How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

The time it takes a savings bond to reach face (par) value depends on the series of bond and the value at which it was sold. There are presently three different series of U.S. savings bonds. Series EE and Series I are intended to be savings bonds, and Series HH is intended to be an investment bond.

In general, though, a savings bond is sold as a zero-coupon bond at a discount, and will reach its full value at its maturity. Therefore, savings bonds mature to their full face value.

Key Takeaways

  • Savings bonds are sold by governments to their citizens to help fund federal spending, and provide savers with a risk-free return.
  • Savings bonds are sold at a discount and do not pay regular interest. Instead, as they mature, they increase in value until they reach full face value at maturity.
  • The time to maturity for savings bonds will depend on which series issue is owned.

When Do Savings Bonds Mature?

U.S. Savings Bonds mature after 20 or 30 years, depending on the type of bond:

  • Series EE bonds mature after 20 years. They are sold at half their face value and are worth their full value at maturity.
  • Series I bonds are sold at face value and mature after 30 years. Interest is added monthly to the bond's value.
  • Series HH bonds mature in 20 years. Bondholders receive monthly interest payments until they sell the bond or it reaches its maturity.

A Brief History of U.S. Savings Bonds

In 1935, during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation that allowed the U.S. Department of the Treasury to issue federally backed savings bonds, Series A. In 1941, the Series E bond was first issued to help finance World War II and were called Defensive Bonds. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were called War Savings Bonds, and the money invested in them went directly toward the war effort.

After the war ended, Americans were encouraged to purchase savings bonds, which provided a way for individuals and families to earn returns on their investments while enjoying the absolute guarantee of the United States government. 

Series EE Bonds

Series EE bonds mature after 20 years, meaning they can earn interest for that period of time. EE bonds are sold for half of the face value, and the U.S. Treasury Department guarantees that they will reach face value after 20 years. If the interest payments don't cause the bond to reach full face value at the end of 20 years, the government will do a one-time adjustment to bring the bond's value to equal face value.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that EE bonds must be owned for at least one year before redemption. If they are redeemed before five years, the last three months' worth of interest is forfeited, but after five years, they can be redeemed with no penalty. The annual interest rate for EE bonds issued from Nov. 1, 2018, to April 30, 2019, is 0.10%.

Series EE savings bonds originated as Series E war bonds during the WWII era to help fund the war effort.

Series I Bonds

Series I bonds are sold at face value and mature after 30 years. Redemption rules are the same with Series I bonds as Series EE bonds. The composite rate for Series I bonds issued from Nov. 1, 2019, through April 30, 2020, is 2.22%. This rate applies for the first six months that you own the bond.

Series HH Bonds

Series HH bonds are also sold at face value, with bondholders receiving interest payments through direct deposit every six months for the 20-year life of the bond. As of Jan. 2003, HH bonds have earned an interest rate of 1.5%. HH bonds have not been available for purchase since Aug. 2004, but bondholders will continue to receive interest payments until the bonds' maturity.

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A few years ago*, I purchased (invested in?) a few Series I Savings Bonds. It wasn’t a significant sum but I wanted to see what it was like.

Series I Savings Bonds are inflation-adjusted savings bonds that have a fixed interest rate and an inflation rate that is adjusted twice a year, in May and November. With inflation so low for so many years, oftentimes the rate is quite low.

The major differences between Series EE and Series I bonds are the interest rate. With Series EE, you get a fixed interest rate for the first 20 years then the rate can be adjusted. With Series I, you get the inflation-adjusted rate (technically, a fixed rate plus an inflation-adjusted rate). Series EE bonds have another key difference – they are guaranteed to double after 20 years no matter what. This means you are guaranteed a 3.5% rate of return.

(also, interest from savings bonds is tax-exempt at the State level and below)

Table of Contents
  1. Check the Current Value of Your Savings Bond
    1. How to Cash in a Paper Savings Bond
    2. How to Convert Your Paper Bond to an Electronic Bond
  2. What is a Patriot Bond?
  3. How to Calculate The Current Value of a Savings Bond
  4. How to Calculate the Future Value of a Bond
  5. Did Your Bond Mature?

Check the Current Value of Your Savings Bond

In 2012, the Treasury stopped selling paper bonds and went completely electronic. If you have a bond after that time period, you probably also have a TreasuryDirect.gov account that you can use to check the current value of your electronic savings bonds. The easiest way to find the value of your bonds is to log in and look!

It’s a silly answer but it might spur you to find out your TreasuryDirect login details. 🙂

Once you log in, all your bonds will be listed under Current Holdings:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

Click Savings Bonds and it’ll show all your bonds:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

Here’s where it’s less clear, click the circle next to Series I Savings Bond and click Submit to see your bonds itemized out:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

If you have a bond from before 2012, I highly recommend that you convert it to an electronic bond just for the ease of management.

How to Cash in a Paper Savings Bond

If you want to cash in your paper savings bond, it’s easy. Since the Treasury hasn’t issued a paper savings bond since 2012, you’re way outside the 1 year period (you can’t redeem a savings bond within the first 12 months), so you can redeem it.

There’s also a three-month penalty if you cash in a bond before 5 years – again since they haven’t issued a paper bond since 2012 you’re in the clear here too.

Just take the paper bond to your bank or credit union. If you don’t have one with a physical location, call local banks to see if they will cash them for non-customers.

Make sure you bring:

  • The paper savings bond,
  • Identification like a driver’s license or passport,
  • A copy of the owner’s death certificate if you are a beneficiary.

It’s super easy.

How to Convert Your Paper Bond to an Electronic Bond

All bonds can now be managed through TreasuryDirect, the Treasury’s online portal.

