Newbie migration issues

[Rod Engelsman]

Thank you for your reply, Derek. Comments and f/u question at bottom.

Derek Atkins wrote:

>Rod Engelsman <rodengelsman at ruraltel.net> writes:
>
>  
>
>>1. Setting up my wife's student loan. What numbers is the Loan Druid 
>>expecting in various places? For instance, in the "Loan Information" 
>>dialog, where it says "Amount", is that the amount borrowed or the 
>>amount of the payment? Is it supposed to be positive or negative? And if 
>>that is the amount of the payment, then where does this thing get the 
>>amount of the principal from? No matter what combination of possible 
>>entries I make to this thing it comes up with absurd amortization schedules.
>>    
>>
>
>It's the original principal amount.
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>  
>
Then I'm still doing something screwed up. Here's the loan information: 
It's a student loan that she started repaying last year. The first 
payment was 20 Jan 2004. The payment amount is $30 for the first two 
years, then increases to $80.37 for 116 months with a final payment of 
$66.71 in 2015. I went to the Sallie Mae website and got the current 
balance information. Our last payment was made on 19 Jan 2005 and the 
balance owing at that point was $8183.47. So what I want to do is set it 
up for the next 11 payments at $30 starting 20 Feb 2005.

I go into the Loan Druid. On the first screen I enter 8183.47 in the 
"Amount" box. Loan account is "Liabilities:Loan:Student Loan". Interest 
rate 3.125%. Type is "Fixed". Start date 2/20/2005. Length is 476 months 
(calculated by the Financial Calculator). Months remaining says 476 as 
well. Hit "Next".
Skip all the Mortgage options because they don't apply. Next screen 
says: Name = Loan, Amount = pmt( 0.03125 / 12 : 476 : 8183.47 : 0 : 0 ). 
Payment from, principal to, and Interest to is all correct. Repayment 
frequency is monthly, start date 2/20/2005. Hit "Next".

This is where it gets weird. The Amortization Schedule looks like this:

Date              Payment      Principal      Interest
2/20/2005      3190.80         1060.69      2131.11
3/20/2005      3190.80         1336.91      1854.89
4/20/2005      3190.80         1685.07      1506.74 
.
.
.
11/20/2005      3190.80      8515.61      -5323.81
12/20/2005      3190.80      10733.20      -7541.42
1/20/2006        3190.80      13528.30      -10336.50

Obviously, this amortization schedule is way screwed up. So what did I 
do wrong?

Rod