Monthly Interest Rate

MathBane

New member
Joined
Oct 9, 2009
Messages
17
Suppose you borrow P dollars at a monthly interest rate of r (as a decimal) and wish to pay off the loan in t months. Then your monthly payment can be calculated using the following formula in dollars.

\(\displaystyle M = \frac {Pr(1+r)^t}{(1+r)^t-1}\)

Remember that for monthly compounding, you get the monthly rate by dividing the APR by 12. Suppose you borrow $9000 at 9% APR (meaning that you use r = 0.09/12 in the preceding formula) and pay it back in 2 years.



(a) What is your monthly payment? (Round your answer to the nearest cent.)
411.16


(b) Lets look ahead to the time when the loan is paid off. (Round your answers to the nearest cent.)

(i) What is the total amount you paid to the bank?
9867.84


(ii) How much of that was interest?
867.84

(c) The amount B that you still owe the bank after making k monthly payments can be calculated using the variables r, P, and t. The relationship is given by the formula below in dollars.

\(\displaystyle B = P \left( \frac {(1+r)^t-(1+r)^k}{(1+r)^t-1}\right)\)

(i) How much do you still owe the bank after 1 year of payments? (Round your answer to the nearest cent.)

(I'm stuck here. If I put the formula into the calculator, I get answers in the negatives. r = 0.0075 and k = 411.16, right? I'm so confused.)
 
MathBane said:
(a) What is your monthly payment? (Round your answer to the nearest cent.)

411.16 This is correct.


b(i) What is the total amount you paid to the bank?

9867.84 This is not properly rounded, to the nearest cent.


b(ii) How much of that was interest?

867.84 This will change, after you correct the rounding error above.

c(i) How much do you still owe the bank after 1 year of payments?

(I'm stuck here. If I put the formula into the calculator, I get answers in the negatives. r = 0.0075 and k = 411.16, right? No, k does not represent a dollar amount. k represents a number of payments.

If you make monthly payments for one year, how many payments is that? That's k.


I get $4,701.61 for question c(i).
 
Thank you so much! I was able to fill out the table that came after it with your help.
 
Top