Figuring Out Interest Compounded Monthly

I’ve often wondered how much total money, exactly, I’ll end up paying on a loan set at a particular interest rate. I never took the trouble to find out, though, until I had to pay the kids back their college funds at a set interest rate.  Trick is that if money is compounded monthly (meaning they add the interest to your balance at the end of each month), this can be super-hard to deduce—and I was paying the kids back for helping me to pay off our second mortgage, which was compounded monthly (I believe) at an exorbitant interest rate of 11.5% (which I preferred to give them, of course, instead of the -3% they seemed to be getting in their college accounts).

Most of the online formulas I found were too simple, seeming to assume that the money is only compounded once annually, which I don’t think is typically the case. Michael actually once spent time creating a lengthy Excel spreadsheet to calculate compounded interest for him, but I found this formula online and thought I’d share, in case anyone else is wondering how much they’ll owe for a loan that is compounded monthly—or maybe how much money they should end up with from their investments, though I wouldn’t know if those are generally compounded monthly.  Remember, though, that payments will alter things; this formula assumes all money is exchanged at once. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to share because it took me hours to decipher the online confusion. Please read through the sample problem before you give up/try it!  Here goes…

 

B=I[1+(r/12)]¹²ⁿ  

B is your balance at the end

I is your initial amount

r is your interest rate as a decimal

n is the number of years of a loan

 

So for a loan at 11.5%, r=0.115

If it’s for two years, n=2, but if it’s 18 months, then n=1.5, right?

 

And just for practice, if your initial loan was for $2000, and it’s at 3.5% interest, compounded monthly, and you have to pay it back in 20 years, then in twenty years you will owe $4023.40.  Remember that as things compound month-by-month, the amounts will be rounded a little, so you’ll end up a few dollars off. If your calculators give you an error code as mine did (even my scientific calculator), you can calculate it on an Excel spreadsheet, which would be entered in this pattern:  +I*(1+(r/12))^(12n)

Or, in this case:  +2000*(1+(0.035/12))^(12*20)

Good luck figuring out those finances!

 

Sidenote:  The 12s in the formula would change based on how many times per year the compounding occurred, so since there are 12 months in a year, a loan compounded monthly has 12s here. If the loan is compounded daily, the two 12s would be replaced with 365 in each spot. It makes a little difference, but not as much as you might think… 

Mistaken Enemy?

So, I've had a revelation of sorts--I think.  At least, it's the glimmer of a revelation.  It has to do with assuming that we have an enemy, due to all the propaganda and real evidence against this enemy.  And in this instance, I believe that moderation may indeed be the key.  Oh, how I love the concept of moderation--and I've been sad that it too often doesn't apply.  But perhaps here it does.
So, our enemy?  Bacteria.  We have been brought up in the era of public sanitation, refrigeration, and antibiotics.  We are so grateful that we aren't dying of cholera and the bubonic plague, right?  We are grateful that we can store and keep our food in the refrigerator.  Anyhow, I even saw a joke in my naturopathic medical school one day where a student had written a letter arguing against sanitation--signing it 'S. aureus'.  While the students obviously got the joke, one of our administrators was quite upset with it--I think he probably wasn't aware that S. aureus is one of the well-known pathogens. 
I listened to a nutritional conference and was impressed by the importance of healthy bacteria in our gut.  They protect the lining of the gut and manufacture nutrients, even as they help with nutrient absorption.  The speakers pointed out how, traditionally, our ancestors ate fermented foods.  They had yogurt, clabbered milk, sauerkraut...  Before refrigerators there were iceboxes, and before those were simply no refrigeration at all.  That steady stream of fermented foods were what our ancestors ate--and it is rather extreme that within a couple of generations we've completely subtracted that important dietary element.  Many wonder if the disrupted gut flora is associated with the skyrocketing incidences of food sensitivities/allergies.
Of course, pesticides, such as RoundUp, also disrupt the gut flora--so we have a double whammy there.  Triple if you add rampant use of antibiotics (such as in animal feed--which trickles down to us) or especially our own prescriptions of antibiotics.
So...while I knew that probiotics could be helpful, I had never considered the drastic upheaval that was caused by the advent of refrigeration.  We are supposed to have a steady stream of dietary, healthy bacteria.  I truly hadn't really gotten this concept before.  Therefore, I have begun making soy yogurt and sauerkraut.  Perhaps I wouldn't need the soy version if my GI tract had been healthier to begin with, but I do react significantly to dairy.
Okay, so that's where I was a week ago, when the urge struck me to look up macrobiotic diets.  I read some of the basic tenets of the macrobiotic lifestyle system, and I was struck by a recommendation to 'avoid taking long, hot baths in order to preserve your minerals'.  What?  This sounded silly, right?  But wait...we know and have known for ages that boiling vegetables causes them to leach their vitamins and minerals into the water--hence the steam recommendations.  What if...you got it...yep, we are in effect soaking out our nutrients into the clean, pure water?  Osmosis is a very real phenomenon, and folks have gone to the mineral springs for health benefits for centuries, if not millenia.  And guess what?  Yours truly has been a glutton for taking long, hot soaks--often daily.  The shower is only utilized if I'm in a big hurry.

