Cashing In U.S. Savings Bonds

Back in April I set a goal to do many different things to generate extra cash so I could increase my payments on my credit card debt.  I guess I was just really busy, because I didn’t get as many done as I wanted, so I’m still trying to do it little by little.

I was inspired to do this by the article titled “102 Ways To Generate Extra Cash” from SavingAdvice.com and last week I decided to do #69 on their list

“69. Cash in any savings bonds you have lying around. You’d be surprised how many people have them gathering dust in a drawer or safe deposit box.”

I’ve had four $50 U.S. Savings Bonds stashed away for several years.  Two were from 1998, one from 1999 and one from 2001.

I finally decided it didn’t make sense to have them sitting around earning 2% interest for years, while I have been paying credit card companies 14.99% - 24.99% interest the entire time!

I finally cashed them in and got $145.04 to put toward my Extra Cash Fund.

I also took the change that we put in a jar in the laundry room to the bank and poured it into their coin counter.  I had $31.40 that I was able to deposit.

This isn’t exactly “generating” cash as it was money I had in the house, but it’ll do more good sitting in my bank account that it did in a jar and desk drawer.