When to change to Series EE bonds.
Series H and Series HH savings bonds are no longer issued. In fact, the last date on which you could get Series H/HH savings bond issued was in August of 2004. Therefore, if you were looking to purchase one of these savings bonds, you are entirely out of luck. Since these are discontinued bonds, you also cannot cash the bonds in for money. If you already own a Series H or Series HH bond, then you should exchange the bonds for a Series E or EE bond instead. This will ensure that you continue to get interest on your bonds – and will enable you to get cash back for your bond when it reaches the maturity date.
Series HH bonds were originally offered with only a ten year period of maturity, however, that has been extended to 20 years. Since these bonds have been discontinued, it is easy to guess that there will be no further extensions – which is just another reason to change your series HH bonds into series EE bonds before you run out of time.
That being said, however, you still have a lot of time to change from HH to EE savings bonds if you purchased one of these bonds relatively recently. After all, the last HH bonds will not reach their maturity date until August of 2024.
The major difference between Series HH and Series EE bonds is that the Series HH bonds will have a fixed interest rate. As a result, if you are going to switch from your HH to some Series EE bonds, you should be ready for the exchange rates to change. You should also keep in mind that this means that there are definite times when changing from HH to EE bonds is a better idea.
First of all, you should always switch before your HH bond reaches its final maturity date. That way, you’ll be able to get all of the money you invested – and you won’t lose out on any of the interest payments. You should also change from Series HH to Series EE bonds as soon as possible – as long as the interest rate for EE bonds is higher than that for the HH bonds. If the current EE rate is lower than that for the HH bonds, however, then you should wait.