Where are you in the deal?
Keep your whole month in view.
We explain the numbers. Not financial, legal or credit advice. We recommend no lender.
Nothing you type leaves this device.
What lands in your account each month?
Your take-home pay, after tax. A round number is fine.
What does your home cost each month?
Rent or mortgage.
What do your other debts cost each month?
Card, student and other loan payments, added up. Leave out a car you would replace. Type 0 if you have none.
What is the most the car should cost you each month?
Payment, insurance, fuel, upkeep and registration, all in. You choose it.
What does the car cost?
The price you are looking at. A guess is fine.
New or used?
Your answer
What this answer is based on
Side by side
More
Show the math
Each cost, worked out
The most payment your limit carries
Your whole month
Where the starting numbers come from
Save or share these numbers
Off unless you tick it. Saved only in this browser. Untick to erase.
Your limit and bills
The limit is the most you want all car costs to take each month. Bills are what you pay every month that is not a debt.
Your limit
Your debts, one by one
List each card or loan to try a rebalance. When you list them, their payments replace the total you typed. We never ask for account numbers.
The car, in detail
Four paths. Dashed lines mark stand-ins, labelled "example", until you type yours.
Driving, the same for every path
Rebalance
What if you moved card or loan balances into one fixed loan? Type the rate and months yourself. We do not know what any lender would offer you.
Worked examples
Examples use made-up balances and rates to show how the trade-off works. They are not offers.
What Balance Point does
Balance Point is a free guide for the day you buy a car. You type a few monthly numbers. It shows what the car costs you each month, all in, next to the most you want all car costs to take. It does not tell you what to buy, what to offer or whom to borrow from.
How a deal goes, and where the guide helps
- Getting ready: set the monthly limit for all car costs.
- Looking at a car: check one price against your limit.
- Looking at the numbers: type the payment, the months and what you know from the sheet, and compare offers.
- Your trade-in: see what money still owed on a trade does to the new loan.
- The finance office: see what each add-on adds to your month, and the cancel facts for your state.
- Already bought: read the cancel facts for the add-ons you bought.
A worked example
Say your limit is $900 a month for the whole car. A sheet shows a payment of $548 for 60 months. Insurance, fuel, upkeep and registration are not in that payment. With example costs of about $390 a month, the car costs about $938 a month. That is $38 over the limit. A second sheet shows $461.26 for 75 months. Each month costs $87 less, but the 15 extra months add about $1,715 to the total of payments. The guide shows both facts side by side and leaves the choice to you. These numbers are examples.
Where the numbers come from
Four starting numbers come from public sources: the US average gas price and the average electricity price (Energy Information Administration), average yearly miles per driver (Federal Highway Administration) and the average new-car loan rate (Federal Reserve). The other example figures (insurance, upkeep, registration, a used-car rate and sales tax) are round numbers with no source. They are marked as examples until you type your own. The How it works page lists each source and date.
The finance office
The finance-office pages give plain facts about add-on products in Oregon, Washington and California: vehicle service contracts, GAP waivers, and credit life and disability insurance. Each fact shows the words of its source and a link to it. Laws change, so each page says when its facts were last checked.
What Balance Point is not
It is not a lender and it names none. It does not ask for your name, email or card number. The numbers you type stay in your browser. It is general information, not financial, legal or credit advice.