Don’t Fear Using a Savings Bond Calculator

If you are investing in US Savings Bonds, the US Treasury Department has put out an online savings bond calculator to estimate the growth of your US savings bond investment. The savings bond calculator is very useful and handy in calculating the value of your savings bonds over the years.

The first thing you need in order to use the savings bond calculator is the initial investment amount. This is the amount you plan to start buying savings bonds with. You can invest as little as $25 or as much as $5,000 depending on the type of US savings bonds you are investing in.

Then the savings bond calculator will ask you to estimate the interest rate which you expect your savings bond investment to grow at. The drop down menu of the savings bond calculator makes this step easy. You don’t have to pick a number out of the hat, you can choose between 1% on the low side, all the way up to 8% on the high side.

Small investors usually start investing a little bit in US savings bonds and then gradually increase their investment amounts. You can choose to invest periodically. The savings bond calculator has a place where you can input the amount of money you want to invest periodically. If you don’t plan to invest periodically, you can choose $0.

Next, the savings bond calculator will let you choose how often you want to make the periodic payment. You can choose among weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, semi-annually, and yearly. Investing quarterly is not an option built into the savings bond calculator.

Next, the savings bond calculator will ask you how long you want to invest in savings bonds for. You can either invest to maturity which is usually 30 years or you can invest for shorter period of time. Bear in mind that the longer you invest to maturity, the more money you will accumulate. You should not invest past the maturity date.

The last variable needed to use the savings bond calculator is the tax rate. This is your federal tax rate percentage at which your earnings are taxed by the government.

With all of the information above, you can easily use the free savings bond calculator. You can use it as often as you like, and the more you use the savings bond calculator, the more you will learn about your savings bond investment.