U.S. savings bonds have long been a favorite method of saving money and giving money as gifts. Savings bonds are especially attractive as a way to save for college expenses, so they are often bought for children. If you have a bond that your parents bought for you when you were born or Aunt Rose gave you for your 10th birthday, there are several ways for you to find out what it’s worth today. And if you have several bonds, you might be in for a little windfall.
Step 1
Locate your savings bond(s) and make note of the following information: type of bond, denomination, serial number, and the bond’s issue date. Do this for each bond that you want to value. Regardless of the method that you use, you will need these specifics to find out what your bond is worth.
Step 2
Visit the U.S. Department of Treasury’s website, TreasuryDirect.com. In the Tools section of that site is a Savings Bond Calculator (see Resources) where you can enter the information that you gathered and have the calculator give you the bond’s worth. The calculator can be used for Series E, EE, and I Bonds, as well as Savings Notes. This is by far the fastest and easiest method to find the value of a U.S. savings bond.
Step 3
Download the Savings Bonds Wizard, also available in the Tools section of TreasuryDirect.com. The Savings Bonds Wizard is software that can be saved on your computer and used to calculate the value of your bond. It also will allow you to keep an inventory of your bonds, make notes about them, see what interest they’re earning, and print out a list of them. This software has everything you need to run a savings bond empire, so it’s best used when you have more than one bond.
Step 4
Use a table of bond values that you can access at the TreasuryDirect site. The file will open in PDF format and, while it’s a little bit old-school, it will give you the information that you need. Since the table is large, it comes with navigation tools on the screen and is also printable. With the table you can find the value of bonds issued in 1941 or later, and a new table is made available at TreasuryDirect every six months.
Step 5
Visit any financial institution that sells or redeems savings bonds -- which is most of them -- and they will be able to give you the value of your bond(s).
References
Resources
Writer Bio
Julie Mayfield began her freelance writing career in 2006 and has written extensively for eHow. She is also the Business and Entrepreneurs Feature Writer at Xomba.com. Julie has a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Kansas.