Investing in a $1,000 Series I savings bond means that your principal will be protected from rising costs because one of the components used to calculate the interest rate you earn is determined, in part, by changes in the consumer price index, or CPI. That means that as the cost of living increases, the interest earned on your savings bonds increases. Unlike traditional bonds, I bonds don't pay interest out in the form of cash but rather earned interest is reinvested and added to the principal value of the bond itself. When you are ready to cash the bond out, you sell it back to the United States Government (this is known as "redeeming" the bond).
The $1,000 Series I savings bond features Albert Einstein. Here is the Treasury Department's release regarding this I bond denomination:
With the special and general theories of relativity, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) replaced Newton's view of absolute time and absolute space with a new physics in which time slows down and gravity changes the shape of the universe. Albert Einstein is a symbol of the pursuit of truth through science that knows no national boundaries. As an immigrant to the United States, Einstein fled pre-war Germany and became a United States citizen. As a prize-winning physicist, Einstein replaced centuries of physics with a new and more complete view of the universe. As an international figure, Einstein fought for the cause of peace. He received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work on the photoelectric effect.
