How to add a Treasury Securities I Savings Bond to my portfolio
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I'm wondering the same thing myself. There are a number of threads across the forums about the documentation on how to add a bond, but I'm kind of thinking that the folks in this thread are on the right track with respect to saying that I Bonds are different from regular US Treasury Bonds like EE bonds.
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7915116/entering-series-i-bonds#latest0 -
I can think of a few ways to do it, here's mine.
First I created a brokerage account named Treasury Direct to hold the I bonds. Then I created a custom security (in the Securities window) for the bond. I put the maturity date in the name - "I-Bond 04/2052" - so if I buy more I Bonds in the future I can track each one separately. I initially priced it at $1 per share, and recorded a purchase of 10,000 shares (for a $10K bond) in the Treasury Direct account. Since the money for the purchase came from my savings account I also entered a transfer of $10K from that account to the Treasury Direct account.
Each month when the bond accrues more interest, I update the price of the bond in the Securities window to match the value of the bond. Currently my bond is worth $10,520, so the price is now $1.052 per share. I don't think there's any automatic price updating available for I Bonds, so it has to be done manually by you.
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But if you update the price, then doesn't that show a negative cash balance in the account? I had pretty much gotten to the same point as creating a TreasuryDirect brokerage account and a dummy security for each I Bond, but I can't figure out how to show interest accruing in the account unless I just add cash infusions periodically?0
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But if you update the price, then doesn't that show a negative cash balance in the account?
No, because I'm not recording the interest as a separate interest transaction, I'm showing it as an increase in the value of the bond. If the price of a stock goes up, it doesn't affect the cash balance of the brokerage account; this is the same thing.
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Ohhhhh I see you're entering the price on a given date, not the price that you paid to purchase the bond. I get it. Cool thanks.0