You can use this calculator to find a loan payment that meets your needs.
For example you may want to renovate your home. You have chosen a contractor from the 3 estimates you received for the work.
In our example it is $30,000.00. You now need to know if you can afford the renovation.
You are aware that most renovation projects go over budget. You need to know if you can afford this cost over run.
Input the data. Enter numbers only no $ or % signs.
Interest Rate - Input up to 2 decimal places. We have called our financial institution and have been quoted a 6.00% interest rate.
Maximum Monthly Payment you can afford? - This is what you think you should budget for. We will use $500.00
Desired Loan - This is the amount of the contractor estimate you have chosen. In our example $30,000.00
+/- Of Loan in Percentage - This is where you input the over run estimate. In our example we have found that 10% is a good guideline.
You can ask the contractor for references and ask them what their situation was. Talk to friends about their experiences.
The calculator calculates the spread. In this example 10% is the spread. The calculator shows amounts 10% above and below your Desired Loan.
In this example $27,000.00 and $33,000.00
You can select Deposits/Withdrawals - At Beginning of Period or At End of Period
Click the Calc/Create Button and the spreadsheet is completed.
You now scroll down so you can see the Payment you input in the first column of the spreadsheet.
For our example we chose $500.00.
Highlighted in blue is the $500.00 Payment you input and Payments that are within the 10% you input.
You can scroll across the spreadsheet to find a suitable loan.
In this example $500.00 will pay a $30,320.61 loan over 6 years.
If you are over budget by our 10% and we need to borrow more money you can increase your payment or borrow
more funds over a longer period or a combination of both.
From above we see our 10% maximum is $33,000.00
Scroll across to see how long it will take to pay off $33,000.00
We can see that the spreadsheet shows a payment of $500.00 will pay a loan of $34,397.65 over 7 years.
You decide that 7 years is to long.
You can increase the payment by $50.00 to $550.00 and pay a $33,352.67 loan in 6 years.
This is within your budget and within the cost over run estimate and you decide to proceed with the renovations.
You can now input the final selections into the Calculator in the <What did you choose?> section.
What Monthly Payment did you choose? - $550.00
How Many Years? - 6
Total Cost of Loan - This is calculated. The total loan will cost $39,600.00 including interest.
The next section breaks the loan down into
Actual Amount of Loan $33,352.67 and
Total Interest you will pay $6,247.33
You can print the spreadsheet. Click in the Print Year 1-12 or Print Year 13 - 25.
You will get a Print Reports screen that allows you to preview, zoom and find in the printout.
When you click the printer icon you will be able to select the pages you want to print.
Each section is about 14 pages in length.