How to Find Out When Savings Bonds Can Be Cashed

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Roger Groh with Groh Asset Management. Are you concerned that the US government has spun spending out of control and are worried about getting your money back for money that you may have lent to them either in treasury bills or in savings bonds and you've decided to get out. How do you do that? Well if you've purchased a treasury issue including savings bonds recently, then your name is held on a computer by the US government. If you go to the US treasury website, there is a calculator on that website that will tell you the value of the bond and penalties that will occur when you want to sell it, meaning there are restrictions on specific time periods when you can and cannot sell treasuries. So you want to look at that very closely ahead of time. Other ways that you may go about it is through your local federal reserve bank. If you type in federal reserve, one of the banks will come up close to you and again they have the same calculator on their websites that will tell you the value of it and then also the penalties that may be associated with getting out early. In some cases, the first 12 months you are not able to get out. In some cases if you get out within the first 5 years, you pay a penalty. And again, it's very specific to the bond that you've purchased. So that's a little bit about how you go about selling savings bonds when you're fed up with Uncle Sam's lack of financial discipline. I'm Roger Groh and thank you very much for spending a few minutes with me."