Where do you keep your i-Bonds?

[wanaberetiree]

I know of two options: paper in the box and treasurydirect.gov

Are there more options?

I am considering converting my paper bonds to treasurydirect.gov and wondering if people on this forum have good experience with them?

Thanks!

[brewer12345]

I did it and it was quite easy. Go ahead and convert.

[clifp]

I looked at the website and see the process for converting my paper iBonds to electronic which seems like a good idea. My big questions is I couldn't find anywhere which talked about redeeming IBonds can you do this via treasury direct?

Now mind you I am in absolutely no hurry to redeem by 2000/2001 Ibonds with real interest rates of 3.5% or so.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 I did it and it was quite easy. Go ahead and convert.

I also did this and it worked well.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp I looked at the website and see the process for converting my paper iBonds to electronic which seems like a good idea. My big questions is I couldn't find anywhere which talked about redeeming IBonds can you do this via treasury direct? Now mind you I am in absolutely no hurry to redeem by 2000/2001 Ibonds with real interest rates of 3.5% or so.

It is very easy. I have redeemed on-line both EE & IBonds, put a request and end of next business day the money is in my bank.

[Mulligan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp I looked at the website and see the process for converting my paper iBonds to electronic which seems like a good idea. My big questions is I couldn't find anywhere which talked about redeeming IBonds can you do this via treasury direct? Now mind you I am in absolutely no hurry to redeem by 2000/2001 Ibonds with real interest rates of 3.5% or so.

Quit shoving the 3.5% fixed rate in our faces! I was a little worried about setting up TD as many people on Bogleheads complained, but it was a breeze, and so was converting the bonds. Though I thought the least they could do was notify me when it was completed since you have to mail your bond in unsigned, but they didnt. Some people fret over getting your bonds stolen from your account as government wont take responsibility for any losses, yet not one person has ever given any proof that this has ever happened. So my best understanding is lost paper bonds can be replaced, but electronic ones cant. Im not losing any sleep over the issue, though.

[kyounge1956]

Mine were all bought by payroll deduction back when that was still available, so they are all paper in my safe deposit box. I am thinking of getting more paper bonds via tax refund. Those same warning threads on Bogleheads have got me somewhat nervous about TD.

[Bluemoon]

I transferred my paper bonds to electronic last week.

[foxfirev5]

I have a TD account but I'm keeping my paper bonds as well. Of course it probably won't be too long before no one at the local bank knows what they are. So I guess I'll eventually convert them,

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulligan So my best understanding is lost paper bonds can be replaced, but electronic ones cant. Im not losing any sleep over the issue, though.

So, there's that. Any other reason to keep the paper?

Personally, I just like having the paper in my possession. If worse comes to worst, I don't know if banks will cash them anyway, but it just "feels" safer to have some piece of paper with $1000 printed in the corners. I hate it that US Treas. has stopped issuing paper and also that they offer I-bonds in such trivial amounts. But, at least I did snag a small stack of "$1000 bills" back when they used to pay interest - without requiring inflation. YMMV

[Lsbcal]

What's wrong with paper I-bonds in a safe deposit box together with instructions to your heirs? Also should add that the heirs know about the location of the box.

[Mulligan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau So, there's that. Any other reason to keep the paper? Personally, I just like having the paper in my possession. If worse comes to worst, I don't know if banks will cash them anyway, but it just "feels" safer to have some piece of paper with $1000 printed in the corners. I hate it that US Treas. has stopped issuing paper and also that they offer I-bonds in such trivial amounts. But, at least I did snag a small stack of "$1000 bills" back when they used to pay interest - without requiring inflation. YMMV

I have a little "old school" in me, so if I had several paper I Bonds, I would definitely have not converted them. I am relatively new to purchasing I Bonds. I only had one 5k paper, and then I read they were dropping paper, so I just added it to my TD account since I wouldnt be able to get anymore from bank.

[grumpy]

All my I-bonds were bought on-line at Treasury Direct and held in electronic form. I don't view this as any different than all of the mutual fund shares I hold at various MF companies (Vanguard, TRPrice, American, Franklin Templeton). None of these have paper certificates and I have never worried about that. I'm not sure I understand what the concern is by those considering whether to convert paper I-bonds to electronic form.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grumpy All my I-bonds were bought on-line at Treasury Direct and held in electronic form. I don't view this as any different than all of the mutual fund shares I hold at various MF companies (Vanguard, TRPrice, American, Franklin Templeton). None of these have paper certificates and I have never worried about that. I'm not sure I understand what the concern is by those considering whether to convert paper I-bonds to electronic form.

grumpy, I hear what you are saying. Still, Vanguard, Fido and Shwab (etc.) do one basic thing - keep track of people's investments. Our gummint does a "few" other things. If Vanguard loses too many stocks or MFs, they will go out of business while our gummint wouldn't even see it as a hiccough (much more important things to worry about, such as "saving the snail darter".)

My experience dealing with gummint agencies (Medicare, SS, IRS, NLRB, etc.) doesn't particularly stack up to my experience with Vanguard either.

Finally, I know folks who keep virtually no cash in their pocket or otherwise in their possession. They keep it all in accounts which they can conveniently access with debit cards, checks, etc. But, I still like to keep a small wad of $1s, $5s and $10s in my sock drawer and a few (plus $20s) in my wallet. If the "system" goes down, cash is still accepted at a lot of places. Heck, here on Oahu, we lost power for 18 hours once. Yes, many stores use electronic cash registers, but most would still let you buy bread and PB&J, etc if you had the cash and didn't require change. Amazing how adaptable folks are, but very, very few places were able to use debit/credit cards. And checks were only for folks that someone knew as there was no way to verify.

