I Bond Sales Figures

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1moreyr
Posts: 465
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:10 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by 1moreyr »

exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:26 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:06 pm
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:38 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:27 pm
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:09 pm

I feel like a celebrity getting quoted by you! With that out of the way...
I think that's a compliment. Thank you for that. (Now here comes the bad part where you shoot me down!)

Unless they're able to hold TIPS in a tax-advantaged account, at least they're paying regular income tax on the inflation adjustments.
I think most tax-savvy investors know about that and put TIPS in their tax-deferred accounts. However, that has nothing to do with why folks are allowed to buy more TIPS than I Bonds.

Since I Bonds aren't subject to market forces, the normal balance between nominal Treasuries and TIPS don't apply. As has been discussed, over longer periods, the TIPS and nominals return about the same real.
Don't know what that has to do with purchase limits. IMO, absolutely nothing.

Since TIPS can't be redeemed for face value until maturity, that adds an element of risk that you don't have with I Bonds.
Again, that has nothing to do with purchase limits.

TIPS also force you to compete with foreign dollars, potentially reducing the cost to the US taxpayers.
Not sure what you mean by this.
I'm on mobile so it's difficult to quote nicely.

Tax-deferred space is at a premium. Even though TIPS are unlimited, the amount of space you have to hold them efficiently is. Plowing into them now would make sense, but as inflation is tamed, their value will go down. Switching your entire tax-advantaged portfolio to them would seem like an overreaction.
All the more reason to let investors buy more tax-deferred I Bonds instead of TIPS for their inflation protection. Problem solved.

Regarding market forces, I Bonds remove a lot of risk. Forcing those with means into TIPS means they're competing with everyone else (keeping prices lower) and taking risks regarding rates and liquidity. (We've seen TIPS temporarily collapse.) The "American way" is to allow those who want to take risk, to do so essentially without restraint.
Many investors prefer to take their risk on the equity side and would like more safety and predictability, such as that offered by I Bonds, in their bond and cash-like holdings.

TIPS lock your money up until maturity. I Bonds let you redeem at will, after the 12 months without subjecting yourself to market forces. The unpredictability of redemptions could cause the US Government excess funding expenses if substantial amounts of money were moved into the non-marketable bonds.
True, but increasing the I Bond purchase limit could also help offset any redemptions. And many I Bond holders I talk to are in it for the long haul (up to 30 years).
Regarding tax-deferral, that just allows wealthy people more opportunity to avoid/delay paying taxes. Forcing them to hold TIPS in taxable forces them to recognize the adjustments in each tax year, reducing the burden on the rest of the tax payers.

Regarding risk, I agree -- take it in your equities. However, again, allowing the wealthy to have safe investments kind of goes against the spirit of things. Inflation doesn't really hurt those people. Giving them a safety bonus certainly doesn't seem fair.

Maybe increasing the limits would reduce the effect of the unpredictable redemptions. But I think, on balance, you'd get a lot of opportunistic selling. Buffet could drop $1B in for 12 months and dump them once inflation was tamed.

If you upped the limit with the caveats that anything over $X requires yearly recognition of income and upped the redemption timeframe to 5 years, you'd avoid the opportunistic people without harming the long-term holders.

For the record, I'm not one of the "eat the rich" people. I'm in the 24% bracket. I live in NH partially to avoid income tax. I generally lean fiscally conservative and laissez faire. But I do think the tax code is unnecessarily complicated and unfairly advantages the wealthy at the expense of people like me.
so trying to stay on topic specific to Ibonds and in reference to that....

you are in the 24% bracket , which means if married you make $170K-$300K in a state that has a household income of 76K.. it sounds like you are one of those wealthy people. (BTW, I live in NH so we don't need to go down the New England cost of living debate).

I don't see how I bonds are tilted to the 5% when I continually hear people on this forum with wealth say "$10K won't move the needle for me".

You can purchase as low as a $25 for an I bond which sounds like it's there for the little guy. Also I have not done the math but I would imagine tax shielding and growth potential impact of 10K of a smaller portfolio (say $100K) would be greater on a percentage basis - compared to someone with $3 - 5Million plus...

I am the first to agree on implications of tax code,,,, I am having trouble understanding how this one conflates to that
exigent
Posts: 1309
Joined: Fri May 07, 2010 8:49 am

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by exigent »

Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 1:22 pm
markcoop wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:44 pm Anyone know the average for a typical month? I have no idea how big that number is without seeing a comparison.
The sales figures are all over the place. Some of the outliers can be explained by changes in the composite rate? For example, note the huge jump in sales from 10/21 (236 million) to 11/21 (1 billion) when the composite rate changed.

