I owned a $5,000 bond once for a couple of years about 30 years ago. That's the only time. Never saw much sense in them. I've primarily stuck with equity mutual funds. It's worked out okay for me so far for the nearly ten years I've been retired now (no pension, disability, or for that matter any other income besides stock market gains). Besides covering my living expenses for those ten years, my financial asset balance is also nearly double now what it was when I retired. At this point though, I'll admit I'm looking forward to six months from now when I turn 62 and can start collecting social security. It will be nice to have a steady income again.
Right now, of my financial assets, I'm about 40% in equity mutual funds, and 60% in cash (non-interest earning). If the market goes up, I'll get the gains on the equity investments. If it takes a big dive, I've got the cash available to plow into equities.
I guess each of us is free to make our own bets on what investments will work best for our own situations. I hope your bonds work out well for you.
My wife and I plan to move/downsize, and in the process, will end up with excess equity from the sale of our house even if we buy a new house elsewhere. My thought was to use this additional cash to buy into equity mutual funds and get us some stock exposure. As long as you don't have to sell in a down market, you can still end up with dividends, although in a really bad stock market, those too will go down.