Before applying for a personal or business loan, the first thing you should do is to learn about the different calculations that are used to determine your repayment amount and interest rates thereof. Many people focus on the monthly payments as their only concern but fail to understand the other costs included in the loan. These charges could affect the repayment period and rates over a period.
It’s easy to calculate your loan interest rates and payment duration just by using one of the many available online calculators, but understanding the process of these calculations is necessary, as it allows you to know how to regulate your borrowing based on some factors.
Calculating your Loan Payoff
Unless you sign up for an interest-only loan, you will be required to pay it off in a gradual acceleration with different payment schemes. The process is amortization. Understanding the method of calculating it is a vital skill. It allows you to know how much you should take when you deal with fixed interest at a particular mark. See examples below to understand how amortization works.
Understanding Loan Amortization: How It Works
A loan amortization schedule gives you a clear preview of how much you will be repaying and the period you will take to clear your loan. Under this plan, you submit payments in regular installments with a set amount that includes both interest and the principal amount. A good example is when a business or individual borrows $10,000 to be repaid over a term of one year with an interest rate of 5% APR. The payment amount of the company or individual will remain fixed at $856.07 throughout the repayment period. Only the amount applied to the principal amount and interest will change on a gradual scale.
Unamortized Loan
Amortized loans are the most common and considered more beneficial, but it is dependent on the circumstances that are pushing you to take the loan. In an amortized loan as discussed above, you are allowed to repay both interest and principal amount simultaneously. It is considered as an excellent financial planning exercise because you are sure that your monthly repayments will not change. Thus, it makes you efficiently plan for the future.
Unamortized loans are a bit different because it gives you an interest-only repayment schedule, which comes with lower repayment amounts. You don’t pay the principal together with its interest. It allows you to submit to small amounts of interest until such time that you will have a large sum of money to settle the principal amount. It is best suited for someone who gets sporadic lump-sums, e.g., contractors.
How to Process Loan Calculations
There are few ways of calculating loan amounts. You need to check how much you qualify for and the period you will need to repay the loan as well as its interest. With many online solutions offering free calculators, it would be more advisable to consider using an online calculator. The online calculators will not burden you with the need to create tables and manually work out values. You could also use spreadsheets to come up with the amortization schedules, which allows you to analyze your loans.
Variable Rate Loans and Inflation
Other factors might also impact your monthly interest payments. One is that you might risk falling into inflation. For a variable rate loan, you compensate the changes in monetary value that occur due to inflation. When you take a loan at a specified interest rate, you place a bet on the rate of inflation throughout the period you will be repaying the loan, so if the inflation reacts in favor of your lender, you will be required to pay more. You could protect yourself from this by setting a limit on the way the rate can climb.
Understanding how much you will be required to repay each month helps you choose an amount you can comfortably repay. It is advisable to pursue knowledge about all the costs that are attached to your loan to plan ahead and avoid common pitfalls of repayment.
Understanding the concept of how different types of loans works, is helpful if you have plans wherein you need a large sum of money that you currently don’t have. If you want to get the best deals without going out of your way, check out www.moneylend.net where you could get real-time comparisons based on availability at your location.