Nikki
Coconut Creek,#2Consumer Suggestion
Fri, July 06, 2007
You probably have a simple interest loan. Search simple interest loans on the internet to read more about them. I will try to explain. Even if you are late 1 day, you are charged "late interest". Here is an example. Say you have a $5000 loan, for 5 years, at 29% interest rate. About $40 of your payments goes towards principal, and $120 goes towards interest. Therefore your daily rate is about $4 in interest ($4 x 30 days). Say you are 10 days late this month. Your next month's payment will not go towards principal at all because you have to pay your $120 regular interest plus the $40 for the "late interest" from the month before. Say you are 20 days late this month. That is $80 worth of late interest. Therefore your next month's payment won't even cover next month's interest plus the $80 worth of late interest. Even a few days late every month will cause your account to become upside down. In other words, if you are late only 10 days every month, your balance, after the full 5 years, will still be the original amount of your loan. Go online to an amortization calculator (BankRate has a good one). Type in your loan amount, the percentage rate, the lenth and the month it began. Then print out your entire loan amortization. See where you should be regarding principal balance owed right now. You should try to make large enough payments each month, or make one big payment, to get the principal balance down to where it should be. Don't forget, even if you make one big payment, some still might go to the "late interest" amount so it may take a couple of months to get caught up. By the way, the amortization calculator is really for conventional loans rather than simple interest, but it works out right if you make your payments on the exact due date every month. Pay early, you're ahead of the game. Pay late, your behind. Also, you may think you have a grace period if they say "pay this amount by ..." or "after this date pay this amount". There is no grace period with simple interest loans. That's just the amount of time they give you before they charge you an additional fee. On the flip side, if you make your simple interest loan payments a few days early every month, you will be ahead. I am not a financial professional. I am merely someone who has simple interest loans and has figured out how they work (I hope). I think I'm right.