From the link, I learned that I could report the deferred I bond interest and pay taxes on it, in order to avoid the tax bomb at maturity when 30 years of interest AND inflation compensation get dumped on my lap.
Hmmm... It sounds fair, but paying taxes in advance is always hard to do.
Have you considered redeeming a few bonds early each year, and reinvesting the proceeds into new ones? At this point, there’s no penalty, and some kind of staggered redemption would allow you to spread the interest income out over several years. I know you have some bonds with a decent fixed rate, so you probably want to leave those alone.