Using a Car Finance Calculator

The time to budget for a car loan isn’t while you’re waiting at the dealership for a salesman. Ideally, you’ll do some research before you ever set foot on a car dealership. However, even with good research, you’re going to find price variations regardless of where you go. On top of that, your trade-in is something that you have to negotiate and will affect the total loan size you need for your new vehicle. Because of this, it’s a good idea to download and install a car finance calculator.

Make Sure Your Car Finance Calculator Amortizes The Loan

Don’t settle for a simple car finance calculator. Most mobile devices have them, but they don’t amortize the loan for you. Ballpark guesses are a bad idea when you’re negotiating the price of a vehicle, so forget about calculators that only allow you guess the monthly payment by multiplying the total loan size by 2 percent or some other arbitrary number. If the salesman gets the hint that you’re just giving him a ballpark figure, he’s going to choose the highest-possible loan payment he thinks you might be able to afford.

The best way to stop that from happening is to get a calculator that lays out all of the payments you’ll be making over the life of the loan, adjusting for any down payments you make. If the calculator can adjust for your trade-in, that would be even better. Finally, the calculator should be configurable on the fly.

On the subject of buying a car, you should read this article logbookloanfinance to ensure the car has no outstanding finance as you could lose the car as a result.