We have a 16 year old that is about to pass her driver's test. This means that we need another car. We decided in 2008 when we bought the little red car that eventually this would be hers. Now it was time to add to our growing fleet for either her mother or me. We went and found a car we wanted, stopped by our bank and signed the note and drove off that day. It was a pleasant experience. The interest rate was good. The price of the car seemed reasonable and I am happy. When I got home I pulled up Excel and created an amortization table and started thinking about early payments and how much the loan would cost.
I created a pretty detailed file and started thinking about how everyone else does what I just did. I figure most people just get the rate and payment from the bank and only have a general idea of what the cost should be.(that is what I did most of my life) You can get the info from a website online but I have never seen one that figures the irregular extra payments. So I worked on it a little bit more and figured I would make a youtube of me creating.
I also thought it would be nice of me to upload it to a post on a blog. So that is what I did.
See link below.
This file is going to give you a pretty close number but because it don't know the exact date of extra payments it might be off a little bit. I hope the tool helps.and gives any of you a good idea of what happens when you make extra payments early verses late.
Kelly
