Savings Bonds

Bonds are nice but take a long time to mature. It depends what type and series of bond you buy as to when it matures. Bonds have a cap at 30 years. I actually just finally cashed in some old bonds I had from when I was born. They were over 30 years old so weren't earning interest anyway. I had some 25 dollar bonds from 1974 that netted me $95, others that only netted me $45 - once again, depends on type/class/years you held and bond rate. Of course all of that interest had to be claim on taxes so I feel like my profit of 70 bucks was cut in half. If the child has a college saving program (ex. College of IL) you might want to just write a check out for that and state you want it to go to their college program. That's what we are doing with my parent's now. It doesn't lower our monthly/yearly payments but will reduce the overall amount of time we pay on the loan (which obviously helps).

http://www.uscg.mil/Legal/la/topics/tax/savingsbonds.html

I received many savings bonds over the years, but have never cashed any in. They make some money over time, like most other conservative investments. One thing I do is I pay taxes on them every year so when I cash them in, I don't get hit with having to pay a lot of taxes at that one time. I found the following site to be useful in learning about and calculating taxes for savings bonds. It can tell you how much a bond is worth too.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/tools/tools_savingsbo...

yes just keep it they keep gaining intrest until you cash them in. you willhave to pay the tax on the intrest. I can't remember the rate of intrest but i beleive it was somewhere in the 7% area.

There are two types of bonds. The I and the EE. The EE are the more common ones. When you purchase these you purchase them for half the face value. In about 8 years it will be at face value. It then earns interest for about 20 more years. It is a good thing to hang on to bonds as long as possible. About the time the child turns 18 or even 21 they may have a nice little chunk of change. The rates do vary on bonds but they are usually between 3 and 5 percent. I hope this helps a little.

I am not positive about this, but I think if you purchase a $50 savings bond, you pay $25. It isn't worth $50 intil it matures. I had some I cashed out early for college, and I got close to the face value, so they do appreciate somewhat quickly. You can buy them at the bank, so they can give you more info. My daughter got one, and the gift-giver needed her soc. security number, which makes me nervous though...
E.

I think once the face value is reached, it will stop earning interest...depending upon the bond. I had some from high school gifts that I recently found and they had maxed out a few years ago. So check the websites and cash them in when they are mature. Otherwise you'll likely forget or lose them.