Have you come across the Gold to Silver ratio in your reading?
If not, it is a way of seeing how expensive one metal is against the other. Based on the ratio you can see if gold is more 'expensive' than silver or the other way around. This might help in deciding which to buy.
An alternative is, if you haven't got much money you can buy unallocated or mini allocated. Small amounts of either gold and silver. If you buy silver you can buy a 1oz round each month and get it held for you by the dealer. When you have a decent amount you can get it all sent in one package to save money on postage.
If you can't afford to buy much gold because of the premiums you can buy an gram a week of unallocated gold at very low premium. You wait until you have enough for a coin and then you pay the rest of the premium to have it converted from unallocated to allocated.
If during this time, the price of gold goes up, or the gold:silver changes you can ask your dealer to buy back some of your gold and take some profit, or convert your gold holding into silver.
There are a few options, take a look at GoldStackers if you haven't already and see if there is anything that would suit your purposes. I use them for my SMSF but for my own money I prefer to hold physical metals