Question

12. Buy on time or pay cash?

You are going to make a substantial purchase. You have enough money to pay cash, but don’t know if that’s the way to make best use of your assets. Maybe you should take out an installment loan to make the purchase and invest the cash you would otherwise have used to pay for it.

Use the information provided to complete the following worksheet and analyze how the numbers work out most favorably for you. For simplicity, compounding is ignored in calculating both the cost of interest and interest earnings. [Note: Enter your dollar answers rounded to the nearest two cents and precede numbers that are less than zero (0) with a minus sign (–).]

Buy On Time or Pay Cash
Cost of Borrowing
1.	Terms of the loan
	a. Amount of the loan	$13,000
	b. Length of the loan (in years)	3
	c. Monthly payment	$401.44
2.	Total loan payments made
	($ per month months)		$
3.	Less: Principal amount of the loan		$
4.	Total interest paid over life of loan		$
5.	Tax considerations:
	– Is this a home equity loan?	no
	– Do you itemize deductions on your federal tax return?	yes
6.	What federal tax bracket are you in?	10%
7.	Taxes saved due to interest deductions
	($ x %)		$
8.	Total after-tax interest cost on the loan		$
Cost of Paying Cash
9.	Annual interest earned on savings
	(3% x )		$
10.	Annual after-tax interest earnings
	($ x %)		$
11.	Total after-tax interest earnings over life of loan
	($ x years)		$
Net Cost of Borrowing
12.	Difference in cost of borrowing versus cost of paying cash		$

Based on the numbers alone, you should      because:

The interest on a loan will cost you more than the interest you would earn if you invested the principal.

If you invest the principal, you’ll earn more interest than you’ll pay on the loan.

Answer 1

The worksheet is completed as follows:

Based on the numbers alone, you should pay cash for purchase instead of borrowing because:

The interest on a loan will cost you more than the interest you would earn if you invested the principal.