So...I'm not saying I won't indulge in those long, hot soaks, but I did go to the store and buy some Epsom salts to add to the bath.  I plan to limit my temp, water level and soaking time if I'm not using those salts.  And, probably, I'll take showers instead more often--I can be in and out in no time flat if I'm not washing my hair.
Anyhow, I have often wondered why I seem to benefit so much from adding minerals to my supplementary regime, and why my mother didn't seem to have some of the same issues as me.  It may have nothing to do with it, but my mother has never been a hot bath soaker.  I've been that way since I was a tween--I'd sneak a book in there and stay for hours, refreshing the hot water as needed! 
Here I'd considered this practice beneficial and hygienic.  All those baths seem purifying, right?  Well, I'm going to give this epsom salt thing and pure water hot soak restriction thing a go and see if I start to feel an improvement.
So, anyhow, my argument is that we need to stop being so racist against the small, wee critters.  Just because a couple of them are big-time troublemakers doesn't mean they're all bad.  Quite the contrary, as we need them for our very survival!  

Fermentation and knitting

So, it's already February, and I'm still as scattered as can be.  I wanted to write on here just to discuss some of my latest notions and where I am with writing.
Writing progress is dismal at best, honestly.  I did start a new story last fall, once again (what is that now--four???), but the holidays disrupted my writing.  I'd planned to recommence in January, but it still hasn't happened.
And, really, I suppose I'll admit I've lost a bit of enthusiasm and drive.  I ask myself, "What's the purpose of this story?"  And the idea of writing for no particular purpose, of marketing to readers, of contributing to deforestation...sigh, I'm a bit down and out right now, to be honest.  I mean, I do love a good story, but I've been getting letters back from publishers saying things like, "We receive 20,000 submissions annually and only publish one book a month."  How many wonderful stories are out there, unpublished??? 
And while part of me wants to write for the purpose of creation and art, there are the other parts of me as well...the mother part that wants to spend time on family, on homemaking, on cooking.  There's the 'reader' and 'student' in me that is passionately interested in learning new things continually.  There's the ethicist that wants to garden and parent and communicate effectively...  There's all sorts of different dimensions to me, even aside from the batty, spacey, spinning-in-circles me that gets absolutely nothing done as I fret about getting nothing done.
I've taken up knitting and have made a few really neat scarves and a hat.  Not sure if I'll tackle a sweater eventually, but I do love the look of beautifully-knit cardigans and cable sweaters.  It's just easier to adjust a scarf or a hat than it is a sweater.  And besides, the amount of work is insane!  I'm not sure if I'll really go much further with it, but I may continue on the simple scarf venue--maybe some washcloths and such...  I like to knit simple things while watching TV or riding in the car, but I've found that complicated work (like an amazing Celtic-pattern neck warmer I've just completed), takes far too much focus and can eat up entire days.  And when my house is a mess, I've got a zillion things that need tending to, my poor unfinished books are dangling...well, it was an interesting adventure, but I may be moving on for the most part.  I may put in a little effort here and there for a slightly different pattern or some such...but I think I'm through with the multi-hour 'figuring it out' for now.  Maybe I'll get back to it when I'm older.  But I will say it was interesting, and I'm far more aware of patterns in clothing these days.  I have a whole new appreciation for the sweaters I already own...  You know, I say all this like it was a mistake or disappointment, but it wasn't.  It was precisely what I meant it to be.  Fiona and I learned together as a mother/daughter thing.  I said from the get-go that I wanted it to be a 'learning curve' so that I could knit more absentmindedly later.  That's exactly what happened.  Strange, that feeling of deflation about it, hmm?  Perhaps it is because I traded that in for working on my books.  Not purposely, but it's what happened.
