Hey friends. The year 2022 has arrived. I pray God blesses you in this new year!

Ringing out the old and ringing in the new introduced me to COVID. While so many dear to me have experienced it already, the virus had not visited me until a few days ago. Testing confirmed it. It seems the vaccines don’t do a whole lot to hold back the new omicron strain. But my experience with it is consistent with what I’ve read about it; you sure know you have it but it’s not awful.

The stock market may be more volatile than ever this year. With inflation spiking, the national debt problem that has been present for years but not front and center due to near-zero interest rates is likely to become a growing part of the national economic conversation.

A good friend sent me an e-mail very recently about series I (inflation-indexed) bonds. The interest rate moves with inflation moves and thus is a variable rate. The current rate is 7.12%. While there are limits on how much can be invested each year, the return certainly exceeds other fixed income investments by a mile. For more information go here and here. The first link is to Treasury Direct where bonds can be acquired online and the second is an article I found while researching further after my friend put me onto this idea.

See you next time.

Paul