For those of you who have I-Bonds in an account at Treasury Direct, have you looked at the amount of interest that you received in October?
Mine is less than a third of what has been paid in all the previous months.
I understand that the interest rate on these bonds is variable but I wouldn’t think it would drop that much!
FWIW, I sent them an e-mail about this but got an automated response saying that they are to busy to answer my question.
Any thoughts?
The latest batch of I-bonds aren’t particularly good investments*. Certainly those with a fixed rate portion of 0.0%, 0.4%, 0.9%, and 1.3% aren’t.
TIPS at the current rates (2%+ fixed rate portion equivalent) are far better investments when compared with I-bonds.
* Except maybe in rare cases of planning to use the money for education and being eligible to have the interest be tax exempt.
Yes, I understand that, but I’m asking about the interest paid on I-Bonds that I’ve owned for several years. They have a base rate of 3.4% to 3.7%.
The amount I received for October is much less than this.
@DoLoop I have already redeemed the I-Bonds I bought in 2020 - 2022 since TIPS are now yielding a higher fixed rate.
Wendy
You should probably educate yourself about how I-bonds work. That is usually a strong recommendation before entering into any investment!
There have never been I-bonds with a “base rate” (fixed rate) of 3.7%.
Here is a full chart of all I-bond rates, it is very instructive and will tell you EXACTLY what the rates for your I-bonds are for each period.
I’m assuming DoLoop bought the i-bonds in 1998 to 2000 when the fixed rate was 3.4% to 3.6%. The fixed + variable (composite) rate on those bonds today should be somewhere between 7.4% and 7.6%, depending on the date of issue.
intercst
(still avoiding bonds)
OK, I guess I’ve stated it all wrong.
In the account I’m referring to, I have 3 I-Bonds - $10,000 each. One purchased in Dec 2021, one in Jan 2022 and a third one in Jan 2023.
When I look at the information in my account at the Treasury Direct website, it shows the “interest rate” is 3.79% on the first one, 3.38% on the second one and 3.38% on the third one. I assumed that this was the “base rate” - apparently I am wrong.
So, I am assuming now that this is the “current rate” that they are paying. If that’s so, then the one month earnings for October should be $87.90. But the amount that appears in the account is $64.00. This is in contrast to all of the previous months when the interest earned has been in the range of $170 to $180.
And, to add to the confusion, in my wife’s account which has two $10,000 I-Bonds (at similar interest rates) the amount that appears for October is also exactly $64.00
I don’t understand what’s going on but this just doesn’t seem correct to me.
And yes, I agree that there are better places to invest my money. But these I-Bonds are only a small part of my investable funds. I have other money invested in in other places.