Free Online Mortgage Payment Calculator

A mortgage payment calculator is the first thing most people search for when considering refinancing a mortgage. Using a mortgage payment calculator, you can apply today's interest rate to the amount of your new mortgage, and find out what your new monthly mortgage payment will be.

You can easily find a mortgage payment calculator online. For example, this free mortgage payment calculator at Emergency Refinancing allows you to enter the interest rate, the term of the mortgage, and the mortgage principal amount, to calculate your new monthly mortgage payment.

The formula to calculate a monthly mortgage payment is one of those horrible bits of high school Math that most people try to forget as soon as they have sat the exam - if not before - so there is really no alternative for most people, than to use a mortgage payment calculator.

You may find that your spreadsheet software has a function which will calculate monthly payments for a mortgage, although in most cases an online mortgage payment calculator is easier to find - and simpler to use!

As a rule of thumb, your mortgage payment should amount to no more than a third of your after-tax income. This will ensure that your mortgage payment is affordable.

You can use the mortgage payment calculator to work out how much you can afford to borrow. Simply enter the interest rate and term of the loan, and then adjust the amount of the principal until the mortgage payment calculator shows a monthly payment equal to one third of your after-tax income.

Whether you use an online mortgage payment calculator or not, it is very important that you don't overextend yourself by borrowing more than you can afford.

More information at Emergency Refinancing, including today's mortgage rates, mortgage rates predictions, and a free mortgage payment calculator.

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Investing In Corporate Bonds

In a life filled with risk, it pays to play it safe sometimes - as the smart ones have learned when investing in corporate bonds.

What are corporate bonds? They are the money raised by corporations over and above the sales, services, loans from banks and stocks. In essence, a bond is a loan by the investor to the company. Unfortunately, not too many investors have taken the time and the effort to understand this instrument.

A bond is a loan to a company and like loans, there is a date when the loan has to be paid back and a rate of interest that has to be paid on that loan in the meantime. Bonds are usually with companies for 10 years, after which they reach their maturity date.

While they are relatively safe, bonds too have certain risk factors, which can be broadly classified under the terms Credit Risk, Interest Risk and Maturity Risk.

Credit Risk refers to the chance that the company may default on the loan. Interest Risk refers to the chance that interest rates may move against you during the term of the bond.

Maturity Risk - there are some bonds that can be redeemed before they mature. These are referred to as ‘callable'. The corporation can pay for the bond you hold with cash, or issue new bonds against it, or maybe even a take out a bank loan. This means that if you have been used to getting a high rate of interest, this might suddenly stop if the company redeems the bond.

Let's now look at the advantages. If you are cautious and invest in high yield bonds that are healthy and not junk bonds, you can stand to gain a lot. You also have convertible bonds - you can buy bonds that convert into stock directly from the company rather than from the market. This means you can take advantage of the company's price appreciation while enjoying the safety factor of a bond. The price of the bond usually does not fall below a decent price return.

Like any other financial investment, you need to make informed choices and for investing in corporate bonds, you need to be well up on what is happening in the market. The great thing about investing in corporate bonds is that the benefits as well as the risks are transparent and easily gauged.

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