Here are some sales figures for different months:
8/21 - $101 million
9/21 - $ 78 million
10/21 - $236 million
11/21 - $1 billion
2/22 - $923 million
3/22 - $940 million
4/22 - $ 98 million
Good info. Impressive leap in Nov of last year. Anyone know what’s typical for Dec/Jan transition across multiple years. I’m not surprised that Dec/Jan stand out vs the rest of the calendar year, but how does this compare in a year-over-year sense? I’m not sure where to find these data or I would look it up and share it myself. Thx.
alluringreality
Posts: 1512
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 9:59 am

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by alluringreality »

1moreyr wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 8:30 am I don't see how I bonds are tilted to the 5% when I continually hear people on this forum with wealth say "$10K won't move the needle for me".
I could understand inflation adjustments for savings bonds, similar to how other accounts are reviewed for limit increases. Otherwise I generally disagree with the idea of increased purchase limits. I think exodusNH was also disagreeing with the idea of expanding purchase limits. I agree that limited purchases appears to be the general current intent. One current loophole seems to be setting up a bunch of trusts to increase yearly purchase limits. Trust owners may typically have more wealth, so that might be one basis I could see for the case of wanting to generally expand purchase limits.
Last edited by alluringreality on Fri May 20, 2022 10:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
45% US Indexes, 25% Ex-US Indexes, 30% Fixed Income - Buy & Hold
exodusNH
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Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 7:21 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by exodusNH »

1moreyr wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 8:30 am
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:26 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:06 pm
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:38 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:27 pm
I'm on mobile so it's difficult to quote nicely.

Tax-deferred space is at a premium. Even though TIPS are unlimited, the amount of space you have to hold them efficiently is. Plowing into them now would make sense, but as inflation is tamed, their value will go down. Switching your entire tax-advantaged portfolio to them would seem like an overreaction.
All the more reason to let investors buy more tax-deferred I Bonds instead of TIPS for their inflation protection. Problem solved.

Regarding market forces, I Bonds remove a lot of risk. Forcing those with means into TIPS means they're competing with everyone else (keeping prices lower) and taking risks regarding rates and liquidity. (We've seen TIPS temporarily collapse.) The "American way" is to allow those who want to take risk, to do so essentially without restraint.
Many investors prefer to take their risk on the equity side and would like more safety and predictability, such as that offered by I Bonds, in their bond and cash-like holdings.

TIPS lock your money up until maturity. I Bonds let you redeem at will, after the 12 months without subjecting yourself to market forces. The unpredictability of redemptions could cause the US Government excess funding expenses if substantial amounts of money were moved into the non-marketable bonds.
True, but increasing the I Bond purchase limit could also help offset any redemptions. And many I Bond holders I talk to are in it for the long haul (up to 30 years).
Regarding tax-deferral, that just allows wealthy people more opportunity to avoid/delay paying taxes. Forcing them to hold TIPS in taxable forces them to recognize the adjustments in each tax year, reducing the burden on the rest of the tax payers.

Regarding risk, I agree -- take it in your equities. However, again, allowing the wealthy to have safe investments kind of goes against the spirit of things. Inflation doesn't really hurt those people. Giving them a safety bonus certainly doesn't seem fair.

Maybe increasing the limits would reduce the effect of the unpredictable redemptions. But I think, on balance, you'd get a lot of opportunistic selling. Buffet could drop $1B in for 12 months and dump them once inflation was tamed.

If you upped the limit with the caveats that anything over $X requires yearly recognition of income and upped the redemption timeframe to 5 years, you'd avoid the opportunistic people without harming the long-term holders.

For the record, I'm not one of the "eat the rich" people. I'm in the 24% bracket. I live in NH partially to avoid income tax. I generally lean fiscally conservative and laissez faire. But I do think the tax code is unnecessarily complicated and unfairly advantages the wealthy at the expense of people like me.
so trying to stay on topic specific to Ibonds and in reference to that....

you are in the 24% bracket , which means if married you make $170K-$300K in a state that has a household income of 76K.. it sounds like you are one of those wealthy people. (BTW, I live in NH so we don't need to go down the New England cost of living debate).

I don't see how I bonds are tilted to the 5% when I continually hear people on this forum with wealth say "$10K won't move the needle for me".