And, I suppose, the same is true for the other things that I've been doing.  I just completed a rather 'random' 5-day nutritional on-line conference.  And, again, I'm so glad to have done it.  I was inspired very much--in particular by the ideas on fermentation.  In short, up until a couple of generations ago, our ancestors all ate fermented foods.  It was part of our diet.  Refrigeration changed all that.  Now, I'd considered gut dysbiosis before, but this took the concept to a whole new level.  With the pesticides in our environment and foods killing off our natural, healthy gut flora, we need those fermented products more than ever.  So...here's another success, I suppose...for the past week, I've been making my own soy yogurt (from store-bought soymilk, of course).  I'd bought it occasionally, but that stuff is expensive, and I'm always averse to fast-food packaging that causes massive waste.  This is very economical (maybe a quart for $1.50 or so?), without all the plastic, and my kids love it, too.  I hope to try to make my own sauerkraut soon, too (not sure how 'habitual' that will become!)

So...they say that once things are a habit, they no longer take so much energy.  I plan to make the soy yogurt regularly at night, and keep a big bunch of homemade gluten-free granola as a topping in the fridge.  If I make a big batch to keep handy, this should make it easier to have healthy snacks handy.

The fermentation lecture caused me to revisit French Women Don't Get Fat, by Mireille Guiliano.  She recommends yogurt as a daily part of the diet, but I'd mostly ignored it before because I can't do dairy.  However, I'm enthused now at incorporating yogurt into my daily regimen.   A half-cup of yogurt seems so much more filling than a half-cup of soymilk, though it should be roughly the same calories.
Oh, and do you remember how much honey I've always used in my coffee?  Well, I don't know why one little bit, but I've just discovered that if I steam and froth my soymilk FIRST, then I don't need additional sweetener in my coffee.  That, actually, is in part thanks to hearing several times lately (last time from a Rick Steves' tour video in England) that tea is better with the milk added first.  I don't take milk with my tea, but it prompted me to try the steaming and all--and voila!  They're right, of course (if I can credit them with my extrapolation).  My soymilk is pre-sweetened, of course, so there is that--but I wonder if the steaming process makes chemical alterations that sweeten it?

On top of fermenting and knitting and just daily trying-to-keep-up, we have been having more regular family meal times.  That's something I can't get back in the future, and I think it's important, so there's that.  Yes, this is absolutely a self-pep-talk. :)

I have to run to a conference at Fiona's school now, or I'd keep writing, but I wanted to check in and say hello.  I miss writing my blog.  I miss writing my books.  Maybe I'll eventually get back to it...but how, oh how, are we supposed to get everything done?  I still need to make that exercise thing more of a daily habit.  I'm certainly on it maybe 3 times per week, but it's at a bare minimum.  When you notice a big difference in your mood afterwards, then you know that you're absolutely not getting enough exercise!  And how much easier could it be for me?  We have our own workout center (i.e., elliptical and TV system) in the garage...sheesh...
  

 

My Christmastime Foot-in-Mouth Disease

Hi there!  Just wanted to say Merry Christmas! 

