If you can put aside NZ$50 a month, what does that actually buy in copper? And is it better to order every month, or to save up and buy less often?
The second question turns out to matter more than the first. At this budget the biggest lever on what you actually pay per ounce is not which bar you choose. It is how often you press checkout.
All figures below are current Global Copper prices in New Zealand dollars, GST inclusive.
What NZ$50 buys right now
Three ways to put fifty dollars into metal. These are product prices only; delivery is dealt with in the next section, and it matters more than you might expect.
- Five 1 Troy Ounce Copper Bars .999 Fine at $9.00 each. That is $45.00 for five ounces, or $9.00 an ounce, with $5.00 left in the pot.
- The Starter Stack, five 1oz copper rounds for $50.00. Five ounces at $10.00 an ounce.
- One 5 Troy Ounce Copper Bullion Bar .999 Fine Copper at $50.00. Five ounces at $10.00 an ounce.
Worth being straight about the Starter Stack: a single 1 Troy Ounce Copper Round is $10.00, so five bought individually also come to $50.00. The Starter Stack is a convenient way to buy five rounds as one line item, not a discount. If cost per ounce is your priority at the one-ounce size, the bar at $9.00 is the cheaper of the two formats. If you prefer the shape and feel of a round, you are paying $1.00 an ounce more for that preference, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do as long as you know you are doing it.
The shipping threshold is the thing to plan around
Delivery is NZ$20 flat, and free on orders over NZ$200. Orders ship within 1-3 business days, tracked with signature, to New Zealand addresses only.
On a $50 order, that $20 is 40 per cent of your monthly budget going to freight. On a $250 order it is nothing. That one fact reshapes the whole plan.
Note the wording as well: free over NZ$200. A basket sitting at exactly $200.00 is worth nudging over the line rather than leaving it parked on it.
Three ways to run a $50-a-month plan
1. Order every month
Fifty dollars arrives, twenty goes to shipping, thirty is left for metal. Three 1oz bars cost $27.00 and the spare $3.00 rolls forward. Every third month the accumulated change stretches to a fourth bar.
Run that for twelve months and you end up with 40 ounces. You will have spent $360.00 on copper and $240.00 on shipping. Your landed cost is $15.00 an ounce for metal listed at $9.00.
The trade-off is plain enough: something arrives every month, and the freight is what you pay for that.
2. Order every four months
Save for four months and you have $200 to work with. A Tube of 20 x 1 Troy Ounce Copper Rounds is $160.00, which is $8.00 an ounce, and two 1oz bars add $18.00. That is a $178.00 basket, still under the free shipping line, so $20 applies and you have spent $198.00 for 22 ounces. Landed cost: $9.00 an ounce.
Three orders a year gets you 66 ounces for $594.00.
If you can stretch the basket, a tube plus one 5 Troy Ounce Copper Bullion Bar comes to $210.00, which clears the free shipping line. That is 25 ounces delivered for $210.00, or $8.40 an ounce. Be aware it is $10.00 more than four months at $50 actually puts aside, so it means either waiting a little longer before you order or topping the basket up from elsewhere.
3. Order twice a year
Six months of saving gives you $300. The Kilo Club is $285.00 for 36 ounces, which is $7.92 an ounce, and it ships free.
Do that twice, and put the accumulated change toward three 1oz bars on the second order. Your year: $597.00 spent, 75 ounces held, nothing paid in shipping. That is $7.96 an ounce landed.
The comparison
The same $50 a month, across the same twelve months:
- Monthly: 40 ounces, $240.00 spent on shipping, $15.00 an ounce landed.
- Every four months: 66 ounces, $60.00 spent on shipping, $9.00 an ounce landed.
- Twice a year: 75 ounces, nothing spent on shipping, $7.96 an ounce landed.
On these figures, batching your orders is worth about 35 extra ounces across the year at this budget. Nothing about the metal changed. Only the number of parcels did.
Where the per-ounce price steps down
Alongside the shipping effect, the listed price per ounce falls as the format gets larger:
- 1 Troy Ounce Copper Bar .999 Fine: $9.00, one ounce, $9.00 an ounce.
- The Copper Sampler: $62.00, seven ounces, $8.86 an ounce.
- Tube of 20 x 1 Troy Ounce Copper Rounds: $160.00, twenty ounces, $8.00 an ounce.
- The Kilo Club: $285.00, 36 ounces, $7.92 an ounce.
- The Foundry Box: $755.00, 100 ounces, $7.55 an ounce.
On a $50-a-month budget the first four of those are within reach inside a year of saving, with the Kilo Club taking six months. The Foundry Box at $755.00 needs sixteen months of saving at $50, which is worth knowing but is a long time to sit on cash if you would rather be holding metal.
Practical notes before you start
Set the trigger, not the date
The plans above work because the order goes out when the balance hits a number, not when the calendar says so. Decide in advance what your trigger is: over $200 for free shipping is the obvious one. Then the decision is already made and you are not re-litigating it every month.
GST
Copper is not covered by New Zealand's fine metal GST exemption, which applies to gold, silver and platinum only. Copper bullion is therefore sold GST inclusive, and every price on this page already includes it. If GST treatment matters to your particular situation, confirm your own position with your accountant or Inland Revenue rather than relying on a blog post.
Storage and records
Copper darkens with handling and exposure, so decide where the growing pile is going to live before it arrives rather than after. We have covered storage and toning separately on this blog. It is also worth keeping a simple record as you go: date, what you bought, what you paid, how many ounces. A spreadsheet with four columns is enough, and it saves reconstructing two years of orders from your inbox later.
Prices move
The numbers in this article are today's listed prices. Copper is a traded commodity and prices are updated as costs change, so re-check the current figures before committing to a plan built on them. The structure of the argument holds regardless: fewer, larger orders cost less in freight than many small ones.
What this plan is not
This is not financial advice. Global Copper is a bullion dealer, not a licensed financial adviser, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy copper, a view on what it will be worth, or a suggestion that a monthly plan will produce any particular outcome. If you want advice on how to allocate savings, talk to someone licensed to give it.
We also do not operate a buyback desk, so plan on the basis that selling anything you accumulate is something you would arrange yourself, elsewhere. That is worth factoring in before you start, not after.
If you have already decided you want to hold physical copper and $50 a month is the budget, the arithmetic above is the useful part: batch your orders, clear the free shipping line, and let the larger formats bring the listed price per ounce down. You can see the full range and current pricing in the copper bullion collection.