Treasury Direct other offerings

[Tiny]

I've been looking at the other offerings on the Treasury Direct page.   It looks as if beyond I-bonds  there are  Treasury Bills that are short term "inflation" influenced rate options for additional money you might have (beyond the 10K you can put into I-Bonds).     

Anyone else using Treasury Bills (short term) ,  Treasury Notes  (mid term) , or  Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) (5 years or longer) ?


What kinds of situations and dollar amounts would these products be good for?   

Some part of one's EF (the part you don't expect to use)?

A place to store a house down payment (again an amount of 20K and up) for a year or two as it builds?   

If you are not working/retired AND keep a year or two of expenses (I'm assuming this amount might be 50K per year or more - so 100K plus of "cash" for a two year 'bucket' of money) would this keep your money from losing to inflation? 

Something else I didn't think of?     
 


I had a couple of old saving bonds EE mature a couple of months ago so I have a whopping $600 plus sitting in my  CofI account.   I've been fighting a bit of mental fog - so I just left the money earning no interest.  (figured it wasn't that bad - since I would have potentially moved the money from TD to an account earning nearly no interest. ) 

I finally got around to doing something with that money:  I did $500 to an 8 week Treasury Bill (the auction is on 6/2/2022).   

Treasury Bills

Treasury bills are short-term government securities with maturities ranging from a few days to 52 weeks. Bills are sold at a discount from their face value.

Here are the previous interest rates for Treasury Bills: 
www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/annceresult.htm


I'll admit I don't really understand what will happen on 6/2/2022 as in how much of my CofI account will be used to buy that $500 treasury Bill.  (I'm under the impression that I will use LESS than $500 on 6/2 for something that will result in $500 when the 8 weeks is up (when the Bill matures or reaches it's end date...)   

Getting my feet wet.     

I think in the I Bond thread or perhaps another thread  someone else was doing this... 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

ymam.proboards.com/thread/65957/tips

[Rukh O'Rorke]

I've been looking at the other offerings too. Have 200 in tips as I try to figure out how these work. have another 100 going into tips end of may and then again end of June, too late to up the may contruibute, but may up the June one.

Have been looking at the other securities, bonds and notes in particular. Depending on how inflation and interest rates go, could be an opportunity to lock in a higher interest rate for a long time. But they are not in the territory I'd consider that right now but will keep my eye on them.

I'm not quite sure how I would use them, was loosely thinking if I had about 10-20k maturing each year over 10 years that that would add some protection for SORR when I retire - so rather than just have 1-2-3 years of cash, I'd just have about 20-30% of expenses in maturing securities if needed, or just take the biannual interest from them all. I just haven't figure it out yet.

The recent downturn has me really spooked, as I was on the verge of quitting every day for about 2-3 months thinking I had it "made", wondering what I was waiting for.... Well, I didn't have it made quite just yet, and have learned some valuable lessons. How to apply those lessons I'm still working out, but super grateful it happened before I pulled the big plug.