Moving abroad with silver.

[sovereignsteve]

2 hours ago, Melon said:

From what I hear the graduate job market is tougher now than it's ever been, largely because there's so many folk coming out of university with a degree competing for the same relatively small number of graduate type positions. I'm not sure the blame is with the students, I think the problem is we funnel teenagers towards university with false pretences and easy loans, probably to keep unemployment numbers artificially lower. 

It is difficult to compare different times, but trust me, after I graduated at the end of the 70's the next 4 or 5 years were some of the worst times for graduate employment.

Nobody said the students are to blame, other than believing the hype that states all you need is a degree to reap a lifetime of gravy.

In some ways, you attempt to answer your own question, but the replies of @sixgun and @Pete explain it better.

 

[Melon]

12 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I'm not sure where your base is for making this patronising statement.

No offence intended - it was a question, not a statement. People's expectations do tend to change over time. I’m asking if you’ve considered that maybe the standard you expect has risen over time, as you’ve been exposed to more graduates and gained more experience in your field yourself? It’s plausible and would be normal. 

 

As one of those low quality semi-recent graduates myself (ha), I think it’s a tad unfair to imply grads today have it easy finding jobs. The market is hugely oversubscribed. Work experience is very important these days so many students will treat it just as seriously as the academic side of their university experience. It’s pretty much essential to landing the better grad schemes. I’ve been fortunate but I know many who have not, including those at top unis. 
 

No offence intended, just sharing a different perspective and experience. 

[silenceissilver]

3 hours ago, sixgun said:

There was a day when having a degree was enough - then the number of courses and students taking them ballooned.

How come there were more students? Did the population suddenly become more intelligent? Did they become more academic?

No - the school exams have become easier - this is how politicians and school authorities can year-on-year boast about improved exam results. It helps disguise the lack of skilled worthwhile employment. 

There are many more students and many of them should never have gone to university - they were not academic, they weren't bright enough but the universities cannot be seen to be failing droves of students - so they pass.

We see high grades which don't really match the real life skills of the graduates and average grades which probably aren't up to that much. There are more students taking academic courses b/c the alternatives have disappeared. British industry has been destroyed - the jobs that were are gone. There are less worthwhile jobs and more candidates waving a piece of paper. The graduate job market is tough under those circumstances - the graduate market is not tough if you have first class honours in a STEM subject and you are an Oxbridge graduate b/c you can stand out but when there are 10's of thousands of others with a 2.2 it can become an impossible task - then we have misdirected youngsters with debts and shattered dreams. 

It's certainly the case that Westerners are being raised with the mindset that being e.g. a craftsman is something for subhumans. Thus no wonder everyone wants to study. That's one of the many things that are wrong in the Western world, today. Not sure about the UK but after WW2 German craftsmen could actually become pretty wealthy, of course taxation and bureaucracy was not comparable to what it is today.

Universities are places for gender "studies" and Marxist propaganda these days and they are also run more like schools, compared to how it used to be. Universities are supposed to be places where you discover knowledge for yourself, not where you are trained to function in a certain role, in theory. Critical thinking was fine (in the 1960s and 1970s) as long as it was controlled critical thinking used to question the identity of Western countries to the point where Western values are completely subverted, now.

Back to the actual question: You should expect a few 100 quid, maybe 300 to 500, to ship around 2000oz of silver within Europe.

 

[sovereignsteve]

42 minutes ago, Melon said:

No offence intended - it was a question, not a statement. People's expectations do tend to change over time. I’m asking if you’ve considered that maybe the standard you expect has risen over time, as you’ve been exposed to more graduates and gained more experience in your field yourself? It’s plausible and would be normal.

As one of those low quality semi-recent graduates myself (ha), I think it’s a tad unfair to imply grads today have it easy finding jobs. The market is hugely oversubscribed.

Question, statement, whatever. The words and sentiment are the same.

As to ease of finding jobs; if you had read my post carefully, you would have seen I only laid claim to the situation in my own field, science within the NHS, not the general graduate job market.

" I spent over 20 years before I retired interviewing, appointing and training new graduates. I've seen the gradual deterioration of graduates' knowledge in that time. Most graduates I was seeing in the latter few years wouldn't have been given an interview when I was starting, they certainly wouldn't have been appointed."

I maintain my experience at the sharp end of recruitment, training and national competence assessment makes me qualified to make this judgement.

Another aspect I have observed is the gradual erosion of employer expectation.This has been an entirely pragmatic approach brought on by the inability to find job applicants with the knowedge and skills previously deemed necessary to carry out more senior roles. These are not very senior roles, just the next rung up the ladder, and expected to be filled by graduates with around 5 years post training experience.
I see a trend of continuous lowering of expectations and job person specifications. Standards are being lowered to enable these jobs to be filled. The vast majority of graduate applicants are proving incapable of attaining the standards previously required.

