Merry New Year!
And Happy Christmas to you and your family!
Since I know you'll wonder where your weekly email is next Wednesday morning, I wanted to let you know that what you're reading will be my last email of 2021.
But never fear, I'll be back in early January! 😉
However, before we close the books on another year, wanted to point you to a couple of things:
If you haven't already, give a listen to my Women's Retirement Radio podcast. I've published 44 episodes, and have more on the way (more on that below)
Check out my blog. In addition to this weekly email, I'm also publishing a couple of longer-form articles each month.
Be social... please feel welcome to connect and/or follow me on Linkedin and Twitter.
And I'll ask again... please reply to this or any future email if you have a question, would like to discuss something, or if you have any ideas or suggestions for future emails, podcasts, blog posts, etc. Or if you simply want to say hi. 👋 I appreciate your emails and your feedback.
Thank you!
Inflation
Well, based on the emails I've been getting and conversations I've been having with my clients lately, inflation is seemingly on everyone's minds.
And hitting everyone's wallets.
With this in mind, I've had a few of you ask me about "I-Bonds" aka Series "I" Savings bonds...
Go here to learn more and get the details, if you're interested.
From now until April 2022, you can purchase I-Bonds that pay an interest rate of 7.12%.
And with inflation rearing its head, that sounds pretty tempting, doesn't it?
But before you "back the truck up" and load up on I-Bonds, a few points you should be aware of:
You can only purchase $10,000 of I-Bonds per calendar year
However, since we're close to a New Year, you could purchase $10,000 now and another $10,000 once January rolls around
These are "savings" bonds. It's in the name. This means that while they accrue interest, they don't make interest payments to you. So these aren't a great solution if you're looking to generate income.
That mouth-watering 7.12% rate I mentioned above is only good through April 2022. Interest rates on I-Bonds are adjusted every 6 months. So after April, the rate could go up or down.
Speaking of the interest rate, I-Bonds actually have two interest rates: a fixed rate and an inflation rate. They're designed to generally keep up with inflation. Their fixed rate is currently zero, FYI.
There's more to I-Bonds than I want to get into today, but since a few of you have asked, I did want to share some highlights.
If this prompts additional questions, just hit reply and let me know.
Oh, and speaking of inflation, you might find this website worth a visit. It has some interesting graphs and visuals that depict what's happened since we went off the gold standard. And inflation is only a piece of it...
Links & Things
You might be interested in my latest blog post... "How an encore career can help women find fulfillment and purpose in their golden years"
I'm excited to finally share a small project I've been working on with the help of some friends. For lack of a better name, I'm calling it the "caregiver series." You see, a few weeks back, one of your fellow readers sent me an email and suggested that I cover what it means when you find yourself in a caregiver role. So I'm happy to release the first of a series of shorter podcast episodes all about caregiving. Listen to the first one here. And stay tuned for more...
Thank you, as always, for reading.
And if you have any questions or an idea for a future newsletter, podcast, or blog post topic, I'd love your input.
Just hit reply - I read (and appreciate) every email you send.
Until next year, Happiest of Holidays to you and all the people in your life!
Russ