Gold and silver (fine investment grade) bars. I would hold it outside of a retirement fund (the government could in theory seize that account if they got into financial trouble). I would store it in a local third party private vault service if you can't have a legitimate home safe. Or if you really can't find a local facility to store your metals then look into goldmoney. Thy store it in a non-local location;however, you can spend your gold via a mastercard they give to you. And if you wish to take delivery later on they can ship the metals to you.
And have a gun and a decent amount of ammo. Hard assets don't mean anything if people can steal them from you.
RE: What hard assets would you choose to buy?