See where every payment goes monthly

What Is an Amortisation Schedule?

An amortisation schedule is a complete table of loan payments, illustrating how much of each payment goes to interest, how much reduces the principal, and what the remaining balance is after each payment. It's essential for understanding any loan.

Why Does the Split Between Interest and Principal Matter?

Many people find it surprising just how much of their early payments go towards interest rather than actually reducing the loan balance. In the first few months of a long-term loan, the interest portion can dwarf the principal repayment. This is worth considering when thinking about overpayments or early settlement. It can help to look at the full schedule rather than focusing only on the monthly payment figure. One approach is to identify exactly which month the balance tips in your favour, where more of each payment finally starts chipping away at the principal itself. Seeing that moment laid out clearly can be genuinely motivating.

Common Things People Overlook

A common oversight is assuming that a lower monthly payment always means a better deal. Stretching a loan term reduces monthly outgoings but typically increases the total interest paid over the life of the loan. It is also easy to forget that even small differences in interest rates compound significantly over several years. Running a few different scenarios side by side can make these differences much more visible and easier to compare.

A worked example

Try the defaults: loan amount of 25,000, annual interest rate of 7.5, loan term of 5. The tool returns 500.95. You can adjust any input and the result updates as you type — no submit button, no reload. That's the real power here: seeing how sensitive the output is to one or two assumptions.

What moves the number most

The result responds to Loan Amount, Annual Interest Rate, and Loan Term. Not every input has equal weight. Flip one at a time toward extreme values to feel which ones move the needle most for your situation.

The formula behind this

This calculator uses the standard amortisation formula to compute monthly loan payments, then generates a schedule showing how each payment splits between principal and interest over the loan term. It assumes a fixed interest rate, regular monthly payments, and no additional fees or prepayments. Results are estimates for illustration purposes. Everything the calculator does is shown in the formula box below, so you can check the math against your own spreadsheet if you want.

Why run the calculation

Utility bills creep. Small annual increases stack into meaningful differences over a decade. Running this once a year and switching providers when the gap widens is one of the easiest ways to keep household costs in check.

What this doesn't capture

Usage varies month-to-month; tariffs change; discounts come and go. The figure here is a clean baseline — your actual annual bill will fluctuate around it. Use the calculation to benchmark providers, not as a prediction of a specific bill.