Payment
Predictor megaConverter #24
INFORMATION
PAGE
Introduction and
Overview
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Our goal with the Payment Predictor was to
create the ultimate monthly payment calculator.
It had to be fairly simple and straight forward
but we wanted it to take into account many of the
variables that are common in every day purchases
and financing. We also wanted to quickly figure
basic tax and the real cost of financing. What we
ended up with is even more versatile and
convenient than we planned. We sincerely hope you
find it as useful as we already have. There are
specifics related to certain kinds of purchases
(tax, title, and license on auto purchase,
closing costs on home purchase, etc.) that we
didn't include because there are just too many
unknowns.
Red labeled fields are expense fields,
green labels represent credits or rebates and
black labels represent variable rates and terms.
Red and green labeled fields are all shown in US
dollar amounts. You never need to enter dollar
signs or percent signs. Put another way, Don't
enter dollar signs or percent signs because
you'll cause a JavaScript error. Commas are
optional. Payment Predictor will always format
larger numbers with commas.
Glossary of Conversions:
Check
box next to
Tag / Sticker Price
Click this box when you want to lock the
price and auto-calculate the down payment based
on your input for monthly payment. For example,
you've got your eye on a new car that's sticker
price is $18,995 and when you figure up the
payments (we'll use the default values of the
Payment Predictor for our example) it comes out
to $743.37 a month. No way, right. Check the box
next to Tag/Sticker Price and then enter 500 (or
whatever amount your budget will allow) into the
Monthly Payment field and click on the equals
button to recalculate. Now check out the Down Pmt
field. If you want $500 monthly payments (based
on our default values), you'll need to pay $6,219
down. Remember, there are a lot of other
variables that can and will affect your Monthly
Payment, and you're free to alter them to match
almost any situation.
(Exclude)
box next to
Rebate / Cash Back
By default, the Payment Predictor
automatically subtracts (includes) the
amount entered into the Rebate/Cash Back field
from the Tag/Sticker Price. In other words,
Payment Predictor assumes that the rebate is
immediate and should be deducted from the price
before any payments are calculated. This is not
always the case in real life transactions. Often,
rebate or cash back offers don't take effect
until after the purchase. In these cases, check
the box to exclude the amount from being
subtracted from the price. The Rebate/Cash Back
amount will still be taken into account when
figuring the Total (True) Cost even if you check
Exclude.
(Exclude)
box next to
S&H / Delivery Fee
By default, the Payment Predictor
automatically adds (includes) the
amount entered into the S&H/Delivery Fee
field to the Tag/Sticker Price. This amount is
added to the price and increases your payments.
If for any reason these fees will not be added to
the price then all you have to do is Exclude
them by checking their box. One common reason for
excluding the shipping and handling or
delivery fees is because you've decided to pay
them 'up front' or 'roll them into the down
payment' and you don't want them to affect your
payments. The S&H/Delivery Fee amount will
still be taken into account when figuring the
Total (True) Cost even if you check Exclude.
Tag
/ Sticker
Price
Enter the price marked on, or quoted
for the item you would like to purchase.
Down Payment
If you have to make a specified down
payment, enter that amount here. You can also
enter any amount you want to put down on a
purchase and see how it affects your payments.
Don't forget, Payment Predictor can figure your
down payment for you based on the Tag /Sticker
Price and the Monthly Payment amount that you
enter. (See Check box next
to Tag /Sticker Price above.)
Trade Value
Enter the value of any item that you
will be trading for the item you want to
purchase. Seldom do you get to decide how much
your 'trade' is worth. In most cases this will be
where you enter the amount the car dealer is
going to allow you for your old car.
Tax
Rate % (as a
percentage) - Taxes
Enter the applicable tax rate based on
the location of your purchase. It makes a
difference. If you're buying something mail-order
or are tax exempt you can enter 0(zero) in the
Tax Rate field. The Taxes field simply shows you
the total tax amount in dollars.
Rebate
/ Cash Back
Enter any amount offered by the
manufacturer, retailer, or seller to be paid back
to you. This would include amounts offered as Instant
rebate or Cash back if you buy by a
certain date or Discount for first time
buyers. Basically, if there is any kind of
promotion offering to give you money back, this
is the field to enter that amount. (See Exclude box next to Rebate
/ Cash Back above to understand how this
field affects the calculation of monthly
payments.)
Interest Rate % (as a percentage)
Enter the applicable interest rate
based on the method of financing you'll use to
make your purchase. This is where you might enter
the interest rate on your credit card, the rate
your bank quoted for a loan or the interest rate
quoted by a dealership to finance a new car or
boat.
Number of Months / Payments
This field is often referred to as the
term of the loan. Enter the number of
months that you will be financing your purchase
for. You can also think of it as the number of
payments you'll be expected to make. The most
common terms are increments of 12 (24,
36, 48, etc.) If you plan to pay by credit card,
it's hard to know how many payments it will take
to pay the balance in full. This situation is
worsened by the fact that most credit card
companies bill you the smallest possible minimum
payment so that they can s t r e t c h out
the balance and charge you the maximum
interest.
Amount to Finance
This field automatically calculates
the amount of money that will need to be financed
or the size of the loan you'll need to make your
purchase. Of course, all of the other fields'
values are taken into consideration when figuring
this amount.
Shipping & Handling / Delivery Fees
Enter the amount (if any) of charges
for shipping and handling of the item. Some
larger items may have a delivery fee tacked on
which should be included here. (See Exclude box next to
S&H / Delivery Fee above to understand
how this field affects the calculation of monthly
payments.)
Monthly Payment
This field can auto-calculate to
figure your monthly payment based on all the
other fields' values or you can enter a payment
that you feel you can afford and let Payment
Predictor suggest the necessary down payment to
achieve that monthly payment.
Total (True) Cost
We love this one even though it almost
always hurts. This field automatically calculates
for you. After all the adding, subtracting,
dividing and other nasty math stuff, Payment
Predictor tells you how much it's really going to
cost you to posses that new thingamajig that
you've just gotta have.
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