About LoanChop

LoanChop is a free loan prepayment calculator that shows how extra principal payments shorten the life of a loan and cut total interest cost. No signups, no paywalls, no data collection — just an amortization schedule, a side-by-side comparison of normal vs. accelerated payoff, and the math you need to make a confident decision.

A brief history

LoanChop started as a small side project to answer a question I kept getting asked: “If I throw an extra hundred dollars at my mortgage every month, how much does that actually save me?” The arithmetic isn't hard, but it's tedious to do by hand, and most online calculators either hide the schedule, gate it behind a signup, or quietly upsell a refinance product. I wanted a clean, honest tool that just answered the question.

The first version was a spreadsheet. It became a small PHP page, then a standalone site, and in 2026 I rebuilt it on a modern static stack (Next.js) for better speed and accessibility. Each rewrite tightened the math, expanded the schedule view, and added a balance chart so you can see the two payoff curves diverge.

How the math is verified

The calculator uses standard amortization formulas — the same monthly-payment and remaining-balance equations that banks use internally. Each result is cross-checked against published bank amortization tables and against independently-built reference schedules to make sure the rounding behavior, interest accrual, and final-month logic all line up.

Edge cases like balloon payments, biweekly schedules, and near-final-month rounding are where amortization calculators most often disagree, so reader feedback on those cases is especially valuable. If you compare LoanChop to your bank's schedule and see a discrepancy, please email me — I'd rather fix a bug than defend one.

A note on appropriate use

LoanChop is an educational tool, not financial advice. It does not model the tax effects of mortgage interest deduction, prepayment penalties, escrow changes, or the opportunity cost of paying down a low-rate loan instead of investing the extra cash. For decisions that depend on your personal tax situation or overall financial plan, consult a CPA or a licensed financial advisor.

About the author

Hi, I'm Jimmy Raymond. I built LoanChop and maintain it. I studied at New Mexico Tech and the University of New Mexico, where I earned a B.S. in Environmental Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science. The two degrees are what made this site possible — environmental engineering gave me the dimensional-analysis discipline that keeps the units honest, and computer science gave me the tools to turn equations into software a stranger can use in thirty seconds.

My professional work has spanned safety-critical aerospace and space systems, real-time embedded software, and full-stack web development. I've shipped code to the standards used for aircraft, medical devices, and nuclear systems — contexts where “almost right” isn't right. That discipline shapes how LoanChop is built: the formula has to be correct, the assumptions have to be stated, and the limits of the tool have to be honest.

I'm based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Contact

Email me at aj@ajdesigner.com for corrections, feature requests, or general feedback. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

— Jimmy