Finally spent two days on the chaos of downstairs, and it's in a good state for Christmas morning.  So happy about that.  Could NOT see enjoying Christmas morning without doing that.  What a relief!  Not perfect, but nice enough :).

I think I'll take some ginger this morning, as I could barely sleep.  Christmas is always a highly stressful time for me...I SO want everything to be perfect.  I sit around with bated breath as things go well, and when they don't for just a few moments, there's this massive swelling of upset!  Been through it too many times...

Anyhow, we opened one gift (our tradition) last night.  I got a mermaid painting from Fiona.  I LOVED it in progress, but the final product isn't quite as nice--because she finished the mermaid, who's only in about a tenth of the canvas, and then threw on a bunch of blue paint for the sea--without anything else in the water.  She was rushing to finish, but the blue also mixes with the mermaid's blue hair, which detracts a bit, too.  Sigh...  Anyhow, thinking of adding some material or something to the sides of the canvas, so the mermaid is silhouetted a bit more.  Maybe I'll outline her in something, too, to differentiate her from the water... 

Not to sound ungrateful!  I am totally blown away by Fiona's art these days, and I think I have very entrenched editorial tendencies!  Totally worth it.  I actually 'saved' an art piece, as I see it, that she did at camp a couple of years ago.  Same issue, sort of...  I added a coating of metallic glitter to the sort of pale, nondescript figure, some golden paint on the empty eyes, and 'presto', it's one of my favorite pieces!  I know that sounds like I just 'blinged' it up, which is sorta true, but it was just faded and hard to see before--not remarkable--almost like a pencil drawing with watercolor background right through it (sorta ghostly thing).  Now it looks mystical :).  So yep, thinking I will touch up my mermaid pic so I love it, too!

Oh, an example of my stressing out for Christmas...I gave Fiona a set of books.  She was thrilled, very happy!  They were old boxed sets of #1-#12 of The Babysitter's Club books.  Okay, so I've never even read them, but they suddenly looked perfect after seeing that her friends were reading The Hunger Games and such.  She's only 11, for goodness' sakes!  So, she's quite happily glowing over them, and I add, "I picked those up at the library sale!  So no new trees were used or anything."  My point?  Promoting ethical purchases, making HER feel good about the sourcing of her present.  She didn't seem too impressed with my remark, though she didn't make a face or anything.  So... my result?  I felt a bit like I'd announced, "Oh, I got you USED books because they were cheap and convenient.  They were someone's discards.  Merry Christmas."  Then, armed with that nervousness, I tried to brag on the boxes they come in, because in working on my own library, I finally learned that the boxes ARE extremely nice.  So I tried to explain, "And these books are in really great condition, because they've been kept in these boxes..."  so far, so good.  Then, I continue, "See the tops of the books?  They're really nice and clean.  The boxes keep the dust and roach droppings off of them."  Oh, Lord.  I have Foot-in-Mouth Disease. 

So there we go.  The girl was already happy.  What did I go and say all that for???  Sigh.  Anyhow, it's fine.  She ended up reading half of the first one last night.  I do hope they're good books.  I always sort of wanted to read them.  Don't know why I didn't.  Anyhow, some of my hope is that they promote truly good values.  Seems to me that all our stuff did that, whereas much of today's media seems to just be a lot of silly nonsense.  I sound old, don't I?  ;)

Okay, it's nice to chat, but it's now 6:30 and the kids will be up soon.  Merry Christmas!  I hope that you enjoy the holidays!

Kitchen re-do

So much for any author work for the rest of this year!  Looks like our house is scheduled for some immediate maintenance.  You know how it all snowballs, right?
Well, big dishwasher issues lead to ordering a new one.  In turn, that leads to, "Geesh, I suppose we should redo the tile first.  Don't want to have to pull it again to put in the flooring."  Which then prompts, "Oh goodness, better paint the walls before we put in the new flooring."
Yep, snowball effect.  And I've now ordered the new dishwasher, so we've gotta jump into action.

