To make investing in savings bonds easier for investors, the US Treasury Department has made available an online savings bond calculator that is free to use. Investors can use this savings bond calculator to calculate the value of their US savings bonds now and in the future.

To begin using the savings bond calculator, you need to know how much you are going to invest. The initial investment is the first input field of the savings bond calculator. You can invest a large sum of money upfront or you can invest as little as $25.

Then the savings bond calculator will ask you to estimate the interest rate which you expect your savings bond investment to grow at. The drop down menu of the savings bond calculator makes this step easy. You don’t have to pick a number out of the hat, you can choose between 1% on the low side, all the way up to 8% on the high side.

Small investors usually start investing a little bit in US savings bonds and then gradually increase their investment amounts. You can choose to invest periodically. The savings bond calculator has a place where you can input the amount of money you want to invest periodically. If you don’t plan to invest periodically, you can choose $0.

Once you have chosen the amount you want to invest periodically and input into the savings bond calculator, you can now choose how often you want to invest that amount. Some people invest weekly, some bi-weekly, some monthly, some semi-annually and some only once a year.

Next, the savings bond calculator will ask you how long you want to invest in savings bonds for. You can either invest to maturity which is usually 30 years or you can invest for shorter period of time. Bear in mind that the longer you invest to maturity, the more money you will accumulate. You should not invest past the maturity date.

The last thing the savings bond calculator will ask you to input is the tax rate. This field in the savings bond calculator is the federal tax rate which you expect your earnings to be taxed by the IRS.

Once you have input all the information required by the savings bond calculator above, you can click ‘calculate,’ which is a button below the information you just entered. The savings bond calculator will then use the information you entered to calculate the value of your savings bond. The savings bond calculator is flexible, smart, and does a great job of helping you manage your savings bond portfolios.