New I-bond rate: 3.54%

[barrett]

Sorry if I missed it, but are you guys converting your paper I-Bond refunds into digital I-Bonds through the Conversion Linked Account?

I will once I ever receive my paper bonds...

Vinny,

Did you ever receive your paper I-Bonds? If so, can you tell us about how long it took? Also, did they arrive in oddball denominations as I have read on Bogleheads? Thanks.

[yankees60]

Sorry if I missed it, but are you guys converting your paper I-Bond refunds into digital I-Bonds through the Conversion Linked Account?

I will once I ever receive my paper bonds...

Vinny,

Did you ever receive your paper I-Bonds? If so, can you tell us about how long it took? Also, did they arrive in oddball denominations as I have read on Bogleheads? Thanks.

Still have NOT received anything! Is this typical for it to take this long? Now 4 months and still counting...

[jhogue]

Try this:

Treasury Retail Division:

Call them during business hours at 1-844-284-2676. Yes, they do answer the phone and yes they are extremely helpful.

[yankees60]

Try this:

Treasury Retail Division:

Call them during business hours at 1-844-284-2676. Yes, they do answer the phone and yes they are extremely helpful.

Thanks...

So this is all separate from my Treasury Direct account?

[jhogue]

They can answer questions about either your TreasuryDirect account or purchases of paper I bonds.

[Xan]

I messed up my refund amount this year, and so I won't be getting paper I-bonds, again. :-(

But I did just the other day get a letter explaining that, so I think they may be getting close to processing yours, Vinny.

[yankees60]

I messed up my refund amount this year, and so I won't be getting paper I-bonds, again. :-(

But I did just the other day get a letter explaining that, so I think they may be getting close to processing yours, Vinny.

For the 2019 return I definitely did it incorrectly and received my $5,000 refund shortly after filing the return. For the 2020 return I am almost certain I did it correctly (learning from the prior mistakes) and I've not received any refund.

[barrett]

Damn, four months (and counting) is a long time to wait. Please update us if you are able to get this accomplished by calling the number that jhogue provided.

All of my paper I-Bonds are from the days when you could just buy them via a bank. Haven't tried this "trick" of overpaying taxes in December in order to get an extra $5,000 in paper bonds. I was thinking about trying it the next time around but the long wait sounds too stressful.

[jhogue]

Vinny,

Do keep us posted. I reread this entire thread. From what you have written, I cannot tell if the problem is with Treasury (which issues I bonds), or with the IRS (which has to process your return first, and then pass it on to Treasury).

You may have to contact the latter to be sure that your 2020 form 1040 was accurately accepted and processed. If the latter is the problem, you should still receive 5.00% back interest from the IRS. Right now, it appears the IRS has a serious backlog of tax forms yet to be processed. There is a long litany of complaints, and no apparent pattern. Some go back as far as 2019!

See:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=345491

[smurff]

If only they would let us order paper I-bonds from the bank...

[yankees60]

Vinny,

Do keep us posted. I reread this entire thread. From what you have written, I cannot tell if the problem is with Treasury (which issues I bonds), or with the IRS (which has to process your return first, and then pass it on to Treasury).

You may have to contact the latter to be sure that your 2020 form 1040 was accurately accepted and processed. If the latter is the problem, you should still receive 5.00% back interest from the IRS. Right now, it appears the IRS has a serious backlog of tax forms yet to be processed. There is a long litany of complaints, and no apparent pattern. Some go back as far as 2019!

See:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=345491

I will definitely keep all informed.

Again to repeat...for the 2019 return I definitely did not do it correctly and quickly received the $5,000 refund (plus later on an interest check). This time around nothing.

Also, I find it semi-amusing that at this point in my life I'm being so casual about $5,000. I just checked my tax returns information. I had my first job at age 16. It took me until the age of 22 before my total cumulative earnings passed $5,000. 7 years of working. Of course I was in high school and college for five of those years. But still...during any of those years I would have thought that $5,000 was an enormous amount of money.

[jhogue]

Vinny,
1. isn't it nice to have a cushion of Cash?

2. My first salaried job (with W-2) started the day after I turned 16. I got my commercial driver's license and drove a fertilizer truck for my parents' company. My all-cash side hustle was bailing hay for local farmers. I have always had some kind of job since then, even after I "retired" 5 years ago.