I suppose I wanted to say, "I know it's been a while, but looks like it'll be a while more before I get back to posting much."  However, knowing me, I generally have that posting urge when I'm super-busy at least as much as when nothing's going on.  I suppose it has to do with processing everything.

Gonna go get busy now. :)

Oh, to be Elitist like my Extremely Poor Grandmama...

Today, I went into the side yard and harvested 3 little sweet potatoes.  I sauteed them in a olive oil with some garlic, and they were delicious.  Absolutely fantastic.  I was really surprised.  I generally buy them at the Farmer's Market, considering them as fresh as can be, but if you think about it, those have likely been picked for at least a week by the time I cook them.  These, in contrast, were picked less than 15 minutes before they were in the pan.

15 minutes vs a week IS a big difference, though I think we're disposed to think of a week as pretty durn fresh.  Now, to continue the contrast...I bought a cucumber the other day from the regular grocery store.  No idea where it was grown (though I looked for the missing info in the store) or when it was picked, but I simply had a hankering for cucumber.  Now, when I peeled it and bit into it, although nothing was technically wrong with it--perfect size, not bitter, etc--I nearly threw it in the compost bin without eating it.  The flavor was so lame and lacking.  I'm so 'spoiled' these days with the farmer's market veggies.

Today, when I emptied Fiona's lunchbox, I nibbled a little on the apple core (I've been extracting seeds, too) and nearly spit it out.  It was awful!  Mushy blech.  Fiona saw me dealing with her lunchbox and said, "Oh, Mom, I bought home Naia's apple core."  Nice, hmm?

She's totally into the seed saving/growing thing, too.  At this rate, we're going to have an orchard!  I've already given my folks the first dozen apple tree seedlings :), and we've ten more in our windowsill plus I-don't-know-how-many waiting to sprout in the fridge.  Okay, so the apples I'm using aren't local (as I just indicated, I hope to rectify that within a few years), but they are organic.  I can't say Naia's wasn't, only that it was a dramatic contrast for some reason.  And I composted the seeds, because I didn't want to waste my time on possibly irradiated seeds or not-so-good apples.  And I have no idea about genetic engineering in apples--if that's even going on!  Oh, certified organic produce by definition is not genetically engineered, either, though there can be drift... 

Now, what's that say about the state of our society when we consider home-grown or local produce to be for the rich 'spoiled' folk?  Really sad.  Are we Americans THAT destitute that we don't expect quality produce?  Our society embraces poisoned, mutated goods as necessary?  Sheesh, even my poor, poor maternal grandmother ate very fresh foods year round.  She repurposed everything, she rarely bought anything new, and she always had seedlings sprouting in her house :).  In fact, she didn't even drive a car and lived out in the country!!!  I know she carried a few grocery staples in her cupboards, but she kept a huge garden and chickens.  She canned.  She had a huge, prolific pear tree.  Her husband, who died before I was born, had been a fisherman, but she mostly ate chicken as her meat source when I knew her.  Anyhow, my point is (although I'll admit I'm getting carried away with nostalgia) that this was an extremely POOR woman, yet she had extremely fresh, nonpoisoned, nonmutated food--and lived to the ripe old age of 97.  If she can have it, then why does our society consider it 'elitist' to expect or want it as well?  Her animals, and my paternal grandfather's farm animals as well, weren't kept in awful factory farm conditions.  Again, very poor people, but now considered 'elitist'.  Who put that spin on what is ordinary and natural?  A corporate spin, hmm?

I think it's quite ironic how folks tend to consider our modern, harried lives as so decadent and indulgent.  Our ancestors didn't necessarily have the chocolate, the packaged treats, the instant food...but what most people don't realize is how much BETTER their fresh food tasted.  Perhaps if we all had the freshest produce, the very best quality seasonal foods, we'd realize that THEY had the upper hand.  THEY had the truly delicious meals--and, yeah, they took it for granted, as we ought to be able to do.  That is, it was simply 'food' to them--they worked hard for it and expected exactly what they got.