 

[Melon]

1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

Question, statement, whatever. The words and sentiment are the same.

As to ease of finding jobs; if you had read my post carefully, you would have seen I only laid claim to the situation in my own field, science within the NHS, not the general graduate job market.

" I spent over 20 years before I retired interviewing, appointing and training new graduates. I've seen the gradual deterioration of graduates' knowledge in that time. Most graduates I was seeing in the latter few years wouldn't have been given an interview when I was starting, they certainly wouldn't have been appointed."

I maintain my experience at the sharp end of recruitment, training and national competence assessment makes me qualified to make this judgement.

Another aspect I have observed is the gradual erosion of employer expectation.This has been an entirely pragmatic approach brought on by the inability to find job applicants with the knowedge and skills previously deemed necessary to carry out more senior roles. These are not very senior roles, just the next rung up the ladder, and expected to be filled by graduates with around 5 years post training experience.
I see a trend of continuous lowering of expectations and job person specifications. Standards are being lowered to enable these jobs to be filled. The vast majority of graduate applicants are proving incapable of attaining the standards previously required.

 

Your experience may well be valid, that doesn't mean another perspective isn't also valid. 

To be fair, a statement and a question are not the same thing and you made no reference to the NHS in your original post. No degree past or present can adequately prepare me for mind reading! 😂

I think the sentiment in your post was remarkably clear; you view your degree as superior to more recent equivalents (e.g. OP and myself), as evidenced by your generation not having time to work alongside their degree like we did. Clearly it's not a unique view, as others have expressed a similar sentiment. You may be correct. I'm just giving an alternative view that there's other reasons why students may place more emphasis on employment these days, such as expectation for experience from graduate employers and lower income backgrounds meaning more students have to work to make ends meet. I wonder how many lower income background teenagers ended up on your university course versus today. 

As for your specific field and the candidates you've specifically seen, I wouldn't dream of claiming to have any knowledge on the topic. But I would advise you to be careful not to assume correlation as causation though, as perhaps the numbers of high quality graduates seeking a career in the NHS has dwindled for other reasons. I'd bet good money the level of competition and calibre of graduates applying for city banks has risen over that same period of time. 

Anyway, I hope we can agree to disagree on this one because we're both at risk of sounding like grumpy old yorkshiremen at this point! I'd prefer to bond over our mutual enjoyment of shiny things instead 😄

[Goldenbear]

At present you can leave the UK and travel with £10000 of precious metals with you.

Beyond the legal element transporting all that silver poses two other questions for you to answer.

How do I transport that amount of silver given its weight and size?

How do I ensure the safety of 30+K worth of metals when travelling?

In your case id say the risks of your plan far outweigh the benefits. Cost averaging over the next few years may not be the best way to speculate also.

If I were you and wanted to speculate on silver whilst also planning travel in the near future you would be much better off diversifying your way of investing in silver (and other PM’s). You would have much greater leverage to silver prices for example by investing in a silver miners ETF.

This could make up the higher risk portion of your portfolio and then you could use bullionvault as a way of safely buying and storing actual silver.

For that insurance side of actually ‘having it in your hand’ physical to protect against financial disaster the best asset is of course physical gold. As this is transportable with ease you could always keep some gold in physical too. 

Consider now the thought of potentially losing years of yours and your partners hard earned money because it was all in one physical holding and a disaster struck that holding (theft/ fire etc). Or, imagine how you might feel when you have to move such a quantity across borders and countries and be exposed to all the extra risks that are involved with this transporting. If you make it to that point it WILL keep you up at night. Id argue the best thing you can do for yourself and your partner is be wiser and not take this much risk.

If she trusts you to invest the money you owe it to her to not be wreckless and that plan has  too much risk and on numerous fronts...your going heavy or all in on a volatile metal, that you will be storing at home(?) and then need to transport thousands of miles in bulk or stash at someone elses house for years. If this was 10% of your savings and wealth then maybe it would be acceptable in terms of risk level but otherwise you can have the same or better rewards for a much lower risk and that is the holy grail of investing, the same or more reward for less risk. Risk is everything and in your case its very easy to reduce the risk so it would be crazy not too.

An example of a simple approach that diversifies your precious metals holding for less risk of complete loss but exposes you to enough for higher returns would be....

30% physical metals (Gold mainly) 

40% vaulted with bullionvault (more silver if you prefer)

30% precious metals miners using an ETF for a range of companies.

If you decide your going to do it your way regardless id consider driving the holding in multiple trips or insured courier which would be very expensive at that weight and value. Either way there is a risk of loss and the higher the holding goes the more you will worry about the risk of a black swan event wiping you out. That would not be a nice start to a new life abroad. Your doing a great thing at your age investing but definetly consider how to derisk the strategy.