How do you calculate monthly payment on a car loan using paperpencil or Excel not an online calculator?

Answer 1

Excel certainly helps...you'll find a number of options, including several for calculating payments using "formulas" (the Fx features) that may get you there...even an amortization one. So presuming you know interest rate, principal and time variables (like payment at start or end of period, how long a term, etc) - and - this is even more important - they are defined the same by the lender simularly to how the function thinks - you can calculate it and should really be pretty close. Pen and paper would rely on reference tables/charts for giving a payment amount per 100 (or thousand) dollars at a number of rates (hopefully one is the right one) and over specified terms. Available at most any lender, charts are common in most newspapers for at least the ranges they are dealing with commonly. Of course any unusual aspect to the loan your calculating....variable rates, fixed payments, early payoffs, etc., complicates it more so.