How the numbers work

The rate board

The rate board lists published benchmarks that shape personal loan pricing. It is a reference, not a price list: no row is an offer, and none is the rate a lender would give you.

Row	Series	Source	How often the source publishes
Fed funds target range	Target range for the federal funds rate	Federal Reserve, FOMC statement	After each of the eight scheduled FOMC meetings a year, or at an unscheduled meeting
Bank prime rate	Bank prime loan rate (DPRIME)	Federal Reserve H.15, via FRED	Each business day
10-year Treasury yield	Market yield on 10-year Treasury securities (DGS10)	Federal Reserve H.15, via FRED	Each business day
24-month personal loan, bank average	Commercial bank interest rate on 24-month personal loans	Federal Reserve G.19 Consumer Credit	A quarterly survey, published in the monthly G.19 release after the quarter
Credit card APR	Rate on credit card accounts assessed interest	Federal Reserve G.19 Consumer Credit	Quarterly, in the G.19 release
30-year fixed mortgage average	Primary Mortgage Market Survey	Freddie Mac	Weekly
Consumer prices	CPI for all urban consumers, change over 12 months	Bureau of Labor Statistics	Monthly

How the board is dated and updated

• Copied by hand. We read each value on the source’s own page and enter it ourselves. Nothing on the board is fetched live, so a figure changes only when we change it.
• Every row shows its date and source. A daily series shows the day of the reading. The mortgage row shows the week. A quarterly survey shows its quarter, for example “Q3 2026”, along with the date the Fed published it, because the survey describes rates from weeks or months before publication.
• When we check. We check a row after its source’s scheduled release and review the whole board at least once a week. The date on the board tells you when it was last checked.
• When a source skips a figure. If an agency does not publish a value, the row keeps the last published figure with its own date rather than an estimate. The September 2026 CPI row is an example: BLS published no 12-month change for October 2026, so the row still shows the 12 months to September.
• Change arrows. The change on a row compares the reading with the previous reading of the same series, never with a forecast.

How articles are researched

We start from primary sources: Federal Reserve statements and statistical releases, BLS reports, Treasury data, Regulation Z and other regulations on ecfr.gov, CFPB, NCUA, FDIC and IRS guidance. Market data that only a private company publishes, such as Freddie Mac’s mortgage survey, is named as such. Commercial sites are used only for market context, and the text says who they are.

Each article lists its sources and carries a dated check note: “We checked the facts on this page against these sources on” a given date. When a source publishes new data that changes a figure in an article, we update the figure, the article’s “Updated” date and its check note. Errors are corrected as described in the editorial policy. Changes to the rules and rates we track are logged on the news desk.

What every calculator assumes

All four calculators at Run the numbers run entirely in your browser. What you type is not sent to TrustCedar or anyone else, and it is not saved. If you start a loan request from a calculator page, the form can carry the calculator’s payment, APR and term with it, and only if you send the request.

The calculators share these assumptions:

• A fixed-rate installment loan with level monthly payments, the first payment one month after the loan starts.
• Interest each month at the APR divided by 12. With r = APR / 12 (as a decimal) and n months, the payment on a principal P is P × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n).
• An origination fee, when you enter one, is taken out of the loan proceeds. To put a given balance in your hands, the loan must be balance / (1 − fee), rounded up to the cent.

Example: $10,000 over 36 months at 12% gives a payment of $332.14 and about $1,957 in interest over the life of the loan. With a 5% fee taken from the proceeds, you would need to borrow $10,526.32 to receive $10,000.

Rate change calculator

Computes the payment and total interest on the same loan at two APRs, then shows the difference per month and over the full term. It uses the payment formula above. It answers “what is a quarter point worth on this loan,” not “what rate will I get.”

Loan vs. card payoff calculator

The card side pays a balance down month by month with the fixed payment you enter. Each month it adds interest at the card APR divided by 12, subtracts the payment and repeats until the balance is gone. It assumes no new purchases and no change in the card APR. If your payment does not cover the first month’s interest, or the payoff would take more than 50 years, the calculator shows no payoff.

The loan side borrows enough to clear the card balance after the origination fee, using the fee formula above, and repays it with level payments. The cost of the loan is its interest plus the fee. The calculator compares that cost with the card’s total interest.

Refinance break-even calculator

Your current loan keeps its APR for the months it has left. The new loan pays off the remaining balance, with its fee taken from the proceeds, at the new APR and term. The calculator shows both payments, the monthly saving, and the first month in which the savings add up to the fee. If the payment does not drop, or the fee is not recovered within the shorter of the two terms, it shows no break-even month. It also compares what you would still pay on each loan, because a longer new term can lower the payment while raising the total cost.

Real cost calculator

Computes the payment and interest at your APR, then values each payment in today’s dollars at the inflation rate you expect. Inflation is converted to a monthly rate as (1 + π)^(1/12) − 1, and payment number k is divided by (1 + monthly rate)^k. The real interest is the sum of those discounted payments minus the amount borrowed. The real rate shown is (1 + APR) / (1 + π) − 1.

Example: $10,000 over 36 months at 12%, with 3.7% expected inflation. The payments total about $11,311 in today’s dollars, so the real interest is about $1,311 instead of $1,957, and the real rate is about 8.00%. The inflation figure is your assumption. No one knows the future rate, and the result moves with it.

What the calculators leave out

• Estimates only. Results are examples built from the numbers you enter. They are not offers and not the terms any lender will give you.
• No taxes or insurance. The calculators leave out taxes, credit insurance, late fees and any other charges beyond the origination fee.
• Fixed rates. Every loan is treated as fixed-rate. A variable-rate loan or line of credit can cost more or less than shown.
• Card interest simplified. Most card issuers charge interest daily on the average daily balance. The calculator uses one monthly charge at APR / 12, so a real statement can differ by a small amount, and minimum payment rules are not modeled.
• Rounding. Payments are shown to the cent and totals in whole dollars, so sums can differ from a lender’s schedule by a few cents to a few dollars.

If a number on the site looks wrong to you, tell us through the contact page.