You can purchase as low as a $25 for an I bond which sounds like it's there for the little guy. Also I have not done the math but I would imagine tax shielding and growth potential impact of 10K of a smaller portfolio (say $100K) would be greater on a percentage basis - compared to someone with $3 - 5Million plus...

I am the first to agree on implications of tax code,,,, I am having trouble understanding how this one conflates to that
My comment was based on allowing large limits in the purchase, e.g. $50k+. That would amount to a tax-deferred, market-value-protected gift to those with that kind of money to move around. If they want to own that much of an inflation-protected security, let them buy TIPS and assume the market risk. Or, change the tax code so as to prevent them from taking advantage of the tax deferral of the inflation adjustments, which would put them on the same footing as TIPS in a taxable account. It might even makes sense to limit the amounts that could be redeemed early so as to prevent arbitrage with a security that has no market risk.

As for my personal situation, yes, I'm in the 24% bracket, but I am by no means wealthy, at least as I take the term to mean. I'm looking at retirement 15ish years from now and wondering how that will go. As a single person with no dependents, a good portion of my income goes to income taxes and FICA. I get no tax credits or stimulus checks.

The I Bonds I've purchased are to provide income to cover property taxes, insurance, and some small amount of utilities. I hadn't heard of them before 2020, which is right around when I realized that even once I pay off my mortgage, I'd still have a big housing bill that will inexorably rise.

While I don't know what my property taxes will be, I know they rise roughly with inflation. If they're $6000 now, the $10k I Bond limit nicely covers that "known unknown" expense. While the stock market would have a greater expected return, the timing of that could be inconvenient. Having the I Bond floor is a comfort.
alluringreality
Posts: 1512
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 9:59 am

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by alluringreality »

exigent wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 8:59 am I’m not sure where to find these data or I would look it up and share it myself. Thx.
I think it's available on the Fiscaldata site. There was a previous link that seems to go to the correct area. There appears to be monthly I bond lines with gross sales, returned sales, and net sales columns.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/dataset ... rect/sales
45% US Indexes, 25% Ex-US Indexes, 30% Fixed Income - Buy & Hold
IowaFarmWife
Posts: 564
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:42 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by IowaFarmWife »

whodidntante wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 11:33 pm I bonds have outperformed basically every asset class with a few exceptions, including commodities and managed futures and certain long-short portfolios lately. You know, the sort of stuff y'all decided are for dummies and gamblers. :P
i have seen you mention commodities and managed futures in some of you older posts, but I honestly don't understand how they work at all. One day, when you're bored and have nothing else to do, would you please start a tutorial on these products? I'm genuinely interested in learning about this.

Thank you!
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore." Yogi Berra's financial wisdom.
H-Town
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Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 1:08 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by H-Town »

Tooth wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:18 pm Interesting. Why wouldn't the feds increase the limit to encourage more people to lock money away? Would this help decrease liquidity in the economy and help decrease inflation?
Increasing I-Bond limit would not help. The U.S. market cap is roughly 40.7 trillion US dollars (as of 2020). A 30% bear market will take a 12.2 trillion haircut. That would have a more meaningful impact than increasing I-Bond limit.

Plus, it is not the right thing to do. It would only help the rich get richer. Don't get me wrong, I am all for getting rid of I-Bond limit, 401k limit, Roth IRA limit, etc. But it would just help millionaires and billionaires.
Time is the ultimate currency.
Tdubs
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by Tdubs »

Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 1:22 pm
markcoop wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:44 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:05 pm Just saw sales figures for I Bonds which showed that over $6,000,000,000 (that's six BILLION) in I Bonds were sold in just two months (12/21 and 1/22).
Anyone know the average for a typical month? I have no idea how big that number is without seeing a comparison.
The sales figures are all over the place. Some of the outliers can be explained by changes in the composite rate. For example, note the huge jump in sales from 10/21 (236 million) to 11/21 (1 billion) when the composite rate changed.

Here are some sales figures for different months:
8/21 - $101 million
9/21 - $ 78 million
10/21 - $236 million
11/21 - $1 billion
2/22 - $923 million
3/22 - $940 million
4/22 - $ 98 million
Doesn't seem like people recognized the advantage of buying in April--the last month of 7.12% interest--vs waiting till May.
1moreyr
Posts: 465
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:10 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by 1moreyr »

exodusNH wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 9:07 am
1moreyr wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 8:30 am
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:26 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:06 pm
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 2:38 pm

I'm on mobile so it's difficult to quote nicely.

