Auto Loan Calculator With Biweekly Payments
Biweekly Payment Calculator
This interactive calculator shows how much your bi-weekly car payments will be and how much interest you will pay on your vehicle. Each year has 52 weeks or 26 biweekly periods in it, which makes shifting from monthly payments to biweekly payments create an effective 13th monthly payment to pay down the loan quicker.
- Paying Biweekly Starting From Loan Origination: If you started making biweekly payments from the very beginning of the loan enter the initial loan balance as well as your loan term in years & the interest rate on your loan. This will automatically amortize your loan over the original term, figure biweekly payments & let you know how much interest you will save with biweekly payments.
- Paying Biweekly in Middle of Loan Term: If you began making biweekly payments in the middle of the loan term then enter the current outstanding loan balance & select how many years and months you have remaining in the loan term. This will automatically amortize your remaining balance over the remaining term, figure biweekly payments & let you know how much interest you will save with biweekly payments.
- Adding Extra to Your Payments: If you also added an extra amount to each biweekly payment then please enter that extra payment amount to calculate how much that will increase your biweekly payments, how much faster your loan will be paid off & how much interest you will save when accounting for adding the additional amount to your biweekly payments.
Recent Auto Loan Rates
We publish an auto lender review guide to help buyers see current rates from top nationwide lenders.
For your convenience, here is data on what rates looked like across Q1 of 2023 after the Federal Reserve likely completed most of the current hiking cycle.
| Borrower | Credit Score | New | Used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Prime | 781 - 850 | 5.18% | 6.79% |
| Prime | 661 - 780 | 6.40% | 8.75% |
| Nonprime | 601 - 660 | 8.86% | 13.28% |
| Subprime | 501 - 600 | 11.53% | 18.55% |
| Deep Subprime | 300 - 500 | 14.08% | 21.32% |
Source: Experian 2023 Q1 data
Here were what rates looked like in Q2 of 2022.
| Borrower | Credit Score | New | Used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Prime | 781 - 850 | 2.96% | 3.68% |
| Prime | 661 - 780 | 4.03% | 5.53% |
| Nonprime | 601 - 660 | 6.57% | 10.33% |
| Subprime | 501 - 600 | 9.75% | 16.85% |
| Deep Subprime | 300 - 500 | 12.84% | 20.43% |
Source: Experian 2022 Q2 data, published in August of 2022
For historical comparison, here is what the data looked like in Q1 of 2020 as the COVID-19 crisis spread across the United States.
| Borrower | Credit Score | New | Used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Prime | 720 or higher | 3.65% | 4.29% |
| Prime | 660 - 719 | 4.68% | 6.04% |
| Nonprime | 620 - 659 | 7.65% | 11.26% |
| Subprime | 580 - 619 | 11.92% | 17.74% |
| Deep Subprime | 579 or lower | 14.39% | 20.45% |
Source: Experian 2020 Q1 data, published on August 16, 2020
Across the industry, on average automotive dealers make more money selling loans at inflated rates than they make from selling cars. Before you sign a loan agreement with a dealership you should contact a community credit union or bank and see how they compare. You can often save thousands of dollars by getting a quote from a trusted financial institution instead of going with the hard sell financing you will get at an auto dealership.
If our site helped you save time or money, please get your accessories like cell phone chargers, mounts, radar detectors and other such goodies from Amazon.com through our affiliate link to help support our site. Thank you!
Saving Money With Biweekly Payments
If you are looking to save money on large loans, there is one simple change you can make that could save you hundreds or thousands of in interest charges, and allow you to pay your loan off several months to years early. The secret is to cut your monthly loan payment in half. Then send this amount in every two weeks rather than once a month. Since a year has 52 weeks, you will make 26 payments. This is the equivalent of making 13 monthly payments instead of 12. If the biweekly loan payment arrangement is set up correctly, the extra loan payment all goes toward paying down the loan's principal. Reducing the loan balance faster substantially reduces the total amount of interest that will paid. Let's take a look at an example to see how this cost savings is achieved.
