Savings bond mistakes can have cruel consequences. Yet errors are commonplace among the millions of average Americans who own these lowly investments because hardly anyone realizes just how complicated and unforgiving savings bond regulations are. That makes savings bonds a nuisance for planners and other financial professionals when they turn up among clients' investments. Fees for the time spent to decipher the arcane inner workings of these investments can quickly swamp their value. They look so darn simple.
People buy 'em, stick 'em in a drawer, and forget 'em.
They don't spend any time or money to find out how they work because it hardly seems worth the effort. Bond owners who try to figure them out often get exasperated, then hustle them off to the bank one day and dump them so they can put their money into something for which somebody somewhere will send them an investment performance report from time to time, unlike the U. S. Treasury. Unfortunately, that's wrong, too. A friend of mine did this with a stack of bonds his kids had received over the years as gifts from friends and family at holidays, birthdays, and other special events. Unfortunately, he did this in April.