quote:

Originally posted by tsmccull:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I bought $80k of the I-bonds because I didn’t see any reason not to.

You did that over several years, correct?

Nope. $10k for me, my wife, each of my three kids, and each of the kids’ trusts.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

quote:

Originally posted by tsmccull:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I bought $80k of the I-bonds because I didn’t see any reason not to.

You did that over several years, correct?

Nope. $10k for me, my wife, each of my three kids, and each of the kids’ trusts.

Got it. Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
"What's the interest rate on an I bond you sell today?
For the first six months you own it, the Series I bond we sell from May 2022 through October 2022 earns interest at an annual rate of 9.62 percent. A new rate will be set every six months based on this bond's fixed rate (0.00 percent) and on inflation."



Hmmm, may need to drop some $$$ on this

Please, do not be hasty. What the answer above shows is that the bond's rate is ZERO plus inflation. They cheat on the inflation rate (CPI-U) to boot. Back when they first issued these bonds decades ago, they paid a bond rate of 3% plus inflation. Then the Fed lowered all rates to below 3% and the I Bond rate disappeared. So you get inflation, computed by the federal government to serve their best interest. The rates change twice a year. In 2019, the rate was 0% since they computed inflation as a negative number.

The current I Bond rate is a teaser rate.

You get to pay income tax on the interest when you cash in the bonds. You will pay tax on inflation.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
{snip}
I bought iBonds a few years back and I couldn't wait to get away from them.

Me too. Too much negativity.

I've been investing in I bonds for a while now. Lets just say 22 years. They're about as safe as you can get. Simple point, if you can't afford to lose the use of your money for 5 years, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, there are some windows you need to fly thru. The 6 months and 5 years. But if you sit down and look at it, explain to me what other options there are that pay anywhere near as much or are as safe.

I'm now worried about the $60,000 we bought back in 2000. I have a calamity coming up in 2030 and haven't figured out how to get around it. It would seem I'll just pay big taxes that year.

This year we started buying again. My wife sat down and bought $10,000 for her and a similar amount for me. We'll probably buy more come January. But then we waited too long to get a greater amount than we have now. With luck I'll die before then.

Of course that idiot will probably bankrupt the country by 2030.

Just signed up for some "share certificates" with Navy Federal paying 3%

Better than nothing I guess

Bought these back in the late Eighties and most right now are producing the 10% interest now, and helped keep my investment in other things in better shape considering what’s happening with the markets. Thanks Uncle Joe.

Ages ago I bought Treasury Zero Coupon bonds in my retirement account. 17 to 18 percent interest. Of course that was when the Peanut Farmer was President.

I don't need the funds for 5 years, so I bought $10k from treasury direct in my name, another $10k in the name of my trust, and I worked with my accountant so I have at least $5k in returns next year so I can buy the "paper" iBonds for a total of $25k each year.

I'm not married and no kids or else would have gotten it for them too.

I plan on doing this for at least the next 5 years while I have the funds. After that I plan on leaving Corporate America and my income will drop precipitously and I'll re-assess at that time if I can afford the $25k/year.

As others said, having to deal with .gov isn't cool (took forever to get a hold of someone on the phone for some basic questions) but it's safe. It's not going to be a life changer (a few % of $25k isn't much) but as others have said and as a risk averse person, the interest rate is better than what I could get in a 5 year CD, etc.

Recent update from WSJ>

If Inflation Hasn’t Made You Crazy, Try Buying an I Bond

This spring, Caren Bordowitz of Macomb, Ill., sacrificed vacation time, hauling herself to a bank almost halfway across the state.

Her mission? To buy a U.S. savings bond.

With the stock market sinking and inflation raging, a once-obscure government bond is suddenly one of the hottest investments in the country. Nicknamed “I bonds,” these instruments are backed by the U.S. government and protected against inflation. They are virtually risk-free, yet currently pay 9.62% annually.


Some investors are so desperate to buy I bonds that they will put up with a weeks-long bureaucratic rigmarole that one likened to a “Bataan Death March.”

To buy the bonds in electronic form, investors must visit the government’s TreasuryDirect.gov website. There they can enter their bank information and buy a maximum $10,000 annually per account. Most are able to do so in minutes, without a hitch.

But some customers—the Treasury says it doesn’t know how many—aren’t instantly approved. If the information those people enter doesn’t match the data that the Treasury’s verification service has on file, they must verify their identity by getting their signature certified on a document known as Form 5444. The Treasury says banks and brokerage employees, among others, may do that. Then the customer has to submit the form by snail mail.

