MSE Christmas Quiz discussion

MSE_Martin

Nazitf wrote: »

What's wrong with my calculations for question 5 (credit card one)?

Borrowed 3000 at 17.9% APR.

So I'm paying 1.49% interest monthly. Min repayment is 2%, hence I'm clearing a balance of 0.51% monthly.

At the minimum, I'm clearing 3000 x 0.0051 = £15.25 monthly. Therefore 3000/15.25 = 196.7 months. This equals just over 16 years which is a rough estimate of the maximum period to pay off this card since the outstanding balance will slowly be declining.

The thing that's fundamentally clever about minimum repayments, is the less you owe the less you repay, and even small changes to the repayment amount have a MASSIVE impact.

For example, a friend wrote to me saying it should be 48 not 42 years; the only thing wrong with his calculation - he'd worked out to convert 17.9% to monthly interest was 17.9%/12, rather than 17.9% to the power of 1/12. This is a fraction of a fraction of a percent difference, but it still adds up to 6 years.

Try playing with the minimum repayment calculator and you'll see the impact

ThinkingOfLinking

I just found this quiz, did it and got 5/5.

shirlgirl2004

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

I just found this quiz, did it and got 5/5.

Did you get bored half way through ?

blueguppie

I got 6/10 which I'm quite pleased with, especially the dropping a brand level question. The amount you can save makes it all worthwhile!
:j

allydowd

I think the quiz is rubbish! It put a big red crosses next to some of the right answers!

JDPower

I got 6/10 but disagree with the reward card question as it doesn't take into account the fact that Boots is the most expensive shop on there.

choolstuff

I am gutted. I only got 3 right and I'm on this site every day (hangs head in shame)

metaphase

Great quiz, Martin. Got 6/10 - was still using the old railcard price of £18, didn't realise Boots were quite as generous, fluffed the occupation one and thought it was only £1,300 for the savings to be made on downbranding!

To be honest I was just glad I got the chocolates one right :-)

JRP1414

The quiz wouldn't load properly for me. Half of the question text was missing so I had to guess what they said!

DtB

Did really well here with a mere 4/10...............:rolleyes2 Mind you I:
1) Live abroad
2) Don't have any UK loyalty cards
and
3) am apparently, thick as a brick.....................

Still............................, It's the taking part, right?

Right..........................................................:D