Having said all that, I honestly think (in my case) I just like those little pieces of paper. I used to like to own paper stocks (don't even know if you can do that any more) but dealing with paper stock certs. is a total pain (and expensive to overnight) while paper US bonds are "good" at any FRB IIRC.

So, yeah, I guess I just LIKE the paper US bonds - go figure.

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau ...(snip)... So, yeah, I guess I just LIKE the paper US bonds - go figure.

Me too. I scanned them on my printer and saved the scan to a file on my computer which tracks safe deposit box content. So now I have an electronic version too.

Still have not heard of any downsides to the paper. If the bonds are lost or stolen I understand they are recoverable through the government. When I go to my safe deposit box I always watch the clerk as he closes that thing up. Not that I don't trust them.

I just asked the banker a few days ago about what happens if DW and I are not living. He found out that state law instructs them to go by my trust document. So that is covered too, I think.

[grumpy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal I just asked the banker a few days ago about what happens if DW and I are not living. He found out that state law instructs them to go by my trust document. So that is covered too, I think.

BTW this week I was able to create an "entity" account on the Treasury Direct web site that is registered in the name of our family trust. There was then a form to download, fill out, have signature guarenteed and mail back to the Bureau of the Pubic Debt. This will transfer my existing I-bonds that were registered in my name into the account registered to the trust. I'll update here when the process is completed. This process is similar to what was required to accomplish the same thing with my Vanguard accounts.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanaberetiree I am considering converting my paper bonds to treasurydirect.gov and wondering if people on this forum have good experience with them?

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp I looked at the website and see the process for converting my paper iBonds to electronic which seems like a good idea. My big questions is I couldn't find anywhere which talked about redeeming IBonds can you do this via treasury direct?

A couple years ago we wanted to redeem an inch-thick stack of paper EE bonds. You know-- da kine bought $25/time through four years of bi-weekly payroll deductions for our daughter's college education, back when EE bonds were a good deal.

Innocently enough, we started with Navy Federal Credit Union. The teller punted us to the assistant mgr, who 20 minutes later punted to the manager, who 20 minutes later professed that he'd never been asked to redeem an EE bond before. (I had Navy uniform articles that were older than the "manager".) They finally found some old geezer manual that explained the process and its limits. We would've been visiting that branch every week for three months to comply with their redemption processes & limits.

So we called a few other banks. They were all equally uncooperative. Most banks are required to redeem govt bonds, but nobody gives them bonus points (let alone any financial incentive) for doing it. They treat you as if you're a terrorist or one of those penny-hoarding hermits trying to deposit their life savings from coffee cans-- and that's just if you're an account holder.

Thoroughly disgusted, we revisited TreasuryDirect.gov and took a fresh look at what we thought was a "cumbersome" conversion process. It suddenly seemed pretty good. It took an hour or so to type in all the bond numbers and verify them. It took a fairly substantial leap of faith to put all that paper in an envelope and mail it to the govt for credit to our account. A couple weeks later we were good to go.

For the next year we were able to quickly redeem the EE bonds. They paid interest semi-annually so every 2nd of every month I'd redeem a different batch. They'd be in our checking account the next business day. Never a problem, never a delay. The time wasted on shopping around, and the time spent on entering data, was far more than made up by the convenience of clicking a few buttons on the redemption screen.

In retrospect, I spend longer filling out IRS Form 8815 and calculating our college-expense credits than I did converting the EE bonds from paper to electrons.

Our EE bonds are long gone, and these days we're chewing through the I bonds. (Our daughter's civil engineering textbooks are apparently hand-carved from a block of 24-carat gold bullion.) The redemption process is still painless.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Thoroughly disgusted, we revisited TreasuryDirect.gov and took a fresh look at what we thought was a "cumbersome" conversion process. It suddenly seemed pretty good. It took an hour or so to type in all the bond numbers and verify them. It took a fairly substantial leap of faith to put all that paper in an envelope and mail it to the govt for credit to our account. A couple weeks later we were good to go. For the next year we were able to quickly redeem the EE bonds. They paid interest semi-annually so every 2nd of every month I'd redeem a different batch. They'd be in our checking account the next business day. Never a problem, never a delay. The time wasted on shopping around, and the time spent on entering data, was far more than made up by the convenience of clicking a few buttons on the redemption screen. In retrospect, I spend longer filling out IRS Form 8815 and calculating our college-expense credits than I did converting the EE bonds from paper to electrons. Our EE bonds are long gone, and these days we're chewing through the I bonds. (Our daughter's civil engineering textbooks are apparently hand-carved from a block of 24-carat gold bullion.) The redemption process is still painless.

Similar experience to mine. My company used to give out $500 in $50 EE bond denominations per year. When that program stopped I found I had well over 100 paper bonds. I redeemed a few at a local bank before I discovered the relative ease of converting them to electronic.

[Lsbcal]

Our EE bond redemptions at the old Washington Mutual went through with no hitches and was very quick. I think if you can use a larger bank like Chase, Wells Fargo, or BoA then the processing is quick.

[kaneohe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grumpy All my I-bonds were bought on-line at Treasury Direct and held in electronic form. I don't view this as any different than all of the mutual fund shares I hold at various MF companies (Vanguard, TRPrice, American, Franklin Templeton). None of these have paper certificates and I have never worried about that. I'm not sure I understand what the concern is by those considering whether to convert paper I-bonds to electronic form.

I worry a bit about inheritance. DD knows (I hope she remembers) about SD box so she should find savings bonds. MF companies mail quarterly statements so she should be able to find those too in case they're somehow left off the asset list. What happens to electronic T-direct accounts if you don't leave notes w/ usernames/passwords? Can they be recovered by some process by heirs?