3.Make sure you follow up both ends of the Treasury/ IRS snafu. As MangoMan noted, this is our federal government "at work."

[yankees60]

Vinny,
1. isn't it nice to have a cushion of Cash?

2. My first salaried job (with W-2) started the day after I turned 16. I got my commercial driver's license and drove a fertilizer truck for my parents' company. My all-cash side hustle was bailing hay for local farmers. I have always had some kind of job since then, even after I "retired" 5 years ago.

3.Make sure you follow up both ends of the Treasury/ IRS snafu. As MangoMan noted, this is our federal government "at work."

That job I had at the age of 16 paid $1.40 an hour. $2.10 an hour overtime. It was an extremely terrible job. I lasted six weeks. I actually got fired because I told my boss I was leaving because I'd wanted a week off before going into 11th grade.

It was a food catering place. It was the type of the job that many people on their first day on the job quit at noon!

It was a five day a week job starting at 8 AM and ending at 6 PM, with 2 ten minute breaks and a 1/2 hour lunch, all to the second.

My job was washing trays all that time. No one to talk to. No music or anything to listen to. Just my own thoughts. Each day by 3 PM I'd always wonder how I was going to make it another three hours with zero mental stimulation.

[jhogue]

You call that hard work, Vinny?

-We routinely worked 100 hours/ week at the fertilizer business during planting season. I will probably die from pesticide poisoning—we bathed in the stuff daily.

-My other summer job when I was 17 was building grain bins with pneumatic socket wrenches. Hard hat, goggles, hearing protection, 90 degrees and 90% humidity every day—except when it rained.

-My other summer job when I was 18 was welding steel components into trusses. Had to wear hard hat, polarized goggles, overalls, long sleeve shirt, heavy leather gloves, steel-toed boots. No air conditioning, inside fans never worked. Welders got a bonus of 25 cents/hour. I think I made $2.25/hour—even though I never made quota. They did not fire me because they could not find anybody else to do the job.

Kind of convinced me I did not want a blue collar career.

[yankees60]

You call that hard work, Vinny?

-We routinely worked 100 hours/ week at the fertilizer business during planting season. I will probably die from pesticide poisoning—we bathed in the stuff daily.

-My other summer job when I was 17 was building grain bins with pneumatic socket wrenches. Hard hat, goggles, hearing protection, 90 degrees and 90% humidity every day—except when it rained.

-My other summer job when I was 18 was welding steel components into trusses. Had to wear hard hat, polarized goggles, overalls, long sleeve shirt, heavy leather gloves, steel-toed boots. No air conditioning, inside fans never worked. Welders got a bonus of 25 cents/hour. I think I made $2.25/hour—even though I never made quota. They did not fire me because they could not find anybody else to do the job.

Kind of convinced me I did not want a blue collar career.

You undoubtedly have me beat!!!!

The twist in my job career was that the next year I was hired by the post office as a 90 day mailman. I'm now getting paid $3.05 an hour -- twice that other job. I do my job to my best and all the veteran mailmen are complaining because I do their routes my first time ever doing them in 3 or 4 hours while they took all day.

The next year I had the same job probably now getting paid $3.25 an hour. I decided I no longer wanted to have the veteran mailmen on me so I played their game. Well. While I was on the clock I'd go and play a baseball game in another town so that it'd take me the full 6 1/2 hours to get the route done.

You know what I gathered from those experiences as a 16, 17, 18 year old?

That the harder your job was...the LESS you got paid!!! And, conversely the easier your job was....the MORE you got paid!

[barrett]

That the harder your job was...the LESS you got paid!!! And, conversely the easier your job was....the MORE you got paid!

Now that we are completely off the subject of I-Bonds...

This made me think of something that I learned from 40 years as a freelancer. The less I charged for my services, the worse I was treated. When I thought I was way overcharging was when I was treated the best.

[yankees60]

That the harder your job was...the LESS you got paid!!! And, conversely the easier your job was....the MORE you got paid!

Now that we are completely off the subject of I-Bonds...

This made me think of something that I learned from 40 years as a freelancer. The less I charged for my services, the worse I was treated. When I thought I was way overcharging was when I was treated the best.

That seems to be a corollary to the rule I thought I'd learned when I was 17, 18 years old!

