How is it self-serving? I not seeking the charity of others. The OP literally said it was forgotten money- seems like a lovely way to honor those relatives.

Anonymous wrote:I think you should cash them and donate them. You didn't even know you had them and things are hard out there for people right now,

Seriously? This statement is much more selfish and self-serving than someone keeping and using the bonds that their relatives gave them.

I think you should cash them and donate them. You didn't even know you had them and things are hard out there for people right now,

We’ve just taken ours to the local branch of BofA where we have accounts and they cash them quickly. Done it twice over the past several years. You’ll automatically get a 1099 for your taxes. Zero stress!

Anonymous wrote:Ugh it's going to be a nuisance to cash them. Have fun.

+1 My FIL bought a ton of these for my DH many decades ago. They’re worth quite a bit, so not complaining, but the process of converting them to digital feels like a huge leap of faith. You have to mail them to some office in like Minnesota or North Dakota or somewhere, and then it takes weeks and weeks for the process to complete. Now that so many federal employees have been laid off, I’m wondering if there’s anybody left in that office.

I thought it better to make a few bank appointments than mail the bonds.

Enter all the bond info into the Treasury Direct calculator. Be sure to save the file because you don't want to have to enter all those numbers again for any reason. The calculator will generate a file with the values of the bonds and the interest accrued.

You should cash all matured bonds. The interest of the redeemed bonds is taxable and will generate a 1099 from the institution that cashes them. Technically, I think you are supposed to pay taxes for the year the bond matures, which would require amending old tax returns. Nobody does this since the 1099 is generated for the year you cash the bonds.

Due to increases in scams, banks can be very picky about what bonds they will cash. Some will not cash bonds with face values over a certain amount, or more than 10 bonds at a time. If you can't get a bank to cash them, you can submit bonds by mail to Treasury following the instructions on their website. The funds can be deposited directly into your bank account. Once Treasury receives the bonds they will send you an email with an estimated processing time. This will be 2 weeks of more depending on your situation. If you've had a name change or have a large number of bonds, redemption might take several months. You may not hear from Treasury again and the money will one day appear in your bank account.

If a bond is still active, the calculator will tell you the interest rate. If you want to keep the active bonds, you can create a Treasury account and have them converted to digital bonds.

Ugh it's going to be a nuisance to cash them. Have fun.

Read tax rules. In certain cases kids bonds if used for college the interest income is tax free

Wells Fargo did it for me. I made appointments to do them in batches because I had like 50. They report to Treasury and you get a 1099 for taxes.

Thanks!

If they are more than 30 years old they are not earning interest. Cash them in. Some banks will do it or you might have to do it through treasury direct. It is taxable federally so you might need to adjust withholding for that.

Use this calculator to determine the value -

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice

Transfer them to a Roth. They stop accruing at some point.

Found a stack that, quite frankly, we forgot about. Sent to us from aunts and uncles over the years.

It's not a huge windfall or anything but not insignificant either. What's the play here? Cash them in? Leave them alone?