Nicole Lapin

If you redeem, though, before five years, you lose the last three months of interest, which is a small penalty to pay.

After five years, they are completely liquid, zero penalty.

So with that in mind, I-bonds are best for money that you're not going to need for at least a year, part of your emergency fund or long-term savings.

They're not for money that you need tomorrow.

Now, there's sadly only one way to buy them, through treasurydirect.gov.

Go to the site, open an account, link your bank account.

You can click buy direct.

Fair warning here.

This site looks like it was designed in 2004 because it basically was.

It is clunky as heck.

The last time I logged on, I used this virtual keyboard where you have to click each character individually.

But it works at the end of the day.

It's honestly worth the 15 minutes of frustration for the inflation protection that you're going to get on the other side.

Just wanted to give you that caveat, though.

Next up, TIPS.

TIPS stands for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.

This is a more sophisticated cousin of IPONS.

TIPS work in a way that actually makes it more powerful for long-term investing.

I'm going to explain this at a high level, and it's going to sound maybe a little bit confusing, but then I'm going to give you an example, and I think it will actually click.

Tips have a fixed interest rate like a regular bond, but instead of that rate being applied to a fixed principal,