iBond Tip (& Cookies)
Purchase & Redemption Considerations
When to optimally buy iBonds?
When to optimally sell iBonds?
Buy when there are at least four trading days left in the month.
Except for holidays, trade days are usually Mondays through Fridays.
Sell on or soon after the first two or three trading days into the beginning of the month.
Why?
You buy at the end of the month because you want to keep the money you are going to use to buy the iBonds in a high yield, online savings account, earning interest for as many days during the month as possible. As long as your iBond purchase goes through by the end of the month, you’ll receive interest on your iBond purchase washing back over the full month.
Buy an iBond on November 27, and you’ll receive interest on your iBond for November 1st through November 30th.
You nicely earn interest on your money in a high-yield online savings account during most of the month, plus, as long as your iBond purchase completes by the end of the month, you get interest on your iBond for the whole month.
Double money.
Sweet.
Seems like a small habit, but small, positive habits have a way of pleasantly adding up.
Start your iBond purchase with at least 4 trading days left in the month because TreasuryDirect.gov, where you can buy iBonds, sometimes has outages or problems during times of high traffic. They can take extra time to complete your iBond purchase when they have a lot of traffic, staffing issues, or, seems like, the sun came up that morning.
That last part is Mother, joking.
You want to redeem or sell, two or three trade days into a new month because you want to make sure that you have received the full interest on your iBond for the prior month. You could probably sell on the first of the month, but Mother likes to see that settled statement showing the interest for the prior month. Sometimes this takes a day or two to be reflected in the account balances.
Want to know more about iBonds?
Visit the Treasury Direct Website.
Mother is not a financial advisor, but Mother feels completely comfortable in suggesting that you pay attention to optimal times to buy and sell iBonds.
You deserve to have habits that help to support a healthy financial life.
Now for a recipe to add to your home economics knowledge.
This time of year is full of celebrations of light in many cultures. There is Diwali, which is usually celebrated in October or November, Thanksgiving in November, and then Christmas and the New Year in December and January. December also has wonderful holidays such as Hanukkah and Kwanza.
For Mother as a child, there seemed to be such a long stretch of time between Thanksgiving and what was the beginning of the Christmas season, which started on December 1st, and not a moment before. It was only a week, but there seemed to be a real distance in our lives between the gratitude of celebrating Thanksgiving and the joy that marked the start of the Christmas season.
It wasn’t so much anyone being adamant about not letting Christmas start before December, it was just that Thanksgiving was the November holiday, which we celebrated and enjoyed with gratitude and giving thanks. Then, and only then, in December it was the official Christmas season. A person just waited until it was time to celebrate the season that was at hand.
It was a one thing at a time kind of childhood.
So just that one week in between Thanksgiving and the start of Christmas, seeming like a whole month, as we made sandwiches of leftovers and finished up the last of the casseroles and turkey soup.
Mother knew to keep Christmas in her heart all year long, but things seemed to really get a boost when big brother Pat put up the colored lights on the house and when Grammy got out the big mixing bowl and said it was time to make sugar cookies.
Sugar cookies were another exercise in waiting because Grammy (Mother’s mother) made the dough up one day and then she said that we had to wait a day to make the cookies. She said that the dough had to chill overnight in the refrigerator.
Ah, so much of Christmas was waiting, and that was maybe part of the fun - the anticipation.
Grammy made the dough. Mother’s job was to double check and do a thorough check of all of the various cookie cutters. There was an angel, donkey, a bell, reindeer, little dog, Santa, a star, gingerbread person, a cluster of holly, a posie, and a fir tree. If you wanted another shape, it was fun to cut out your own design. All cookies were welcome. The bell was eventually lost, so that one had to be cut out, freehand, using a paring knife.
Making your own designs in cookie dough is particularly festive.
Mother wonders what your favorite cookie cutter is - it seems that everyone has a favorite (or two).
Next day, Grammy set us loose and we’d make sugar cookies, all day long. Grammy would make up icing, and there were little shakers filled with red and green sugar sparkles, silver balls, and tiny food coloring bottles for tinting the frosting. Mother’s favorite decorations were the multi-colored sprinkles.
We always made sure to burn a tray of cookies, just for Grammy.
Grammy always ate any burned cookies, so we thought those were her favorites.
Some cookies we enjoyed right away, and some went down into the big deep freezer in the fruit room, for closer to Christmas.
Today’s recipe is for sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookies
There are many very good variations, but here’s the sugar cookie recipe Mother uses. If you have a favorite recipe, that’s the official “very best recipe” - go ahead and use that recipe.
With sugar cookies, it’s not so much the recipe of sugar, butter, and vanilla - how can you go wrong with that mixture? It’s maybe more the thinking about and then the making of the cookies, decorating any which way, and enjoying with friends and family.
