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Message:: [QUOTE="in5urgent, post: 1768362, member: 56083"]Welcome to the forums and to precious metals! Because you have your retirement in mind, and are investigating PMs as part of a broader diversification effort (wise!), I would recommend as a starting step to look at how you can invest in bullion through your 401K, traditional IRA, or Roth IRA.  The tax savings advantages of doing so make these your best bet, and (if you are American) our government has made it easy to invest in its bullion coins through these plans.  A Google search can get you lots of information about your options for doing this, which you can follow up with a call to your plan administrator.  If you are itching to hold something physically while also being as smart as you can about it financially this would be the place to start. You have also indicated that you aren’t expecting the apocalypse to occur and that that is not a motivating factor for investing in PMs for you.  That being the case you have several options for PM vehicles in the normal market that are very liquid in that a call to your broker or a sell order on-line converts the investments to cash within a day or two.  There are mutual funds that attempt to mirror any commodity you like including gold and silver, largely by holding large portions of their portfolios in those commodities.  You can also invest in mining and development companies, whose prospects are largely dependent upon the fluctuating price of the commodity that they produce – this option carries the added complications including considering how the company is run, what its assets include, etc.  Your brokerage account will typically charge a per-trade fee that is far lower than the premiums charged for bullion over spot. But you posted to the bullion forum, and you stated that “what I would like to do is buy a wide variety of rounds, bars, ASE, and foreign bullion with simple enjoyment being the primary goal,” so let’s look at holding physical bullion!  As an investment, this is probably the worst way to hold PM in my opinion because of the fact that you are buying retail and selling wholesale, because you have to physically store the metal which either exposes you to the risk of loss/theft or costs you additional money in maintenance/insurance, and because of the time and effort that you expend acquiring and transporting your purchases.  But it is sure fun, which is why I do it myself! Based on what you said in your post, that you want to spend a fixed dollar amount per month and to hold a variety of bullion media I would suggest that you take a dollar cost average approach to acquiring your PM.  Set your dollar amount per month ($100, $120, $500, whatever) and your frequency of purchase (weekly is what I do, monthly, quarterly, it’s up to you) and buy that much gold, silver, or whatever you want with it.  So say you want to spend $100 each month on silver and buy weekly: That’s $25 per week, which is about what an ASE is retailing for right now.  Buy an ASE per week while it is at this price.  If the price goes down to $20 you still buy your ASE for $20, but you also pick up $5 worth of junk silver dimes, or gram bars, or something.  If the price of silver goes up and an ASE retails for $35 you buy one every other week along with some junk silver, or buy a lower-premium coin/bar/whatever to total your $25 per week or $100 per month.  Again I suggest that you do a Google search for “dollar cost averaging” to learn more about this strategy, which is a good one with any sort of long-term regular investment.  In full disclosure, I personally only cost average instead of dollar cost averaging: I buy an ASE a week regardless of the price and only buy a proof or something else when I’m in the mood.  But I don’t really think of my PM stacking as an investment, it’s just fun and cheaper than a movie. I live in a major city where there are several coin stores and have found that they charge a much lower premium than anything I have found on-line, though I’m always looking.  If you are in a similar situation and can go buy your bullion in person at a good price I’d recommend it.  Not only is it more fun to drive down to the store every week than to enter your credit card information on a website, you can develop a report with the people in the store who may be able to educate you, hold on to things for you, and even offer you preferred prices. If you don’t have the option of going to a store there are a lot of auction and direct sales options on-line.  Because I’m not in this boat they all look pretty terrible to me when you include premiums, shipping, and often fees.  I would opt to find a better price at a store even if it is 100 miles away and only go every other month if I had to (maybe find some other excuse to go to the big city, like a hockey game or something).  If I didn’t want to make the trip I would honestly stick to investing through my brokerage account and just make a physical purchase on a rare occasion, but I’m cheap that way I guess.  Silversaver.com seems like one of the more reasonable sites, but I don’t use them myself because it is still cheaper to stop by the coin store on the way to the dog park.[/QUOTE]

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