The Boldin Financial Planner Take control of your plans. Retire earlier, with more security and find financial confidence.
Get expert support Make sure your plan is set up correctly with a coach. Or, talk to a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® from Boldin Advisors for even more guidance and support.
Resources Fuel your financial planning know-how
Blog Your guide to financial planning and retirement
December 16, 2021 • 6 minutes
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are sometimes touted as a good investment option during times of rising inflation. Are they right for you?
TIPS are a kind of government-issued bond designed to protect your money from inflation. When you buy TIPS, you are loaning the government money and are paid an agreed-upon interest rate for the term of the bond, and your original investment is repaid to you at the end of the term. (This is how all bonds work.)
What makes TIPS unique is that in addition to earning interest, the value of your original investment is adjusted for inflation.
For example (not actual numbers), if six months ago you invested $10,000 in TIPS that adjust every six months and pay you 1% interest rate every six months, you would currently:
And then, after the following six months, you would:
No one investment decision should be made on any singular data point. Investments typically have multiple goals and the right mix of assets is dependent on a wide variety of factors.
Assuming that you feel that you need inflation protection as part of your diversified investment portfolio, here are some of the pros and cons of TIPS:
TIPS are backed by the “full faith and credit of the U.S. government.” If the lender (the U.S. federal government) defaults on this loan, we’d have much, much larger problems than simply trying to secure our retirement.
TIPS are not without risk. The principal is guaranteed to grow if inflation rises. However, TIPS do not offer downside protection. If inflation turns to deflation, then your principal will adjust downward. This has happened twice in recent history: back in 2007 and more recently in mid-2020.
Any increase in your principal and all interest payments are subject to federal tax in the year the gains occur.
When your TIPS matures or is sold, you will only pay federal tax on the current year increases. However…
Unlike other inflation hedges provided by the U.S. government (namely I-Bonds, which are gaining notoriety in late 2021), you can purchase TIPS through a brokerage. As such, you can hold them in tax-advantaged accounts, such as Roth accounts or IRAs.
Because returns are dependent on inflation, it is hard to estimate how these investments will perform.
You can sell your TIPS at any time. However, they do not trade as much as other kinds of bonds, which can make cashing out on cue difficult.
TIPS are tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is often criticized for understating the true rate of inflation, especially as experienced by older Americans.
TIPS often do worse than traditional treasuries, especially in deflationary periods. And, TIPS are more volatile than cash.
There are no “shoulds” in investing or financial planning. It is a matter of figuring out what is right for you and your goals.
That being said, there are a few ways to determine if TIPS are right for you:
The break-even inflation rate is the rate of inflation when a TIPS and a conventional bond of the same maturity would deliver the same returns at maturity.
Here is an example from Fidelity: “If a 5-year TIPS yielded −1.69% while a conventional 5-year Treasury bond paid 0.59% as of December 1, 2021, the breakeven for the 5-year bonds would be 2.28%. If actual inflation exceeds the breakeven rate in the future, the adjustment to the TIPS will eventually provide a higher real return than the conventional bond. However, if inflation comes in lower than the breakeven rate, the conventional bond will provide a better return.”
If your primary objective for your investment is to protect a sum of your money from inflation, then TIPS can be a good option.
As discussed above, the CPI does not do a great job of reflecting the actual cost increases experienced by most Americans — especially middle and older-aged households.
If your increases in spending match the CPI, then TIPS might be a good option for you. However, if you are experiencing more inflation than reported by the CPI, TIPS might not be the best way to keep pace with inflation.
TIPS are certainly not the only way to protect your money from inflation. Here are 4 other options:
Use the Boldin Retirement Planner to run scenarios for general and medical inflation rates. See how your finances weather different inflation forecasts and build back up plans if inflation impacts your out of money age.
TIPS supposedly keep pace with inflation. However, stocks and mutual funds typically outpace inflation, and may even benefit from inflation. A well-diversified portfolio of investments is more important than having money in any one type of financial vehicle.
I-Bonds are another inflation-hedge offered by the U.S. Federal government that work differently than TIPS. They provide two returns, a fixed percent return (now near 0%), and a return based on inflation which is recalculated every 6 months. The minimum that the inflation portion of the return can be is 0%, so deflation will not hurt your principal. However, they must be bought and held only through Treasury Direct and you can only purchase $10k per calendar year.
Low interest debt is not a bad use of your financial interests during periods of inflation. Why? Well, the inflation-adjusted value of your mortgage payments declines at the same rate as inflation rises.
The value of money — including debt — lowers as inflation goes up.
Take financial wellness into your own hands and do it yourself retirement planning: easy, comprehensive, reliable.
Want to stay on track to a secure future? Do a quarterly financial review. This article explains what to update, provides recent economic benchmarks and shows you what articles have been useful to people this quarter. Plus all the latest Boldin functionality.
Here are a 18 possible retirement surprises. Make a plan and be prepared. Though the biggest surprise might be that you’ll make it work no matter what.
Creating a retirement investment plan for after you retire is downright complicated. Explore 6 competing priorities and how to invest for long term wealth.
