With current inflation rate of 7%-8% right now these Series I Savings Bonds I recently learned about are a blessing! I am going to max that $10k out this year.
I'll have about another $8k to invest each year and am wondering what is currently the next best low risk investment?--excluding stocks/VTI/VTSAX/etc..
I'm not an expert on investment choices, but there are a number of investment types that exist in the risk spectrum between I-bonds and stocks. Here are some:
1. US government-ish bonds. I think there are some quasi-governmental agencies that borrow money from the public in the form of bonds. Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae come to mind, there could be others. They'd possibly/probably be backed by the US government (and their power to tax and print more money), but might not be.
2. State/municipal bonds. States, cities, and other governmental entities that aren't at the federal level frequently borrow money from the public via bonds. There are two subflavors I know of. One is a specific kind of bond where it is paid back by revenue from the thing that they borrowed money for - a toll road or a stadium that sells event tickets. The other kind is a general obligation bond, where the borrowed money is paid back from future tax revenues of the city or state. The latter are usually considered safer than the former because cities and states can "always" raise more taxes.
3. Blue chip bonds. There are many companies that have strong financial positions who choose to borrow money because it's very cheap for them to do so and they can deploy that borrowed money into projects which they think can make even more money. Or sometimes they have capital intensive projects and just don't have the money on hand or don't want to tie it up - think things like Intel chip plants or Toyota production lines or Amazon warehouses (or maybe Tesla gigafactories if you think Tesla's got a solid future).
4. Foreign bonds. Depending on how much you trust other governments, you can probably buy bonds from France, or Germany, or Italy, or Japan, or Kenya. There are additional wrinkles here - currency risk is one, tax implications are another.
Overall, there are bond mutual funds that also invest in the above categories. These are generally viewed as lower risk than individual bonds, but there are tradeoffs to be considered.
After true bonds, there are also things like preferred stock and convertible bonds that sort of live between bonds and stocks. Some might place rental real estate, REITs, and collectibles in that space as well. And then of course there are the wide range of thousands of mutual funds which invest in some proportion of bonds and stocks.