Tax-deferred space is at a premium. Even though TIPS are unlimited, the amount of space you have to hold them efficiently is. Plowing into them now would make sense, but as inflation is tamed, their value will go down. Switching your entire tax-advantaged portfolio to them would seem like an overreaction.
All the more reason to let investors buy more tax-deferred I Bonds instead of TIPS for their inflation protection. Problem solved.

Regarding market forces, I Bonds remove a lot of risk. Forcing those with means into TIPS means they're competing with everyone else (keeping prices lower) and taking risks regarding rates and liquidity. (We've seen TIPS temporarily collapse.) The "American way" is to allow those who want to take risk, to do so essentially without restraint.
Many investors prefer to take their risk on the equity side and would like more safety and predictability, such as that offered by I Bonds, in their bond and cash-like holdings.

TIPS lock your money up until maturity. I Bonds let you redeem at will, after the 12 months without subjecting yourself to market forces. The unpredictability of redemptions could cause the US Government excess funding expenses if substantial amounts of money were moved into the non-marketable bonds.
True, but increasing the I Bond purchase limit could also help offset any redemptions. And many I Bond holders I talk to are in it for the long haul (up to 30 years).
Regarding tax-deferral, that just allows wealthy people more opportunity to avoid/delay paying taxes. Forcing them to hold TIPS in taxable forces them to recognize the adjustments in each tax year, reducing the burden on the rest of the tax payers.

Regarding risk, I agree -- take it in your equities. However, again, allowing the wealthy to have safe investments kind of goes against the spirit of things. Inflation doesn't really hurt those people. Giving them a safety bonus certainly doesn't seem fair.

Maybe increasing the limits would reduce the effect of the unpredictable redemptions. But I think, on balance, you'd get a lot of opportunistic selling. Buffet could drop $1B in for 12 months and dump them once inflation was tamed.

If you upped the limit with the caveats that anything over $X requires yearly recognition of income and upped the redemption timeframe to 5 years, you'd avoid the opportunistic people without harming the long-term holders.

For the record, I'm not one of the "eat the rich" people. I'm in the 24% bracket. I live in NH partially to avoid income tax. I generally lean fiscally conservative and laissez faire. But I do think the tax code is unnecessarily complicated and unfairly advantages the wealthy at the expense of people like me.
so trying to stay on topic specific to Ibonds and in reference to that....

you are in the 24% bracket , which means if married you make $170K-$300K in a state that has a household income of 76K.. it sounds like you are one of those wealthy people. (BTW, I live in NH so we don't need to go down the New England cost of living debate).

I don't see how I bonds are tilted to the 5% when I continually hear people on this forum with wealth say "$10K won't move the needle for me".

You can purchase as low as a $25 for an I bond which sounds like it's there for the little guy. Also I have not done the math but I would imagine tax shielding and growth potential impact of 10K of a smaller portfolio (say $100K) would be greater on a percentage basis - compared to someone with $3 - 5Million plus...

I am the first to agree on implications of tax code,,,, I am having trouble understanding how this one conflates to that
My comment was based on allowing large limits in the purchase, e.g. $50k+. That would amount to a tax-deferred, market-value-protected gift to those with that kind of money to move around. If they want to own that much of an inflation-protected security, let them buy TIPS and assume the market risk. Or, change the tax code so as to prevent them from taking advantage of the tax deferral of the inflation adjustments, which would put them on the same footing as TIPS in a taxable account. It might even makes sense to limit the amounts that could be redeemed early so as to prevent arbitrage with a security that has no market risk.

As for my personal situation, yes, I'm in the 24% bracket, but I am by no means wealthy, at least as I take the term to mean. I'm looking at retirement 15ish years from now and wondering how that will go. As a single person with no dependents, a good portion of my income goes to income taxes and FICA. I get no tax credits or stimulus checks.

The I Bonds I've purchased are to provide income to cover property taxes, insurance, and some small amount of utilities. I hadn't heard of them before 2020, which is right around when I realized that even once I pay off my mortgage, I'd still have a big housing bill that will inexorably rise.