[dockinGA]

Also, I find it semi-amusing that at this point in my life I'm being so casual about $5,000. I just checked my tax returns information. I had my first job at age 16. It took me until the age of 22 before my total cumulative earnings passed $5,000. 7 years of working. Of course I was in high school and college for five of those years. But still...during any of those years I would have thought that $5,000 was an enormous amount of money.

Wasn’t that 50 years ago? Would be the equivalent to $50k to $200k today depending on how badly you think the government underreports inflation. How much was an entry level house in the 1970s? Now they are $500k.

Would you be as nonchalant about the IRS delaying a $100k tax return?

How can the cost of an entry level house be $500k when the median home price in the USA was recently reported at less than $400k?

[Xan]

Maybe rather than just making up numbers in order to prove we're right, we could look them up?

https://www.thebalance.com/average-pric ... me-4172916
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that the median price of homes purchased by first-time homebuyers was $215,000 in 2019. That is a 5.5% increase over the median price of $203,700 from 2018.

[Xan]

Maybe rather than just making up numbers in order to prove we're right, we could look them up?

https://www.thebalance.com/average-pric ... me-4172916
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that the median price of homes purchased by first-time homebuyers was $215,000 in 2019. That is a 5.5% increase over the median price of $203,700 from 2018.

Wow, only $215k in 2019. What a time to be alive.

I would think you'd be jumping up and down what a good deal that is, since it's well under half of what you thought it was.

In fact, this is the median, so half of first-time houses are less expensive than that!

[yankees60]

Also, I find it semi-amusing that at this point in my life I'm being so casual about $5,000. I just checked my tax returns information. I had my first job at age 16. It took me until the age of 22 before my total cumulative earnings passed $5,000. 7 years of working. Of course I was in high school and college for five of those years. But still...during any of those years I would have thought that $5,000 was an enormous amount of money.

Wasn’t that 50 years ago? Would be the equivalent to $50k to $200k today depending on how badly you think the government underreports inflation. How much was an entry level house in the 1970s? Now they are $500k.

Would you be as nonchalant about the IRS delaying a $100k tax return?

Yes. The time period averages out to about 50 years ago. Choosing 1972 $1 then equals $6.50 now. So $5,000 then would be about $33,000 now. And I would not be as nonchalant about the IRS delaying that amount.

I'd say an average entry level house sold for about $20,000 then or about about $130,000 in today's $$$.

"The median home price in lovely Massachusetts is $352,700. Massachusetts home owners have seen their home value increase an average of 5.2% over the past year and real estate experts are planning it will rise 2.9% within the next year. The median list price per square foot in Massachusetts is $223."

1) Safe to assume an entry level house's price is less than average? Maybe $250,000 to $300,000.
2) Plus that average amount is skewed by a high percentage of the population being in the Boston and suburbs area while geographically-wise a a larger portion of the geography of the state would have even lower entry level prices. Mine would be considered one and it's value would be in the $160,000 to $200,000 range, depending on condition.

[dockinGA]

amount of money.

How can the cost of an entry level house be $500k when the median home price in the USA was recently reported at less than $400k?

Entry level house in rural Iowa might be $300k

Entry level house in Los Angeles might be $1.2M

Seems that $500k would be a reasonable approximation for an entry level house in the US.

I'd say you need to move somewhere that's cheaper if a house is that important to you, or re-assess what 'entry level' really means. 'Entry level' 50 years ago didn't mean 3k sq feet, 4 bathroom houses with granite countertops like it apparently means today, so comparing entry level prices from 50 years ago is useless. We bought our first home, straight out of college, in 2005 for $150k. Its worth a little less than 300k right now. Still in a neighborhood full of middle aged families, some older folks that probably bought when the neighborhood was new, young families, etc. This is still a very nice neighborhood for first time homebuyers, 15 minutes from a midsized/smallish city, 2 hours from a big city, etc. And there's plenty, plenty of housing available for well under 500k, and they're not dumps either. Readjust your expectations.

[barrett]

Vinny,

Any update for us on your paper I-Bonds situation? Have you been able to speak with someone at Treasury Direct, IRS, etc.?

Hope you get it straightened out.

[yankees60]

Vinny,

Any update for us on your paper I-Bonds situation? Have you been able to speak with someone at Treasury Direct, IRS, etc.?

Hope you get it straightened out.

It has still not raised to being a high enough priority for me.

The last two days, for instance, have consumed untold hours putting together a coed softball team for a fall league.

[jhogue]

So what do you think would be a better Cash alternative over the long run?