When you look at the best CD rates, you will see that many of them are for periods other than 12 months. Some have 6, some have 18, and the bottom line is that you want to figure out how much money you’ll get for the money you deposit. Enter in the CD interest calculator. Here’s the information you’ll need:
Interest rate APY (if you have APR, convert it with this APR APY Calculator)
CD term (number of months)
Amount deposited (no commas or dollar signs please)
Compounding frequency (times per year) – 1 for annually, 12 for monthly, etc.
If you don’t have compounding frequency, don’t worry about it because changing that will only affect the interest earned value by a small amount. When in doubt, pick monthly compounding frequency.
(If you have the APY and the term is 12 months, the interest you’ll earn is simply the APY times the amount deposited)
For example, let’s say you wanted to know how much you’ll put in your pocket with a deposit of $10,000 into a 18-month 2.05% APY CD from Ally Bank. You would enter the following values into the calculator:
CD Interest rate: 2.05
CD term: 18
Amount deposited: 10000
Compounding frequency: 365
Click “Calculate CD Interest” on the CD interest calculator and you’ll see that you’ll have earned $309.07 after 18 months. This is only a rough estimate (it’ll be off a little because of how the numbers are rounded) but should give you a good idea of what to expect. And don’t forget about taxes
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