🏦 Loan & Interest Calculator

Two questions that decide real money: what will this loan cost me every month, and in total — and what will regular saving grow into. Both are answered with the standard amortisation maths printed alongside, plus an honest warning that a lender’s quote, fees and taxes always win over any calculator. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Loan repayment

Savings & compound growth

How to read these numbers honestly

The monthly payment is not the price. A 20,000 loan at 6.5% over five years costs about 391 a month — but roughly 3,500 of the 23,500 you hand over is interest, and front-loaded: in year one most of each payment is interest, so early overpayments save far more than later ones, which is exactly what the “extra payment” box demonstrates. Quoted rates are nominal. The effective annual rate is higher because interest compounds monthly: (1 + r/12)¹² − 1 gives about 6.70% for a 6.5% nominal rate. Fees, insurance and arrangement charges belong in the comparison too — the only fair way to compare two loans is the total cost, not the headline rate.

Compounding is the same maths pointed the other way. The savings projection assumes a constant return every month, contributions at month-end and no tax — real markets deliver the average with violent detours, so the final number is a planning anchor, not a promise. The honest summary of the table above is the gap between what you put in and what the growth adds; that gap is what time, not cleverness, creates. At high rates, note the rule of 72: money doubles in roughly 72 ÷ rate years.

Part of Everyday Tools. For currency conversion at today’s reference rates, see the currency converter. Estimates only — not financial advice, not a loan offer.