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In becoming prepared for the coming financial crisis, I decided to stack some silver and gold. Now I can sleep at night knowing that my meager nest egg is out of the fiat system and I'm also leveraging my good credit rating. What I have learned so far about stacking.
Stacking for wealth preservation you want to buy @ the cheapest price per ounce as possible. Gold fluctuates a lot lower %-wise, but probably won't be practical in a barter situation compared to silver. Fractional Oz gold has way too much premium to be worthwhile. As an example right now... 1 Gram of Gold is running 95-100 bucks while 31.1 Grams is a Troy Oz and can be bought for 64 bucks a gram or less.
So for barter many stack junk silver, bars, or rounds. Junk Silver is actually old coins 10 cents, 25 cents, or 50 cents coins pre-1964. They are 90% silver and 1.40 cents mix and match denominations is roughly 1 oz of silver. The problem is that the premiums are pretty high, especially online.
Silver Bars and rounds are much better in regards to premium and its likely in a barter situation the merchant will give you 90% silver coins as change if needed for cashing in your bars and rounds to make a purchase.
Like gold 1 oz silver rounds and bars seem to be the sweet spot. Always remember you need to calculate the per oz costs.
Currently on one site... 90% silver dimes are @ 29.84 per oz, silver bars are @ 26.80, and rounds @ 26.29... So the rounds are the clear winner in the per oz price for 1 oz. You would think larger bars and rounds would be cheaper, but that's rarely the case . On the same site 10 Oz bars are 27.30 an oz, an 100 oz bar IS cheaper 25.61, but costs more than a 1 oz bar of gold and who will give you change when you buy groceries? Fractional silver bars and rounds have the same problem as fractional gold, you may as well buy 90% coins...
When buying the price you pay matters more than the spot price all the dealers tout because they all use different calculations for spot. The best site to check spot price is kitco, but don't buy from them they are costly!
PIMBEX tends to offer the best prices for bulk cash buys, but not if you buy smaller amounts and use CC. All the dealers will charge you a CC markup to cover their CC costs. APMEX is slightly higher than some other online dealers, but if you avail yourself of their CC you get their 4% markup for using CC back as credit for future purchases. They also are currently giving 150 welcome bonus and if your credit is very good 0% APR for a year. As an example: You purchase a gold bar at 2,000 you then have 230 cash back to buy silver rounds and inflation is eating them not you.
Its a good idea to shop around @ 5 or more dealers AND your local coin shops too! APMEX, SD Bullion, PIMBEX, Monument Metals, HERO Bullion are sites I check before I buy. Coin Huskers is a local coin shop that markets online and updates a video pricelist almost every business day. I haven't bought from them yet, but plan to.
Buy the dips and sales. I bought an oz of gold for 10 bucks above spot that's less than half a % Markup.
Note: The way spot prices are listed and updated on all these sites are different than the stock market. You can set the chart time range, but they often show the up or down over the last 7 days and I prefer seeing daily charts.
Keep in mind Central Banks and may very wealthy funds and people are snapping up gold, yet the price is manipulated because they trade 100's of times more paper oz than is actually mined. Same with silver, BUT silver is used by industry and the demand is incredible compared to the amount mined. They paper trade silver far more than is mined as well. The top ten owners of in the ground silver adds up to less than 1 years industrial demand.
Half of gold is in jewelry. Silver is used in all kinds of products because it is the most conductive metal by far. Solar Cells, Batteries, Electronics, all use a lot of silver.
How do you feel about JM Bullion? I watch for sales on random silver rounds, trying to keep it affordable.
I got very lucky when gold was barely 1k an oz, back in 2014 or so, maybe later, I dont remember, but a tenth of an oz was under 300, I would buy 1/10 every two weeks, the low price lasted for almost 2 years, that was sweet.
I wish I'd started stacking back then...
Good explanation. I've been stacking for about 10 years. At first, the idea was to use it if the shtf to barter/trade, but as time went on, I've come to realize the real reason is two fold:
The market has been heavily manipulated for a long time. Once the TRUE value of Ag and Au are "revealed", there are some substantial gains to be had.
It's a good hedge against inflation/worthless FRNs. For instance, even though the market has been heavily manipulated, around 2014, an oz of gold was around $1080. Now it's around $2k... essentially our buying power through true inflation has been cut in half.
3) Bartering is the last resort for your stack.
I recommend everyone come up with their "number" they'd feel good about physically holding should the bottom drop out. Tyen keep stacking until you get there. I originally shot for 750 oz, but I've easily blown way past that. It's one of the only ways you can hold anything of real value... that's small enough to move and store.
I'm just stacking, buying extra food, and paying bills ahead. So I don't have a set goal for stacking. My goal is to keep my bank account as low as possible. The lowest its been in decades right now.
You're not the only one...
I've talked to many who are also keeping it low and getting out of FRNs with the writing on the wall. It seems the whole world is getting out of FRNs and TNotes.
Thank you. This is some good info, I am looking at getting multiple grams or silver this month from a local source that should be handy in an emergency, and the grow it from there.
Had an ex that saw my old jar of coins 20 years ago, was hungry & bought a pizza with the thing while I was away. I was so mad at the time. Her pizza cot me a few hundred dollars of silver dimes & quarters. Learned my lesson though 🤣
Yeah, that was an expensive pizza. I buy whatever the cheapest rounds are at the time. The 90% silver coins are supposed to be cheaper at local dealers, but I haven't been to the ones here yet. I don't drive and have been working lots of OT 1 day off last week and maybe today off this week. Gotta shop for food, do laundry, and mow the grass... Last pay was 132 hours, this pay 126 hours, already hitting 60 towards the one after.
I do my own laundry as my wife works like crazy too
Makes sense my friend. I hope that extra work is allowing yoh to tuck away some decent savings for future endeavors :D