Hello all, I just wanted to post that I have been stacking for one whole year! It has been a strange and enlightening journey so far and I'm glad I'm not so wet behind the ears as I was last year. I wanted to make a post documenting my stacking so far. Maybe other new folks can use it as a guide or road map for their own stacking. Sorry if this is a little self indulgent but I am at work on Thanksgiving and there isn't thing to do until I get off at 3pm. Why I started stacking and why I continue. The future obviously. I had a realization that while I own a house and I am paying off a lot of my old unsecured debt I wasn't saving anything. I needed to start looking towards the future. I started to purchase savings bonds and I opened a 403(b). I bought some land with low taxes (easy to hold and easy to pay off in cash) in case I want to develop it or sell it later. I have a small emergency cash fund in case I need it. So far so good. I wanted something I could hold though. Stocks and bonds are all digital. I wanted to look at my investment and pick it up and carry it with me. I realized that my Great Grandmother left me a coin collection of mostly 90% junk silver when I was a kid. Hey how about silver? Seems cool. Now I'm here What to stack? I have very diverse interests as a collector and other hobbies. I had to tailor my stack to keep some diversity to keep me interested but focused enough to keep me from buying one of each of everything. I decided on ASE, Maples, Philharmonics, Libertads and Britannias. I liked the designs of each coin and it gave me enough variety to keep me interested (a stack of all ASEs would bore me I think). I wanted to avoid semi numi and numi coins for my stack. I already have a true numi collection and semi numis seem to be hit or miss. Some semi numis that I like don't do well and others I think are ugly are selling like hot cakes! Because of this I avoid Australian coins. Bullion from Down Under tends to have some of the best changing designs and a lot of resale value on the semi numi market but I feel like that is a slippery slope for me. Next thing I know I'd try to buy one of each coin and I'd collect not stack. I've strayed a few times here and there but I've done a pretty good job staying on the path. I've picked up some junk silver for spot when I've seen it and got a few coins/rounds that I just liked (a few Scottsdale Omni, a Bull/Bear, an RCM Falson, an Armenian Ark). Still I'm doing well so far keeping to my path although 75th Batman coin is tempting the heck out of me... How much to spend? Well that's where it got more difficult to be disciplined. My intent when I started was to add just a couple coins a month to the stack. Maybe $50 a month. That didn't last long. The wife and I both got raises at work and I got stuck working some long investigations that had me getting a lot of OT. Not a bad thing but it did give me some extra cash in the pocket. More cash into 403(b) and bonds, more money paying off bills and more into PMs. So I've spent a bit more than my original goals but it hasn't hurt my ability to pay bills or my lifestyle either. Bit by the gold bug. Ok so I got this bright idea that for every 5oz of silver I'd get 1/10oz of gold. I like the smaller sized gold coins and they fit my budget nicely. I bought my first two 1/10oz coins and I was bit. I really like gold. I see why dragons hoard it! I figured out the premium is pretty high on those little 1/10oz buggers. Not so cool. I then found Mexican pesos and Latin Monetary Union coins. With a little time and effort I've been able to find them around spot price and often below spot price! I really like deals (my collector habits I guess). I've amassed a stack in one year that I am more than happy with. By the standards of folks here it is small... maybe even tiny but I like it. I'm not sure if I will stack with as much intensity this coming year as I did in 2014. I feel like my stack today is a good base stack and now I will "maintain" it with smaller and fewer purchases that are more inline with my original goals (unless spot drops even lower than the $15s...we'll see how that goes). In the process I've learned a great deal though. The most important thing I've learned is the value of money. It doesn't matter if it is fiat or digital or metal I have a much better understand of money. I make fewer impulse purchases and I now look at prices in ounces of silver or gold. This has had a profound effect on how I shop, what I buy and how I think of commerce. I don't buy silly things in the "impulse buy" section of the store (ohhh a candy bar I could use one of those even though I don't need it). I save money now instead of spend it all. I am mindful to turn lights off in the house. Even when the wife forgets to turn something off I catch it now. I don't live paycheck to paycheck like I used to. All of this I owe to PM stacking. World view. Silverstackers is a very interesting and diverse community. Many of the major contributing members are located all across the world in Europe, Asia and Australia (and of course North America, too). I often disagree with a lot of the politics and views folks here have but they have broadened my own view if for no other reason than to do the research on why I think someone's view is wrong or rather "less correct." We have mainstream meadia folks and tinfoil hat folks and everyone inbetween. It facinates me to read about other people's experiences and why they believe a certain thing. Some things have changed my mind. Some things have made me more resolute but either way it has been good for me. Education! Over all I've gotten an education (here, various websites, books, etc.). I've had to learn about economics, history and how markets work so that I can make a sound PM investment and that has carried over into my real life. I've been able to make some intelligent comments about topics I previously knew nothing about and even impressed some folks. I'm educated. I have a BA and I was recently accepted into grad school but I've never studied economics before or aspects of history I've learned since stacking. This knowledge has helped me in my career and I've been successful because of it. Things like that have helped me earn raises and be inline for the next round of promotions. Pretty cool. All in all stacking has been very good for me. Will it make me or my family rich? I doubt it. Will I need it in case of zombie end-of-world? I doubt it even more. But it has been a very valuable tool. Thanks everyone for sharing your knowledge, experience and world view! Cheers and to those in the US- Happy Thanksgiving! Chris
A good read, I'm also killing time till I am out of work and have nothing better to do. I'm almost 9 months into stacking and have learned much of the same you have. I got alot more lost in my stack though and have an extremely hard time sticking to the plan. You say you would be bored stacking only ASES so mix it up with those few other coins. I would get bored stacking just those coins. Half the fun In stacking is that I'm for the most part storing wealth while still being able to shop and research something I enjoy. I'm also a bit too compulsive, doesn't take much convincing to jump on a coin I think is pretty. For the most part my stack is progressing well and I'll have my goal for the year complete this month with a bunch of unexpected collector and numi/semi numi coins thrown in. I still don't participate in the real deep discussions, I like to sit on sidelines and read what is being said and drop some commentary when I can. Thanks to this forum though I feel far more educated when I made my first silver purchase after stumbling across SILVER DOCTORS haha. Congrats to sticking to the plan and building your stack, sounds like a great first year.
Yeah it is hard to stay on track! That's why I have a few odds and ends mixed in there. My stack is further along than I thought it would be this time last year so I'm feeling pretty good about it. I've been lucky and got a few rare or semi numis mixed into the bullion by mistake. I bought two 2013 Britannias from a guy on ebay and when I got them they were both snake privy marked. Nice little upgrade. I also bought a 2014 Britannia from one of the large online dealers and I ended up with one of the Lunar horse/Britannia mules before anyone realized they existed. Not a bad catch either. I tell myself I am ahead of schedule so I can slow down on the stacking... we'll see if that really happens
