I mentioned earlier that I opened a Treasury Direct account to place some of the money that my niece is saving for her college education. While the plane is for me to invest the money in Japanese antiques, I don’t need more than $1000 to do so at the moment and I didn’t want the money sitting in a Japanese bank earning nothing.

I put the I-bond request in today and they said it usually takes one business day for the funds to be transferred. That means I should hear tomorrow if the transaction has gone through and then she will be set to earn some interest starting at 4.8% for the first six months and whatever the announced rate is for the second six months. I have been surprised at the ease of the whole system (knock on wood) and will be keeping my eye on this investment in the future for myself.