A Treasury spokesman said that these measures are intended to protect against fraud.

When Ms. Bordowitz, 61, took Form 5444 to her local bank in late April, a manager she’d known for years said she couldn’t certify her identity. Instead, Ms. Bordowitz says she was told she’d have to get a special seal known as a medallion stamp, which authenticates signatures when securities are transferred.

That required driving an hour and 45 minutes each way to another branch in Springfield, Ill. Ms. Bordowitz took the afternoon off from her graphic design job to get the stamp. She mailed the form and was finally able to access her account a month later.

“I felt like it was ‘Legend of Zelda,’ ” she said, referring to a videogame, “where you have to go to one place to get an ingredient like, let’s say, a mushroom, and you have to take that to the witch, and the witch makes a potion, and you have to take the potion to the wizard…and the person gives you a medallion.”


Caren Bordowitz of Macomb, Ill., sacrificed vacation time to certify her identity and buy a U.S. savings bond.
PHOTO: CAREN BORDOWITZ
Besides a medallion stamp, banks can also use similar procedures including something called a signature guarantee. But some banks are declining to certify the forms out of concerns about liability.

A Treasury spokesman said the agency may soon permit any notary public to certify individuals’ identities.

Through mid-June, the government sold $14.4 billion in I bonds—roughly 40 times as much as in all of 2020, Treasury data show.

More than 1.5 million accounts have been opened since November, according to the agency. Less than a million existed prior.

Some people have gone to great lengths to buy the bonds, to no avail.

Katie Loewen, a 34-year-old stay-at-home mother of four young children in Aurora, Colo., said about a dozen bank branches and her brokerage firm all shot her down when she asked them to certify Form 5444 for her and her husband.

Ms. Loewen even called the local courthouse—TreasuryDirect.gov says a judge can certify the form—but “they had no idea what I was talking about,” she said.

Months later, Ms. Loewen is still trying to find somebody, anybody, to certify the signatures. On the $20,000 the couple would like to invest in I bonds, the delay is costing them almost $40 every week in forgone interest. Ms. Loewen, who used to work as a tax accountant, said she is “passionately frustrated.”

Eric Wuestewald, 34, couldn’t get his form signed because he uses an internet bank that lacks brick-and-mortar locations.

Mr. Wuestewald, a government contractor, got turned down by several other banks in the Washington, D.C., area. This spring, he waited at least a half hour at a crowded bank before being taken into a back room. A banker looked at the form and told him, “I’m sorry, I can’t give you that stamp,” Mr. Wuestewald recalled.

“I probably lost my cool a little bit,” he said, before a bank manager finally agreed to certify his signature. But he still bemoans using the TreasuryDirect website, which got its last significant update in 2002.


The virtual keyboard to enter a password on the US Treasury website.
“I’m half expecting the hamster-dance page to pop up,” said Mr. Wuestewald, referring to the viral 1990s web cartoon.

Account holders must use a mouse or trackpad to enter their password on a ghostly gray online keyboard with no lower-case letters. Treasury officials say they are working on updating the website, which will take at least six to nine months.

Calls to TreasuryDirect’s customer-service line are up 125% over last year, the agency said. With only about 40 full-time staff fielding more than 20,000 calls a week, wait times have regularly topped two hours. A spokesman said the agency has hired temporary workers to assist with the deluge of calls and hopes to double the staff for the next year or so.

Murray Berkowitz, 77, a retired advertising executive in West Palm Beach, Fla., likened trying to activate TreasuryDirect accounts for himself and his wife to “the Bataan Death March.”

When he learned he’d need to submit the dreaded Form 5444, Mr. Berkowitz called TreasuryDirect’s customer service, but hung up after waiting on hold for an hour and 36 minutes.

“Cruel and unusual punishment by any standard,” he said.


Murray Berkowitz perusing the TreasuryDirect website.
PHOTO: RIVA BERKOWITZ
He went to two banks and a brokerage office, and no one would certify the form.

After Mr. Berkowitz repeatedly called and emailed TreasuryDirect, a Treasury employee phoned him, he said. She then called his bank for him, unlocking his accounts.

After all that, he dreads logging in to the website.

“I’m so afraid of pushing one wrong key,” he said, “that I make my wife log on for both of us so she won’t blame me if I make a mistake.”