And the truth of the matter is that it is CHEAP and not so very difficult to garden a bit ourselves.  We don't have to grow everything.  We can just start with a few items.  It's amazing the constant usage I get out of the little bit that we have.  Of course I want to really develop a garden, but I am thrilled with the constant supplementation of our meals with our own homegrown foods.  Tip:  Basil and mint are super-easy here in the Southeast.  I use both more than I ever would have believed! 

The easiest way to get started, if you have the access to one, is simply by frequenting your local farmer's market.  I suspect it'll instantly improve the taste of your meals and perhaps inspire you to do more.  Maybe one day your life will be as 'elitist' as my extremely poor grandmother's was. 

Johnny Appleseed and more

Yep, just call me Jonnie!  I'm so psyched :).  Many weeks ago, I had the concept to try to grow fruit trees from the organic seeds of the fruits we buy.  Part of my dilemma was that the fruit can be older and not as tasty as local, nonorganic choices, but, in my spoiled manner, I want BOTH!  How spoiled can one be, hmm, to want her tasty food not poisoned? 
Of course, some folks just order starts and that sort of thing, and I'd been thinking about trying to venture down that path, but when I have seeds RIGHT HERE that I've already paid for, and I clearly haven't found the energy or funds to order the trees, what can it hurt?
So, I looked up how to sprout apple seeds online a few weeks ago, and I found last night that AT LAST I had a dozen little, sprouting seeds!  And don't you know that I now have plans for distributing all sorts of little trees to family and friends!  Then they, who don't necessarily ever buy organically, can have organic and local and FREE fruits! 
Oh the excitement!  Have you ever watched your seeds sprout like that?  And to see ALL 12 of those seeds sprouted, after many weeks, is amazingly gratifying.  I really was afraid they weren't going to.  (Basically, keep them moist in a paper towel in the fridge--but I'd try for organic and local if possible, as if they've been irradiated, the seeds might be ruined.)
Anyhow, the time is NOW, people!  :)  So many of us, at my age, kick ourselves for not taking the initiative a few years ago, when it sounded like too far away to bother with it.  At my age, it's like, "If we'd planted some fruit trees the first year we lived here, we'd have all kinds of fruit by now."  Sigh.  The best time was 'yesterday', but the next best time is now! 

Let's see, about 'yesterday'...we have some beautiful pullets out here.  They're just a few months old, and we only have two mature egg-layers left, but I hope we've learned from our mistakes.  Basically, lock your girls up tight at night, have a good fence, clip those wings (just feathers, like toenails), and reinforce that coop.  Hopefully we'll be reaping some dividends in a couple more months.  As in egg dividends.
I have other, slighter dividends in, um, fertilizer :).  I am personally amazed at how excited I can get over chicken poop.  I collect it to add to the compost bins, which, over time are seeing less and less added to them.  For one thing, the chickens eat most of the scraps and peels that we have.  So, they're kind of like little composting machines :).

One small, easy thing you can do, that's instantaneously fun (well, instantaneous for a gardener!):  When you get green onions, save the root portion, maybe 3 inches, and stick that part in water for a couple of days.  By day 2, you'll see new growth sprouting upwards!  When I buy green onions, I've begun doing this and then, in a couple of days, I plant the bottoms out front.  I found that I just go out and clip the green portions, much like herbs, and leave the root in the ground.  Nothing is better than super-fresh...  Even my veggie-eschewing children were raving about the green onions on the baked potatoes last week!  I picked them virtually seconds before we ate them--as in, we were at the dinner table for Fiona's cooking night, and it struck me that the green onions would be a nice addition to the baked potatoes, so I got up and fetched them!

Oh, I'm not a gardener yet.  Just a wanna-be, I suppose.  But, you know, I tend to get so crazy-ambitious with my thoughts that it's overwhelming (the perfectionists' curse).  Really, though, everyone should be at least a little bit gardener, I think, if they have any sort of stable home life.  It's fun.  It's tasty.  It's easy to get started :).