Tips When It Comes to Buying Gold Bullion in Monthly Installments

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Last Updated on: 10th February 2023, 07:28 pm

Photo Courtesy of The Huffington Post Australia

You may never have heard of a practical, affordable, and imminently sensible way of purchasing gold in monthly (or quarterly) installments. Yet this Monthly Gold Purchase program is well-established and highly regarded by the world gold community.

Ireland-based Gold Core first created the prototype of this form of gold investing with the GoldSaver account. This early venture into the world of periodic gold accumulation was for residents of not only the United States, but also of the Western-based world as well.

It permits American savers to have the possibility of incrementally building up a gold bullion investment through time and via regular savings of money that is converted into physical gold bullion. In this article, we consider all of the key elements of this program so that you can evaluate its possibilities for yourself.

The Way This Program Works in Principle

There are now more than five different well-regarded firms which participate in this Monthly Gold Savings and Investment program these days. We will look at them in more detail later below. Though each of them has their own proprietary method, they more or less operate along similar lines and rules.

For example, most of them will allow you to participate without a substantial  minimum investment size for the monthly contributions you make. Some of them have a $100 minimum, which is nearly the same as no minimum for most investors. All of them will allow you to acquire gold, and some will allow you to purchase silver, or even platinum and palladium with the plans.

The way they work generally is that they have you select a coin to be your exclusive bullion option every month. If for example you choose an American Eagle one ounce bullion coin and contribute $300 per month toward this purchase, then every five months you will have saved enough money to buy one with a little money left over towards the next purchase.

It gets a bit tricky as the gold price is never stationary but instead constantly moving. In any case, your contribution remains fixed and continues to add up until you have enough to buy the coin at the then-current market price, usually according to the London Bullion price fixing of the day.

Photo Courtesy of BullionStar

After the coin has been purchased in full, then many of the firms which participate in such a scheme will store it for you at no cost (until you reach a maximum value of $5,000 to $10,000) up to the point that you are ready to receive delivery of it. Some of the firms will ship your coins out to you at no charge once per year.

In terms of how much gold must be spent per period (usually monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly), you set this yourself with the company, based on their minimum. You also are allowed to select the particular bullion product that you wish and to change this by giving the firm notice. Gold is always purchased at the then-current price and either held on your behalf or shipped out the next business day.

In all participating company cases, any fractions of a coin not purchased are carried to the subsequent month. Should you choose to cancel out your subscription, then all remaining fractions of the coin you have acquired are bought back by the company and promptly refunded to you. It is nearly always easy to change either your bullion product, your amount of periodic purchase, and your participation in these programs.

The Benefits of Monthly Gold Savings Buying

You would expect such a concept as a means of saving and budgeting monthly (or quarterly) to buy gold (and/or silver or even platinum and palladium) would entail a number of sound benefits. In fact it does. The most important ones are listed as follows:

  • Dollar Cost Averaging – this simply means that you are able to purchase more gold when the prices are lower and less when prices go higher, which leads to a lower cost of entry average price over time
  • Most of these programs do not entail long term commitment or contracts – with the exception of Gold Core's GoldSaver program, the other recommended companies do not require you to serve any advance notice to leave the program and have all of your gold and overages sent out to you
  • The program eliminates the need for and hassle of market timing – there is no longer any vain attempt to gauge and secure the gold market's elusive best price
  • Any time plan changes – means that you can change the coin you purchase and the periodic amount you contribute without advance notice
  • No Hassle – the programs are generally wind them up and let them go once you set them up
  • Free Shipping – several of the participating companies offer free shipping and even free storage of your gold (up to a certain dollar amount) for up to a year
  • Convenience of credit and debit card payments – some of the firms will provide same pricing for cash or credit payments, while others provide a four to five percent discount for paying by an approved cash equivalent method (such as ACH electronic direct payments, a physically mailed check, or BillPay service from your bank)
  • Avoid small lot penalties and fees – there is no longer any higher cost for buying smaller quantities at a time

The long and short of these programs is that they were designed to provide you with the opportunity to purchase gold (and/or silver, platinum, and palladium) on a regular basis while taking into account your individual budget, needs, and scheduling.

