise)
  • Spend it anywhere with your TallyMoney debit Mastercard
  • Transfer back to pounds instantly if needed (but why would you?)

We’re not anti-bank because it’s trendy. We’re anti-bank because the current system is rigged against you. Every day you leave money in a “savings” account, you’re funding their profits while your wealth evaporates.

Enter gold: the original currency

Why gold? It’s value is universally acknowledged.

  • It’s not controlled by any single government
  • It can’t be printed or manufactured
  • It’s actually scarce 
  • It requires effort to extract it 
  • It doesn’t rust, decay, or disappear
  • It has remarkable properties

So while the pound’s lost 50% of its value since 2004, gold’s grown by 146% in the last decade alone. While your bank savings got mugged by inflation, gold owners were laughing all the way to… well, not the bank.

But here’s the rub: Traditional gold ownership is a right pain. Buy physical bars? Prepare for storage fees that’ll make your eyes water, insurance premiums that never end, and a 5-10% haircut when you need to sell. Plus, try buying your weekly shop with a gold ingot.
Paper gold ETFs? They’re classed as Tier 3 assets for a reason – that’s financial speak for “risky as hell.” You don’t own gold, you own a promise. A tradeable IOU. And when everyone wants their gold at once? Good luck with that. So you’re stuffed either way: real gold that’s impossible to use, or fake gold that might not be there when you need it.
Until now.

The truth about inflation

How? Well, when politicians overspend (and they invariably do), they need more money to ‘stimulate the economy’. But raising taxes makes voters angry. So what do they do? They fire up the money printer, and boy do they love to print. To give you a sense of the scale, since 2015 the Bank of England has created £520bn out of thin air through “quantitative easing” (electronic money printing) plus £86bn in physical currency. 

Thing is, more pounds in circulation = each pound is worth less. Think about it: In 2004, £100 could buy you a decent night out, theatre tickets, and a cab home. Today? That same £100 barely covers the theatre tickets. Your money didn’t disappear – it was diluted, like someone’s been topping up your whisky with water when you weren’t looking.

The “2% inflation target” they bang on about? That’s them telling you they plan to steal 2% of your wealth every single year. And calling it healthy.

How TallyMoney actually works?

  1. First things first: we’ve got actual gold bullion* (none of that paper-promise nonsense) locked up tight in a Brinks vault in Switzerland. Yeah, those Brinks – the security legends who’ve been protecting valuables since Queen Victoria was on the throne.
  2. You send your pounds to your TallyMoney account (bye-bye, inflation-addicted fiat!).
  3. We use the global gold spot price to instantly turn your currency into its weight in gold. No hidden or fuzzy exchange rates, just the real market gold price + 1.49% gold purchase fee.
  4. Each milligram of your physical gold = 1 tally (we keep it decimal because no one wants to faff about with troy ounces – the specific unit for measuring gold).
  5. That’s it! Your app shows your balance in tally, but remember – those aren’t just numbers on a screen. That’s your solid gold, in milligrams, sitting pretty in Switzerland.
  6. You can now save and spend your gold as you see fit.

*All Tally gold is sourced from LBMA-accredited providers because we’re rebels with a cause… and standards. Instead of tracking the gold price per kg, your money is directly converted based on the real-time global gold spot price.

TallyMoney is real money

  1. Store of value
    Your gold sits in a Swiss vault (not getting ‘quantitatively eased’ away)
    Evidenced by 5,000 years of holding its value
    Can’t be inflated by government whim and fingers on the ‘currency print’ button
  2. Medium of exchange
    Spendable at 150+ million shops worldwide (thanks, Mastercard)
    Currency converts instantly at market rates (no sneaky margins)
    Moves as quickly as sending a text 
  3. Unit of account
    1 tally = 1mg of gold. Simple
    Stable enough to actually plan your future with
    Speaks every currency’s language (gold’s kind of a big deal everywhere)

This is why TallyMoney is so much more than just owning Gold – it’s a real financial revolution. We’re not just helping you own gold; we’re bringing back what money was always meant to be. Sound Money for a Brighter Future. Because your hard work and wealth deserve better than being slowly robbed by external forces.

We want you to have real money

  1. A store of value:
    Keeps its value over time
    Insulated from devaluation/inflation
    Actually rare and can’t be created out of thin air
  2. Medium of exchange:
    Easy to use for everyday transactions
    Widely accepted
    Can be transferred efficiently
  3. Unit of account:
    Works like a proper value-measuring stick (imagine if your ruler shrunk every year – mad, right?)
    Splits nicely into useful bits
    Reliable enough to plan your future with

Why does this matter? Because your hard work deserves better than being turned into monopoly money by someone else’s actions. Every time your currency loses value (inflation) its stealing from your past work, which harms your present savings, and your future dreams.