Until today, I had never heard of Series I (i) bonds. These are bought from Uncle Sam like any other bonds. You can do electronic, or paper, but there's differences between them. For instance in electronic, you can buy any face value over 25 dollars. So you could literally buy a 53.37 bond, but in paper, they go 50, 100, 250,500 and 1K.
You can buy 10K worth in a year, however you can buy 10K worth of electronic, and 5K in paper, for a total of 15K.
Looks like the closest thing to risk free there is, still backed by Uncle Sam just like any other bond. But here's the big part: the interest rate is set with a fixed rate AND a tie to inflation. Right now that overall rate is 7.1%.
What's the interest rate on an I bond you sell today?
For the first six months you own it, the Series I bond we sell from November 2021 through April 2022 earns interest at an annual rate of 7.12 percent. A new rate will be set every six months based on this bond's fixed rate (0.00 percent) and on inflation.
A bond paying 7.1%?? Yes. Now, that rate gets adjusted twice a year, so 7.1 is good until April and then it will be reset. But, considering how high inflation is, even if they lower it a half point you're still getting a fixed rate bond, paying over 6%. In this day and age, that's gold.
You can learn more here:
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds_ibuy.htm#interest