Louise Andrews, a retiree in Williamsburg, Va., had to change the email address associated with her TreasuryDirect account after her old email got hacked. But the government’s website wouldn’t let her enter a new email address, because her old one was invalid.

So she had to call the toll-free number.

On one attempt, “the recording estimated an hour-and-a-half wait when I started,” said Ms. Andrews. More than an hour later, the estimated wait had risen to 2½ hours, at which point “the battery in my cordless phone went dead.”

After trying intermittently since April, in early June she braved two hours and 13 minutes on hold until a “very helpful” customer-service representative picked up and restored her access in a few moments.

Ms. Andrews promptly bought $10,000 in I bonds for herself and $10,000 for her husband, saying she is pleased she lived “long enough to get this done.”



‘I

Most of us can purchase an I-Bond without the drama noted above by the WSJ.

It's a good interest rate for investors willing to park their cash for the mid to long term. Personally, I'm even willing to do it for a 2-5 year hold.

It's also a safe investment.

Didn't want to start a new thread for my question, maybe someone will know. I purchased I bonds on May 5th 2022 but my treasury direct account still only shows the original purchase of $10,000. When should the interest show in my account? I know they add the interest every 6 months but I'm seeing nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by 08 Cayenne:
Didn't want to start a new thread for my question, maybe someone will know. I purchased I bonds on May 5th 2022 but my treasury direct account still only shows the original purchase of $10,000. When should the interest show in my account? I know they add the interest every 6 months but I'm seeing nothing.

Their web site stinks...

After you're logged in, go to the "Current Holdings" tab, you should see your current value for Series I Savings Bond near the bottom of the page.

That should include the interest earned so far, less 3 months worth of interest (since you've not had it for 5 years yet).

Edited for additional content and formatting

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ShouldBFishin,

Yep. But keep in mind that this current value doesn't factor in the last 3 months of interest, since if you cashed out today you'd be forfeiting that.

Once you hit 5+ years, the current value will reflect the real-time full value, since there's no longer a 3 month interest penalty.

What are they paying nowadays? Might be a good time to make an investment. Is there an advantage to doing so prior to the new year?

You can only contribute 10 grand per year. The new rate is less, but turns out to be much better than any other guaranteed fixed income investment at this time.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
What are they paying nowadays?

6.89% overall, with 0.4% being fixed and 6.49% being variable.

As stated by ZSMICHAEL, this new rate as of November 1st is less in the short term compared to the prior 9.62% (all variable with 0% fixed) rate from the May-October 2022 period, but if you hold them for 4+ years you'll actually earn more in the long run compared to bonds purchased in the prior rate period, thanks to the new fixed rate.

quote:

Is there an advantage to doing so prior to the new year?

You can buy up to $10k in I Bonds each calendar year. So you could buy $10k now and $10k next week, and be holding $20k total for all of next year, versus buying none now and only being able to hold $10k total next year.

But understand that it can take a couple days for your I Bond order to be processed. And occasionally there's identify verification issues that crop up when creating a new TresuryDirect account, which require you to obtain signatures from your bank on a paper form and send it in to the Treasury Department, which can take a week or more to process. So if you sign up to try to buy $10k today, there's a chance that it won't be able to be processed until after the first of the year.

Thank You sir, I will check it out. I'm not cashing anything out, just the opposite I want to add the 10k for 2023 next week. Just bothering me I couldn't see the interest.

quote:

Originally posted by ShouldBFishin:

quote:

Originally posted by 08 Cayenne:
Didn't want to start a new thread for my question, maybe someone will know. I purchased I bonds on May 5th 2022 but my treasury direct account still only shows the original purchase of $10,000. When should the interest show in my account? I know they add the interest every 6 months but I'm seeing nothing.

Their web site stinks...

After you're logged in, go to the "Current Holdings" tab, you should see your current value for Series I Savings Bond near the bottom of the page.

That should include the interest earned so far, less 3 months worth of interest (since you've not had it for 5 years yet).

Edited for additional content and formatting

^^^^^^^^^^^
Not to mention the CLUNKY and outdated website and slow processing on their end.

quote:

Originally posted by Ivan:
Is it me, or does anyone else have an issue loaning this trash administration any cash?

Loaning the US government has been good for China. If it's good enough for China, it's good enough for me.

Why China Buys U.S. Debt With Treasury Bonds