Recommended Gold Savings Plan Companies

Here are highly recommended, well-established, and greatly respected companies that offer the monthly gold savings budgeting plans:

  1. Gold Core (Ireland) GoldSaver – the grandfather and creator of the monthly gold savings plan which they called simply GoldSaver accounts. They require a $100 per month minimum with no monthly maximum contribution. This program was groundbreaking as it buys the gold from the Perth Mint directly and then stores your gold in their fully secured and insured vaults in Western Australia. The only downside to their program is that you must commit to a 12 month term before you can cash out and take delivery of your gold.
  2. Goldline Gold and Silver Accumulation Program – In the well known Goldline program, you have the additional advantage of selecting bullion in gold, silver, platinum, and/or palladium. They will third-party store your precious metals at a secure facility, which may involve extra storage and delivery costs. They also use the $100 minimum that Gold Core started. They give you the choices of monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly for your savings contributions.
  3. Northwest Territorial Mint Monthly Accumulation Program – This twist on the classic lets you limit your monthly contribution or select a certain number of bullion coins every month. They also rely on the $100 per month minimum. After meeting their minimum coin purchases, they will provide free shipping  to your home. You can also pay to receive every month's purchases in a shipment.
  4. Money Metals Gold and Silver Savings Plan – Their monthly minimum is $150. You can also choose to have them buy a particular number of ounces of gold or silver for you. They give you a choice of four different days in a month on which to buy your precious metals, in case you think one particular day offers some sort of mysterious price advantage over another one.
  5. Montana Rarities Monthly Silver Purchase Plan – This company goes exclusively with a silver monthly savings budgeting plan. You are allowed to choose from either 90 percent U.S. silver currency or .999 fine silver bullion with them. Their minimum is higher at $200 per month with an interesting monthly maximum amount of $500.
  6. Old Hilliard Coin Club – This firm provides both gold and silver monthly bullion purchase plans and even an unusual and unique Morgan Dollar savings club. Their monthly minimum starts at $200 and goes up from there.

Storage in the Gold Monthly Savings and Budgeting Plans

What is interesting is that each of these companies has their own variation on the storage component of the program. In general they will store your coins for you for free up to a point and a certain amount of time. After this, you will either have to pay for additional storage at their third-party offsite secured facility or take delivery of your bullion.

Some of them will pay to ship them to you, while others will make you pay. The GoldSaver accounts with Gold Core store your metals at the Perth Mint's secured vaults in Western Australia.

Benefits of Offshore Storage

A number of these Gold Monthly Storage program firms will offer offshore gold storage with these programs, often at an additional annual storage cost. The benefits to this choice are several:

  • Expatriate Your Valuable Assets to A Safer Jurisdiction – like it or not, the United States and Britain are no longer the safest places to store your precious metals, as each has already proven with some sort of gold confiscation scheme in the past century. Places like investor-friendly Dubai and the Cayman Islands have never dreamed of doing such a thing
  • Segregate, Insure, and Allocate Your Precious Metals – nearly all of these offshore gold storage vaults will guarantee (and even allow you to inspect your personal holdings) that your valuables are entirely segregated, fully insured (usually by Lloyds of London or a comparable high-quality global insurer), and completely allocated. This will commonly be done in a technologically cutting edged, Class 3 rated vault like the new ones in Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong
  • Low or No Taxes on Your Capital Gains – Most of these internationally recognized offshore storage locations like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates have recognized the benefits of having tremendous amounts of wealth stored in their territories for the ancillary services and businesses this attracts. Because of this, they often compete with each other for which of them can offer the lowest (and in the case of Dubai no taxes) import/export, VAT on purchases/sales and storage, and capital gains taxes when you cash out in profits

In Conclusion

While the Gold Core original program is a solid one that has been around for decades now, Australia has confiscated gold before, and in theory they could choose to do it again at any time without warning. These are important considerations that you need to think about before choosing the best Gold Bullion Monthly Installments program.

David Crowder
David Crowder

W.D. Crowder is an American published author. His background and areas of expertise include history, economics, expatriate living, international relations, investments and personal finance. A widely read and top of his class graduate of Stetson University, he obtained his bachelor of arts degree in History with minors in Latin American Studies and International Relations and a special emphasis in Economics. He was President of his Phi Alpha Theta (National History Honors Fraternity) Stetson University chapter and a Phi Beta Kappa (National Honors Fraternity) member.

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One comment

  1. Mr Crowder, what’s your thoughts on this company, 7K Metals? A friend has been asking me to join. There’s a membership fee of 249. Per year. Seems like a network marketing pyramid scheme type company where you bring others in for points and cash payouts. Please share your thoughts.

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