When it comes to investing your money, there are many different options out there. You can invest in property: rental properties, commercial properties, land, and more. You can buy stocks and gamble on the stock market. There are retirement funds and mutual funds. You can invest in company start-ups that look promising as well. And finally, there are government bonds. Here is a list of the most common government bonds:
Municipal Bonds
One government bond that has been shown to be lucrative is the municipal bonds. Municipal bonds are issued by a state, county, or city agency. These agencies could include school districts, a utility district and more. These bonds are used to raise money for a much-needed project by the agency that is issuing the bonds. The attractive quality about these bonds is they are exempt from federal taxes. Some are even exempt from state and local taxes.
Payments on the interest of these bonds are given every six months. A date is assigned to these bonds stating when the principle will be paid in full to the investor by the issuer. Some bonds are repaid through taxes while others are repaid through revenue created by the project that the bonds funded.
Treasury Bills
Treasury Bills (also known as T-Bills) take only one year or less to mature. You can get Treasury Bills that mature after one month, three months, six months and one year. These types of bonds do not pay interest prior to their maturity date.
Treasury Notes
Also known as T-Notes, Treasury Notes mature anywhere between one and ten years. With these types of bonds, payments of interest are given every six months.
Treasury Bonds
Because Treasury Bonds take the longest to mature (between 20 and 30 years), they are sometimes referred to as long bonds. Like Treasury Notes, Treasury Bonds pay out interest payments every six months.