There are three steps to this process:

  1. Register for an account at TreasuryDirect.gov,
  2. Create a “Conversion Linked Account,”
  3. Convert your paper bonds and put them into the Conversion Linked Account.

1. Register.

2. Create a “Conversion Linked Account”
Log in and look for ManageDirect in the top menu:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

Then look for “Establish a Conversion Linked Account,” it’ll be around here (mine isn’t there anymore because I set it up a while ago):

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

Go through the process of creating a Conversion Linked Account – this is the (sub)account you’ll use to manage all the converted bonds. It’s separate from the account you use to manage bonds that were always electronic. In my case, my regular account starts with a Y and my conversion linked account starts with a J.

Once you access your Conversion Linked Account, which all looks the same except at the top right you’ll see >> My Converted Bonds followed by your account number, click on “ManageDirect” in the menu.

Now, under Manage My Conversions, there’s an option to convert your paper bonds:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

3. Convert your paper bonds:
The full instructions will appear after you click on “How to Conver My Paper Bonds” but essentially you:

  • Create a registration list to include all your bonds (do not sign the back!),
  • Add those bonds to your Conversion Linked Account (do not sign the back!),
  • Print a manifest of your bonds to mail into the Treasury (do not sign the back!),
  • Mail the bonds with the manifest.

If any of the bonds have fully matured, you’ll get a 0% Certificate of Indebtedness (C of I) put into your main account.

What is a Patriot Bond?

After 9/11, the Treasury Department started calling the Series EE bonds a name – Patriot Bonds. They were paper Series EE bonds that had “Patriot Bond” typed on the front of it and for all practical purposes, they are Series EE bonds.

They are to treated like all other Series EE bonds.

If you have the rough details of a bond, you may be happy just calculating it rather than looking it up.

Maybe you want to know “What’s my savings bond worth?” but you don’t want to know so badly as to go through registering, adding it, etc. I get it.

It’s just faster to use a savings bond calculator.

The Treasury also has this very useful savings bond calculator for calculating the value of your Series EE, Series I, Series E, and Savings Notes. It asks for:

  • Series of the bond – so EE, I, E, or Savings Notes
  • The denomination – this is the face value of the bond
  • Bond series number – this is optional
  • Issue date – if you only put a year, it assumes February of that year

I dipped my toe into the Series I world with a $100 bond I purchased on September 2005:

How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

My $100 bond now has a value of $164.52!

(when I logged in, the value was shown as $164.08 – close enough)

As you click Calculate, it’ll calculate the values and add them as individual rows to the list. You can remove those rows by clicking a small blue Remove button on the right. It looks like it was made in 2001 but it works great.

How to Calculate the Future Value of a Bond

This is a little trickier because many of the most appealing bonds are inflation-adjusted and it’s hard to know what the CPI will be in the future. Ask one expert and they’ll tell you that inflation is historically 3% but ask another and they’ll say that the Federal Reserve has been printing so much money we risk deflation.

The Treasury Direct calculator will give you the value into the future for as long as the interest rate is set. For example, since the inflation-adjusted rate changes twice a year, you can find the value of a bond up until the next rate change.

Otherwise, if you want to calculate it then you will have to make assumptions and just treat it like a bank account that accrues interest monthly.

* After writing this post, a few years in the first sentence seems to actually be fifteen!

Did Your Bond Mature?

If your bond has matured and you’re cashing it in, you might want to put it in something with a similar risk profile. While nothing is as safe as a savings bond, since it’s backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government, there are some investments that are pretty close.

We list a few safe investments options here that might make sense for your situation.

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How much is a $50 savings bond worth from 1999

Jim Wang is a forty-something father of four who is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Vanguard's Blog. He has also been fortunate to have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money.

Jim has a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.S. in Information Technology - Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Masters in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University. His approach to personal finance is that of an engineer, breaking down complex subjects into bite-sized easily understood concepts that you can use in your daily life.

One of his favorite tools (here's my treasure chest of tools,, everything I use) is Personal Capital, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. They also offer financial planning, such as a Retirement Planning Tool that can tell you if you're on track to retire when you want. It's free.

He is also diversifying his investment portfolio by adding a little bit of real estate. But not rental homes, because he doesn't want a second job, it's diversified small investments in a few commercial properties and farms in Illinois, Louisiana, and California through AcreTrader.

Recently, he's invested in a few pieces of art on Masterworks too.

>> Read more articles by Jim

Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank or financial institution. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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How much is a $50 Series EE bond worth from 2000?

For example, if you purchased a $50 Series EE bond in May 2000, you would have paid $25 for it. The government promised to pay back its face value with interest at maturity, bringing its value to $53.08 by May 2020. A $50 bond purchased 30 years ago for $25 would be $103.68 today.

How long does it take for a 50 savings bond to mature?

Interest accrues monthly and is compounded semiannually. SERIES I BONDS ISSUED SEPTEMBER 1998 AND THEREAFTER All Series I bonds reach final maturity 30 years from issue. Series I savings bonds earn interest through application of a composite rate.

How much is a 50 year old savings bond worth?

Total Price
Total Value
YTD Interest
$50.00
$69.94
$3.08
Calculate the Value of Your Paper Savings Bond(s) - TreasuryDirectwww.treasurydirect.gov › SBCPrice › IssuePriceList= › ValueList=null

Do Savings Bonds double in 20 years?

Series EE savings bonds are a low-risk way to save money. They earn interest regularly for 30 years (or until you cash them if you do that before 30 years). For EE bonds you buy now, we guarantee that the bond will double in value in 20 years, even if we have to add money at 20 years to make that happen.