Redeemed Savings Bonds

I finally got around to going to my local bank and cashing in some savings bonds. I ended up redeeming the following:

Denom.	Issue Date	Maturity	Interest Rate	Current Value
$100	Oct-83	Oct-13	3.47%	$ 182.56
$100	Apr-83	Apr-13	3.54%	$ 193.00
$100	Feb-78	Feb-08	4.00%	$ 484.16

I chose the Series E bond from 1978 since it would stop earning interest in less than 2 years and who knows the next time I will dig through my bonds. I also choose the other two Series EE bonds since they paid the lowest interest rate and didn't have a redemption penalty (since I have held them over 5 years).

However, I am a bit surprised by the receipt I received by the bank. I assumed since these are all $100 savings bonds that the total purchase price for the 3 savings bonds was $150 (1/2 the face value).

However the bank receipt shows a redemption price of $859.72 and total interest earned as $684.72. That would mean the original investment was $175. Any ideas why? Maybe the Series E savings bond had a purchase price of $75 back in 1978?

Tags: interest, savings bonds,

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Comments (3)

Did you go to the savings bond website? That's weird. I cashed bonds from back then and they were 50%.

But if they are wrong, do you really want to say anything? Free money!

Posted by D | October 20, 2006 11:34 AM

Yeah I am not complaining about it. I almost went back to the counter to question the receipt when I realized it didn't equal $150, but then stopped myself ;-).

Posted by 2 million | October 20, 2006 12:25 PM

Yeah, can't complain about free money!

Posted by Matt | October 20, 2006 4:41 PM