While I don't know what my property taxes will be, I know they rise roughly with inflation. If they're $6000 now, the $10k I Bond limit nicely covers that "known unknown" expense. While the stock market would have a greater expected return, the timing of that could be inconvenient. Having the I Bond floor is a comfort.

got it, I thought you were infering Ibonds were for the wealthy, pardon my poor comprehension and reading skills based on a public education :D (joke)

and yes if your real estate tax is $6K is, you aren't living high on the hog in NH. Mine is $8K and I am probably one of the least expensive homes in my town.. (though it's known to be an expensive town)
alluringreality
Posts: 1512
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by alluringreality »

Tdubs wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 10:00 am Doesn't seem like people recognized the advantage of buying in April--the last month of 7.12% interest--vs waiting till May.
I'm not sure if those numbers are accurate. The prior Fiscaldata link is showing over 3.7 billion net sales for April.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/dataset ... rect/sales
45% US Indexes, 25% Ex-US Indexes, 30% Fixed Income - Buy & Hold
exodusNH
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by exodusNH »

Tdubs wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 10:00 am
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 1:22 pm
markcoop wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:44 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:05 pm Just saw sales figures for I Bonds which showed that over $6,000,000,000 (that's six BILLION) in I Bonds were sold in just two months (12/21 and 1/22).
Anyone know the average for a typical month? I have no idea how big that number is without seeing a comparison.
The sales figures are all over the place. Some of the outliers can be explained by changes in the composite rate. For example, note the huge jump in sales from 10/21 (236 million) to 11/21 (1 billion) when the composite rate changed.

Here are some sales figures for different months:
8/21 - $101 million
9/21 - $ 78 million
10/21 - $236 million
11/21 - $1 billion
2/22 - $923 million
3/22 - $940 million
4/22 - $ 98 million
Doesn't seem like people recognized the advantage of buying in April--the last month of 7.12% interest--vs waiting till May.
Or they expect inflation to have dropped back in a year and want the full six months of 9.62% instead of losing out on three months / waiting 15 months.
exodusNH
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Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 7:21 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by exodusNH »

1moreyr wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 10:29 am
exodusNH wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 9:07 am
1moreyr wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 8:30 am
exodusNH wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:26 pm
Mel Lindauer wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 3:06 pm
Regarding tax-deferral, that just allows wealthy people more opportunity to avoid/delay paying taxes. Forcing them to hold TIPS in taxable forces them to recognize the adjustments in each tax year, reducing the burden on the rest of the tax payers.

Regarding risk, I agree -- take it in your equities. However, again, allowing the wealthy to have safe investments kind of goes against the spirit of things. Inflation doesn't really hurt those people. Giving them a safety bonus certainly doesn't seem fair.

Maybe increasing the limits would reduce the effect of the unpredictable redemptions. But I think, on balance, you'd get a lot of opportunistic selling. Buffet could drop $1B in for 12 months and dump them once inflation was tamed.

If you upped the limit with the caveats that anything over $X requires yearly recognition of income and upped the redemption timeframe to 5 years, you'd avoid the opportunistic people without harming the long-term holders.

For the record, I'm not one of the "eat the rich" people. I'm in the 24% bracket. I live in NH partially to avoid income tax. I generally lean fiscally conservative and laissez faire. But I do think the tax code is unnecessarily complicated and unfairly advantages the wealthy at the expense of people like me.
so trying to stay on topic specific to Ibonds and in reference to that....

you are in the 24% bracket , which means if married you make $170K-$300K in a state that has a household income of 76K.. it sounds like you are one of those wealthy people. (BTW, I live in NH so we don't need to go down the New England cost of living debate).

I don't see how I bonds are tilted to the 5% when I continually hear people on this forum with wealth say "$10K won't move the needle for me".

You can purchase as low as a $25 for an I bond which sounds like it's there for the little guy. Also I have not done the math but I would imagine tax shielding and growth potential impact of 10K of a smaller portfolio (say $100K) would be greater on a percentage basis - compared to someone with $3 - 5Million plus...

I am the first to agree on implications of tax code,,,, I am having trouble understanding how this one conflates to that
My comment was based on allowing large limits in the purchase, e.g. $50k+. That would amount to a tax-deferred, market-value-protected gift to those with that kind of money to move around. If they want to own that much of an inflation-protected security, let them buy TIPS and assume the market risk. Or, change the tax code so as to prevent them from taking advantage of the tax deferral of the inflation adjustments, which would put them on the same footing as TIPS in a taxable account. It might even makes sense to limit the amounts that could be redeemed early so as to prevent arbitrage with a security that has no market risk.

As for my personal situation, yes, I'm in the 24% bracket, but I am by no means wealthy, at least as I take the term to mean. I'm looking at retirement 15ish years from now and wondering how that will go. As a single person with no dependents, a good portion of my income goes to income taxes and FICA. I get no tax credits or stimulus checks.