Biweekly Loan Payment Example
The gains from making biweekly payments are easier to notice with longer term loans & loans for higher Dollar amounts. Let's say a homeowner has a $100,000 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a 6.5% interest rate. If it takes the homeowner the entire 30 years to pay off the loan, the homeowner will end up making 360 monthly payments of $632. This amounts to $127,544 in interest and $100,000 in principal. The grand total paid would be $227,544. If the homeowner set up biweekly loan payments instead, they would pay $316 every two weeks for 24 years. The total amount of interest paid would be only $97,214 in addition to the $100,000 principal. By making this one simple change, the homeowner will save $30,329 in interest and pay their loan off six years early!
To find out how much you could potentially save on either a new or existing loan, you can plug in your numbers for principal loan balance, annual interest rate and amortization period (length of loan). The above calculator will give you a comparison between the monthly and biweekly payment schedule.
Benefits of Biweekly Loan Payments
As you can see from the above example, biweekly loan payments result in several important benefits:
- Your loan can be paid off much faster
- Save tens of thousands in interest paid
- Build up home equity more quickly
In the above calculator all calculations are automatically done immediately, which enables you to adjust variables and see the impact of different changes.
If, for instance, your $25,000 5-year car loan @ 7.42% has a monthly payment of $500but you know you can afford $300 every other week then enter your inital loan information and the calculator will return a $250 bi-weekly payment based on your original payment. Then you can add $50 to the extra payment amount to turn this $250 bi-weekly payment into a $300 payment.
| Monthly Payments | Bi-weekly | Bi-weekly w Extra $50 | Bi-weekly w Extra $100 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payment Amount | $500 / mo | $250 / week | $300 / week | $350 / week |
| Total Interest Paid | $4,999.93 | $4,476.93 | $3,588.94 | $2,997.59 |
| Interest Savings | n/a | $523.00 | $1,410.99 | $2,002.34 |
| Time to Pay Off Loan | 5 years | 4 years 6 months | 3 years 8 months | 3 years |
| Time Saved | n/a | 6 months | 1 year 4 months | 2 years |
How to Setup a Biweekly Loan Payment
You cannot simply send in half of your payment every two weeks. You will need to make arrangements with your lender. Not all lenders will allow biweekly loan payments, however many do. If your lender does allow for biweekly loan payments, they will be automatic withdrawals from your bank account. There are two major things you need to check for. First, you need to make certain there is not a prepayment penalty for paying off your note early. Second, make sure that your lender immediately credits the biweekly payment. If the payment is not credited until the second half of the payment is received, you will not see any benefit from a biweekly payment plan. Some lenders hold partial payments until receiving the remainder of the payment. If this is the way your lender operates, then there is no advantage to setting up automatic biweekly loan payments. If they do credit the payments immediately, then you can go ahead and set up a biweekly payment arrangement with your lender. You may be charged a fee to do so.
Biweekly Loan Payment Alternatives
If you are unable to setup a biweekly loan payment schedule with your lender, there are still several ways to achieve a similar result.
One way to do this is set up an automatic savings plan, where money is automatically deposited into a savings account. Take one monthly payment and divide it by 12. Then have this amount deposited into your savings account each month. At the end of the year you will have the equivalent of one extra monthly payment, and you can send this to the bank to be applied against the principal. Or you can send an extra 1/12 in with your regular monthly payments, which will also help you pay off your loan earlier and save on the total amount of interest you pay.
There are also third party companies that will set up biweekly loan payments for you. However, these companies will charge a set up fee of several hundred dollars. It is usually best to either set up your payment schedule directly with your lender or make arrangements to pay the extra payment yourself and avoid the setup fee that third party services charge.
Whether you make biweekly loan payments, send an extra payment at the end of the year or add extra money to your payment each month, all of these methods will save you a substantial amount of money by reducing the total interest paid on the loan. Whether you have an existing loan or are considering a new one, you should strongly consider setting up a biweekly loan payment schedule. You will save thousands in interest charges and pay your loan off early.
