When you’re trying to pick a certain type of investment that’s safe, the bonds, bills, and notes from the Treasury Department can be a good bet. However, a lot of people don’t realize that you can really diversify within the bond world immediately. There are quite a few differences between Treasury bonds, Treasury notes, and Treasury bills. If you get the wrong one, you might not meet your investing goals the way you might like.

Here’s a quick guide to each one, along with a few tips of advice for choosing what might be the right investment for your needs.

The first to consider is a Treasury bill, which is a short-term investment that doesn’t have a maturity over a year. Once the bill matures, you get the interest rate stated. There is a certain discount that each bill has when it’s purchased, which will give you the full maturity amount when it’s the proper time. An example would be an investor who picks up a 52 week bill that pays $1,000 at maturity. The investor might only pay about 970.28 when they purchase it. A quick interest calculation indicates that this would equal 6.28% on the investment itself — not too bad.

From here you have Treasury notes that are actually longer than bills — anywhere from two years all the way up to 10 years. The interest on notes is paid out on a semi-annual basis.

Finally, you have treasury bonds, which are for super long term investments up to 30 years. Like Treasury notes, these are also paid out on a semi-annual basis.

Now that you know what the difference between each type of Treasury-backed security is, you might wonder which one is right for you. The truth is that all of them are great choices, but they all have different purposes. For example, if you know that you just want a safe place to park money for a short amount of time, you might want to go with a Treasury bill, which has the shortest time till maturity. It’s also the most liquid out of all of the securities — investors can get cash very quickly.

If you’re trying to save for something within the next 10 years, a lot of people turn to Treasury notes for this purpose. This is also a safe way to make sure that you will not lose your initial investment, which is an important concern when you’re trying to save for important purchases.

For the super long term savings plan, there are always Treasury bonds. Retirement as well as passing them down to other members of the family is just two reasons why people turn to Treasury bonds.

Keep in mind that if you purchase any of these securities that you won’t really get a certificate that you purchased it. Instead, your investment gets noted in a massive database and you will receive a receipt.

Naturally, the advice above is designed to be general. If you feel that you’re still not sure what type of investment you should pursue immediately, you might want to think about getting in contact with a financial planner. You just need to make sure that you can step back and look at all of your options. The reality of the matter is that any decision that you take will be going a long way towards your overall financial stability. All of these products will serve you well, but they will serve you in different ways. Knowing the information up front will lead you to make much better decisions than if you didn’t have the information — that’s just a given!