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Diamond-brand kosher salt
1 cup softened unsalted butter (2 sticks or 16 tablespoons)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Day one or early in the day if you are going to bake later that day:
In the bowl of a mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium high for about 2 or 3 minutes.
Add in the egg and vanilla, beating on medium until combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients, the flour, baking powder, and salt.
A third of the dry ingredients at a time, slowly mix the dry into the wet ingredients.
You’ll now have a nice bowl of sugar cookie dough. Flatten the dough into a round disc, about an inch to two inches high, wrap the dough tightly with plastic wrap, and chill it in the refrigerator for two hours or overnight.
Grammy would always chill it overnight as she was an older mother - she was forty-nine-years-old when she had Mother. Grammy was very smart about pacing herself, what with having a young child and all of the holiday activities and goings on during December.
When you are ready to make cookies, place the oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.
If you have a silicon matt or parchment paper, place that on your cookie sheet so they don’t stick. If you don’t have, place cookies directly on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Will be fine. Sugar cookies have a nice cushion of butter in the dough.
Roll the cookie dough out on a floured surface, about 1/4 of an inch thick - thinner or thicker, this is your preference.
Use whatever cookie cutters you have on hand, or you can use a knife or the open end of a cleaned-out jam jar to make your own shapes.
If you are having trouble getting the dough to release from the cookie cutter – talking to you, reindeer antlers – go ahead and lightly flour the insides of your cookie cutters or flour very lightly on the top of your rolled out dough.
If your dough gets too warm, making it difficult to work with, just pop it back in the fridge for a 15 to 20 minute chill.
Place unbaked cookies on a sheet pan about an inch apart, and depending on your oven, bake the cookies 12 to 18 minutes, rotating the pan once, halfway through the bake.
Once golden in color and done, remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheet pan for about 3 minutes before carefully transferring to a rack to cool the rest of the way.
You will need to eat one for quality control purposes. Pick the homiest-looking cookie for your taste test. Not alone? Share.
If you are frosting, completely cool before frosting.
Royal Icing
(Makes about 1 1/2 cups)
2 cups powdered sugar.
2 tablespoons meringue powder
The juice from half a lemon, plus water, to make up just a whisker under a total of 1/4 cup liquid (4 tablespoons). Completely optional - unnecessary, but if you have baker’s glycerin, you can add a few drops to help make your frosting glossier.
If you don’t have meringue powder and can’t stop by Mother’s to borrow some, you can, instead of the meringue powder and accompanying 1/4 cup of liquids, mix 2 pasteurized egg whites and 1 teaspoon lemon juice or vanilla extract into the powdered sugar.
Mother feels uncomfortable using raw egg whites, but people make royal icing with raw egg, all the time.
Maybe it’s okay.
Maybe it isn’t.
People are also known to not maintain their lane while driving and to leave the potato salad out too long at picnics. Just because someone else is doing it doesn’t mean that you should do the same thing, unless, of course, if it’s Julia.
If in doubt, do as Julia would do.
Up to a point.
Mother suspects that although Julia probably used egg whites in her royal icing, Julia would actually want you, Mother’s darling, to use meringue powder.
If you are able to, invest in a small container of meringue powder. Kept cool and dry, it lasts for multiple years. Even better, split a jar, and the cost, with friends.
Maybe Santa will bring you meringue powder.
In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand mixer, carefully whisk the meringue powder in with the powdered sugar. You can also combine the two by using a hand-whisk or fork. Add the liquids, mix on low until just combined, and then beat on high for 5 minutes.
When icing cookies, you can get creative and have some fun. Split the icing into separate bowls, pastry bags, or Ziplock bags, and tint the icing with different colors. Sprinkle crushed pieces of candy cane across the tops while the icing is still wet. Use two different colors of icing and pull a toothpick through them to create a marbled design. Get a frosting pen and write people’s names, pieces of poems, or inspirational words across the surface of your cookies. Opt for a nice old fashioned cookie, plain or traditionally frosted. Tradition can be a great comfort. Best plan - come up with your own ideas and create your very own traditions.
If you are able to, let iced cookies dry overnight in a cool room. Sometimes you can do this, sometimes you can’t. Do what you are able to and remember that Mother has several big flat Tupperware cookie containers that she’s just chomping at the bit to give to you.
Frosted cookies will keep fresh in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or frozen for a month to six weeks.
Of course, these cookies will stay super fresh, well into the night, on a plate for Santa Claus and the reindeer. Remember to put out a glass of milk and a carrot for Rudolph.
Enjoy!
Remember:
Light is above you.
Light is beneath you.
Light is within you.
Light is all around you.
As always,
Love from Mother
Ps. It had to be somewhere. Have been looking. Was wedged along the back of a drawer in Grammy’s sideboard. Pulled the whole thing out and there it was, the lost cookie cutter, bell. Joy is often found in the most unexpected of places.