In my mind, the most successful stackers are those who do so for life, committing themselves to a consistent investment of funds on a regular basis, spending less than they can afford, so it never feels like a burden. As an example, if one has $100 per week in disposable income, I think the stacker of $50 weekly will be more successful than the stacker of $100 weekly. Why? Because the stacker of $100 is more likely than the stacker of $50 weekly to suspend his / her stacking for some road bump in life, and may not return to it. Frankly, I think this is true of all savers . . . whether in cash, precious metals, in a 401K, in antiques, or in anything else. Slow and steady wins the race, as the adage goes . . .
You can’t invest if you have no income, I think the days of spending ones entire life at one company is allot less normal now a days, life has bumps, so there are going to be tough times.
I always buy in 2's, 4's, etc. If an emergency ever presents itself, I'm in a position to sell half and still retain some of the bullion collection.
Why is that? Late 1990’s I had a small windfall and bought about $4000.00 of gold. I could never afford gold before and was determined to satisfy that urge... I still have that initial purchase and have added to it over the years but I figure my 1990’s purchase alone currently has about a 20k value conservatively. I am in agreement with @ToughCOINS. The long road is the way to go with PM’s.
I think FD's just afraid of ending up like LaVere Redfield. He's probably worried that the floorboards would break under the weight of his stash.
Well, there's all the reason anyone should need to sell all their coins, PMs, bonds, equities, real estate, and Beanie Babies, and head on down to the corner bar. Right?
By selling some of your "stack," you find out for real the price on the other side of the transaction. That's valuable information. For example, I found it more difficult to sell 90% at a premium than I would have guessed and much easier to sell ten ounce bars of silver. Also when selling gold, the only time the dealer took out the metal detecting machine was for the gold bars, not for Eagles, M Leaf, or KRands. By selling, you learn a lot about the spread between buy and sell and can adjust how to make your "stacking" decisions going forward.
I think a lot of PM buyers who are not coin collectors are turned off by the fact that, other than for BU rolls, the coins are "dirty".
Most stackers fail because they started stacking before they knew what stacking was all about. In short, they think that they will absolutely make money and they don't realize if they're paying way too much in the first place, they will almost always fail! Right now Silver is plagued with crazy a$$ premiums, yet people are sucking it up and paying those premiums. Will they win or will they lose? Nobody knows but if you look at the historical prices of Silver, you may agree that the prices today are way too high of a gamble! If you want to stack, stack but it's quite the gamble and sometimes you lose, that is the bottom line!