Starting April 7, the US Treasury is going to begin offering $100 Treasury Bills to investors, while Treasury Bonds and Bills have been available for many years but at a $1,000 minimum and in $1,000 increments and before that it was $10,000 increments and minimums. By lowering this to $100, many more people (including myself) will be able to invest in these securities.

While these are generally not the highest yielding of securities, they are one of the safest options available. This should make them attractive to investors because while they may pull the yield of your portfolio down a little bit, they will also reduce the total risk that you face and provide another means of diversification within your portfolio.

While it is possible to purchase Treasury securities from most banks and brokers, the US Treasury offers an online portal to purchase these securities directly. The online portal for the US Department of the Treasury is called TreasuryDirect. I’m not sure if there are any major advantages or disadvantages to going directly through the Treasury Department, but it seems simple enough that I am planning to give it a try.

Unfortunately, signing up for an account with them is not quite like signing up with most other online services. You can sign up in about 5 minutes, but you won’t be able to login for approximately 2 weeks after creating your account. As an added security measure, aside from having a username and password, they also send you an “Access Card” in the mail.

I have not received my “Access Card” yet, but it looks to be a credit card sized item that contains a serial number as well as letters across the top and numbers down the side forming a grid. The rest of the grid is filled with random numbers and letters. The idea is that you enter the serial number of your card and then the site asks for a series of characters designated by grid coordinates.

While this might be a moderately more secure way of managing login information, it is also a bit annoying to have to wait for something to arrive in the mail in order to login to an online account that was created online.

My recommendation would be to get signed up ASAP so that your card can get to you in the mail. Then you will be able to purchase these $100 securities at any time and not have to wait for it then when you would rather be investing. Even though the interest rate on US Treasury securities may be only marginally better than you can get with some savings accounts, remember that diversification is important.

-Read the press release announcing $100 minimum investments-