The I Bonds I've purchased are to provide income to cover property taxes, insurance, and some small amount of utilities. I hadn't heard of them before 2020, which is right around when I realized that even once I pay off my mortgage, I'd still have a big housing bill that will inexorably rise.

While I don't know what my property taxes will be, I know they rise roughly with inflation. If they're $6000 now, the $10k I Bond limit nicely covers that "known unknown" expense. While the stock market would have a greater expected return, the timing of that could be inconvenient. Having the I Bond floor is a comfort.

got it, I thought you were infering Ibonds were for the wealthy, pardon my poor comprehension and reading skills based on a public education :D (joke)

and yes if your real estate tax is $6K is, you aren't living high on the hog in NH. Mine is $8K and I am probably one of the least expensive homes in my town.. (though it's known to be an expensive town)
1800 sqft / 0.30 acre. It helps that we have a large business base, although the recent reeval did have residential increase vs commercial. I think my taxes went up $100 or so for the December payment.

The house, which was built in 1925, doesn't meet modern people's tastes since the bedrooms are all ~110-120 sqft and only 1.5 baths. What I wouldn't give for a 24x24 room!

Been here 17 years. The remaining mortgage balance is less than a year's salary. Property taxes are more than half of my P&I.
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whodidntante
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by whodidntante »

IowaFarmWife wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 9:15 am
whodidntante wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 11:33 pm I bonds have outperformed basically every asset class with a few exceptions, including commodities and managed futures and certain long-short portfolios lately. You know, the sort of stuff y'all decided are for dummies and gamblers. :P
i have seen you mention commodities and managed futures in some of you older posts, but I honestly don't understand how they work at all. One day, when you're bored and have nothing else to do, would you please start a tutorial on these products? I'm genuinely interested in learning about this.

Thank you!
I am a huge finance nerd. I would love to debate it and learn more myself, but this forum isn't the place for it. Some have tried. The related threads got so stinky, noisy, and intellectually dishonest here that I just lose interest.

It could probably fit the RR forum. Ben Felix invited the topic because he is interested to learn himself. I haven't taken up the challenge to be the instigator.
IowaFarmWife
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by IowaFarmWife »

whodidntante wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 11:50 am
IowaFarmWife wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 9:15 am
whodidntante wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 11:33 pm I bonds have outperformed basically every asset class with a few exceptions, including commodities and managed futures and certain long-short portfolios lately. You know, the sort of stuff y'all decided are for dummies and gamblers. :P
I have seen you mention commodities and managed futures in some of you older posts, but I honestly don't understand how they work at all. One day, when you're bored and have nothing else to do, would you please start a tutorial on these products? I'm genuinely interested in learning about this.

Thank you!
I am a huge finance nerd. I would love to debate it and learn more myself, but this forum isn't the place for it. Some have tried. The related threads got so stinky, noisy, and intellectually dishonest here that I just lose interest.

It could probably fit the RR forum. Ben Felix invited the topic because he is interested to learn himself. I haven't taken up the challenge to be the instigator.
:sharebeer Thanks, and sorry for the sidebar in the thread. Back to I-bonds.... :moneybag :moneybag :moneybag
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore." Yogi Berra's financial wisdom.
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whodidntante
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Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by whodidntante »

IowaFarmWife wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 4:35 pm :sharebeer Thanks, and sorry for the sidebar in the thread. Back to I-bonds.... :moneybag :moneybag :moneybag
LOL, yep.

There is a relevant thread on RR with recent posts titled "Investing in Managed Futures." I linked it, but you have to join the forum (for free) in order to access the content.
https://community.rationalreminder.ca/t ... s/15439/81

I post there under the same handle. Feel free to say hello!
JBTX
Posts: 11227
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:46 pm

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by JBTX »

I’ve always figured ibond purchases are limited because they are (mostly) not a market priced investment. They are a subsidized perk to small investors. Thus there are times when you can get higher returns on them than any comparable risk investment. Plus they are protected against deflation, and of course tax deferral.

If ibonds become a subpar investment compared to others, you can simply sell them at a fairly nominal cost.
calwatch
Posts: 1447
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:48 am

Re: I Bond Sales Figures

Post by calwatch »

It's that and the G fund to federal government employees and the military which are the true free lunches available. Everywhere else, you are taking some additional risk to get your yield.
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