Investing - Theory, News & General • Re: cd and bond ladder

It seems that you are on the right track by thinking about using bonds to match your upcoming liabilities. You can use either individual bonds, or bond funds. I find it easier to think about doing this using individual bonds, but others may find it easier to use bond funds.

There is a thing called liability matching. You can find a lot about it in this forum and from a search engine.

You likely should match not only durations, as others have mentioned, but also, match nominal liabilities with nominal bonds, and match real liabilities with real bonds.

So if you are thinking about matching for tuition, and you think tuition will go up with inflation, consider using TIPS, since they have inflation protection.

I have seen people recommend things to the effect that you should not use equities for capital that you need to spend within about 5 years. These are rules of thumb and do not apply in all situations, but still may be useful to you.

Statistics: Posted by printer — Thu Oct 08, 2026 12:22 pm