Anyone actually *time* their physical gold/silver buys? Or just DCA and forget it?

• •Been wrestling with this a bit lately, especially with silver.
• •I usually just dollar-cost average into my precious metals, particularly gold.
• •That's always felt like the smart, less stressful play, especially for my Gold IRA.

Been wrestling with this a bit lately, especially with silver. I usually just dollar-cost average into my precious metals, particularly gold. That's always felt like the smart, less stressful play, especially for my Gold IRA. I've got a decent chunk, probably north of $350k in my whole portfolio, and a good portion of that is in physical metals through my IRA. I started building it up a few years back when I first really started thinking about long-term wealth preservation outside of just stocks and bonds. With the way things are going, especially with inflation eating away at every dollar, it just feels like the safest bet for handing something down.

But silver... silver is a different beast, isn't it? It feels so much more volatile. I've got some silver bars — mostly 10oz and a couple of those hefty 100oz bricks that just feel good to hold — and I'm always tempted to try and time my buys. Watching those dips and spikes, it's like a siren song pulling me in. I know deep down it's probably crazy, trying to outsmart a global market from my home office here in Lexington, especially when I've got distillery operations to focus on during the day. My brain just thinks, "What if I could squeeze out an extra few percentage points?" It's the same kind of rush you get with a good bourbon futures gamble, but with more tangible assets at the end.

So, genuinely curious: has anyone here actually successfully timed their significant physical gold or silver buys? Or is everyone just setting it and forgetting it, embracing the long game? I’ve used the Retirement Planner at https://retire.goldirablueprint.com/?forum to map out my overall retirement goals, and it really puts into perspective how much I need and when. It makes me question if trying to actively trade physical assets, even silver, is just a distraction from the bigger picture. Is it even worth the mental energy?

I'm leaning towards just sticking to the DCA for silver, too, and not letting the short-term swings get to me. My family's been in the bourbon business for generations, and that's all about long-term vision, legacy, and patience. Maybe I should apply the same philosophy to my metals. What are your thoughts? Am I overthinking this?