US Savings Bonds

Archive for the ‘Savings Bonds’ Category

Question: How do I cash in US Savings Bonds?

Answer: Take it to a commercial bank that you have an account with. As long as the bond is at least 6 months old and it is titled in your name, you should be able to cash it in on the spot. They will look at the date that the bond was issued and use that to figure out what it is worth on the day that you cash it in. You can estimate the value by using the rule of 72. Take the number 72 and divide it by what ever the rate of the bond was on the day it was purchased. The result tells you the number of years it will take for the bond to double in value. The dollar amount that you see on the bond is called the face value. If the bond is more than 12 years old there is a good chance that it is worth the face value or possibly more. EE bonds continue to accrue interest for 30 years so if is 20 to 30 years old it is very likely that it is worth much more than the face value. When you cash it in at the bank they should give you a 1099 to let you know how much interest is being reported to the government. FYI, customer service reps at banks hate Cashing Savings Bonds because typically a customer brings in a huge stack of them and each one might have been bought on a different date so they all have to be researched separately. It’s time consuming and banks don’t make any money on them so generally they think of it as a pain in the butt. You can go on www.savingsbonds.gov and plug in the date that it was purchased and it will tell you the exact current value of the bond. Good luck

Question: Why are invesment Gurus saying TIPS are better than Savings Bonds?

Answer: Almost anything is better than Savings Bonds. H-bonds and TIPS are not exactly the same. There are significant differences. One particular difference is the tax treatment of the inflation adjustment of H vs TIPs. With TIPs you have to pay taxes on the inflation adjustment each year even though you do not receive it until the bond matures. Talk about a screwing, that is a screwing. With H bonds you do not.

Exchange-traded funds

Question: where can i find information on R.I. 1989 series a Savings Bonds?

I’m trying to find out what the value is they matured in june of 2008

Answer: go to your bank, they have the program to check how much you earned and to see what its worth. hope its a lot !

V8C. Bond Yields