Live FRED Defaults
Car Loan Calculator
Pre-filled with the latest U.S. average new car loan from Federal Reserve FRED data — adjust the numbers to match your own loan, then see what that monthly payment could become if you redirected it elsewhere.
Your loan
$
%
months
5.5 years
Monthly payment
$741
Principal$40,000
Total interest paidAdds 22.3% to the sticker price
$8,939Total repayment$48,939
How 66 months of payments split between principal and interest
What if you redirected that $741 a month?
Pick a scenario to see what your car payment is worth if you sent it somewhere else instead.
$330,817
after 30 years
Redirecting $741/mo for the 66-month term and letting it compound at 7% turns into $59,832 by the time the loan would have ended. Leave it alone for the rest of a 30-year horizon and it grows to $330,817.
Assumption: 7% real annual return (long-run U.S. equity market), monthly compounding.
Default values from: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Series: DTCTLVENANM (amount financed), RIELPCFANNM (interest rate), DTCTLVENMNM (maturity).