Hi Im new to this, so just wondering what 'size stack' in oz is a worthwhile investment? While I admit most people would say ALL YOU CAN SPARE, but realistically.. how much cash can we spare these days? You would give up one thing to buy another. Recently, I've plundered my 'nice watch' fund to buy silver... I realise I'm at a disadvange buying at an all time high, but what size stack should one aim for in order to have 'some' inflation protection? 100 oz? 500 oz? 1000 oz? 5000oz?
I'd consider this as more of a percentage of savings / investments. Split it between property / stocks / cash / pms ? someone else had a nice idea the other day that your age should dictate what % of your pm investment was in gold (as a reflection of how risk adverse you should be)
Sorry , to continue, it's worse than useless for me to suggest to you 1000oz is good when you don't have enough money for it. think more in % terms, it should be a better reflection of what you are trying to achieve. I think everyone in the forum at the moment has probably altered their %'s to be much more PM heavy at the moment as shares are not great and property is ridiculously expensive. cash is performing ok (imho)
There's no one answer to that question - it depends on your lifestyle, expectations, phase of life etc. Maybe you should look at it another way? If you were to come into some money tomorrow, what amount would make a difference in your life? $1,000? $10,000? $100,000? Now how much silver would you require to make that amount of money if it was to double or triple? That might give you some kind of ballpark starting figure anyway.
I agree with the % principle and the 'as much as you can spare" principle. But to make a real target I'd say if you can get 200oz asap and thats all you ever buy regardless of your other investments, %, or what you have spare, I think you'll do OK. Its enough to be a shtf stash and will be enough to get you rebooted later.
What do you spend on food a month? A prudent buyer would probably like to have ~6 months worth of food locked in silver or gold purchasing power under current economic conditions. Do you want to make money? This is a case where enough is never enough, how much of a gambler are you that's your business. I can only say educate yourself as much as you can, listen to everyone and trust no one. Do you want to use it as an investment medium? I'd say stack as much and whenever you can, do your research and you'll know what a good time to offload into a another investment (ie property) will be. I and most here are pretty much preparing for all three Most of us don't have clear answers, and with the size of this forum growing it will be harder to know who is giving you educated advice and who has their head in the clouds (I can see this emerging), in fact most of us are just locking our wealth into something tangible until the picture of world economics becomes clear again. Will we emerge rich? Or will we have just protected our wealth from destruction? No one knows but that's what we talk about all the time
I think of my stack a savings account. Whatever I can put into it without going into debt is a good thing. Size at this early stage is irrelevant for me. I do spend less these days but haven't become a frugal miser who pumps every spare fiat into PM. My stack size and my stack growth rate represent the balance between 'quality of life' and 'piece of mind'. Live a little and stack a little is how I like to do it. Maybe some factors to think about are: How much can you find to put into your stack and how hard do you feel the inflationary pressures are going to hit?
think of the nicer watch you can buy when it goes up !!aim for 100 oz then 200 oz then ...well you know how it goes . Dont forget a little gold too
Whatever your stack is now pick a point in time when you want it to be double the size and go for that. Then keep doing that.
A wage earner should be able to keep 10% of pay for personal use. This 10% of wage can be spent on anything. Or saved up for something. A good savings plan is a great start. My % of savings are 90% PM's & 9% cash & 1% Honey Of the 90% PMs in $ value is 70% Silver %30 Gold. hope this helps
At present, you can buy about 20kg of Rice for a single ounce of silver. Silver has tremendous buying power on the staples even today. As fiat continues to devalue in buying power, you will find that even small amounts of silver and gold will have increased buying power. I have well over 100 ounces now in silver and an ounce of gold and whilst I don't believe I'll do anything substantial on that no matter where prices go, I know it'll be enough to protect our interest if the worst happens. That said, my first 'goal' is 1000 ounces of silver and 10 ounces of gold. Ultimately, I'll be happy at 5000 ounces of silver and 100 ounces of gold. I personally don't believe I'll make it however. I have to be a realist too. Not because I'm not devoted to stacking or making the proper sacrifices to stack, but because as the cost of metal increases, your ability to buy it with paper diminishes. As the prices move higher, the ability to buy it decreases substantially. Even 6 months ago, my paper had TWICE the buying power in Silver than it does today. Imagine 3 years from now? 10? I just stack what I reasonably can and see what comes. Anything is better than nothing IMHO and every ounce counts.
At current spot yeah... 2 tix and lollies is like 1oz, but dinner and a few drinks bumps that up. Unfortunately she hasn't raised the subject of inflation and silver spot price on our dates, time to dump! lol
The lifelong question... "would i prefer to see a movie, or add 2oz silver to my collection" I know my answer!
When I first joined this Forum, I saw the 1000 oz Club which I hope to join one day http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-70-the-1000-oz-club.html I'm only a newbie with 100oz. But, happy to buy a little bit at a time when I can save up anything after family expenses.
I'm a newbie as well and started off with 100oz at the very end of 2010. So far I have added an additional 10 oz, my short term goal is 125oz but I think a decent stack for me would be 250oz. I would be nice to get into the 1000oz club...with these current prices I would have to win a lottery to get to 1000oz :lol:
WOW - Thanks for the quick responses guys! All very sensible view points.. its a good start to get the mind thinking. It looks like the % of monthly income is a good way to look at it. I will go home and work it out. We have a decent size morgage and can 'save' a good amount per month. I dont really think of it as savings though, since we still have such a huge loan. So should it be a portion of 'spare cashflow' per month, rather than savings into Silver? With offset accounts these days, every dollar in that account also reduces interest and as such, it's hard to ignore the obvious 'cost' of putting $10k into silver vs $10k into the homeloan/sitting in offset.
