Model buying a house or car

When you want to see what a home or vehicle purchase would do to your money, the What-if planner has two shortcuts: Buy a House and Buy a Vehicle. Each one asks for a few numbers and then adds three linked items to your scenario at once — an asset for what you're buying, an amortized loan for what you'd borrow, and a monthly payment bill.

An amortized loan is one you pay off in equal monthly payments over a set number of months, with each payment covering part interest and part principal.

Before you start

• Purchase bundles live inside the What-if planner, which is free for the account owner and their spouse.
• Open or create a scenario first — the bundle adds its items to whatever scenario is active. See Test a what-if scenario.

Steps

1. In the What-if planner, open or create a scenario.
2. In the right panel, Add to Scenario, click Buy a House or Buy a Vehicle.
3. Enter a Name (for example, "FL House" or "New Truck").
4. Enter the Purchase Price and the Down Payment.
5. Set the Interest Rate. It starts at 6.5% for a house and 7.0% for a vehicle — change it to your rate.
6. Set the term — Term (years) for a house (starts at 30) or Term (months) for a vehicle (starts at 60).
7. Check the This will add to your scenario preview — it shows the asset, the loan, and the estimated monthly payment. Click Add House or Add Vehicle.

What the bundle creates

For a house named "FL House", the bundle adds:

• Asset — FL House: its value equals the purchase price.
• Debt — FL House Mortgage: the loan amount, which is the purchase price minus the down payment.
• Bill — FL House Payment: the amortized monthly payment, set to Monthly and marked as a need.

A vehicle bundle works the same way, except the debt is named "… Loan" instead of "… Mortgage". The monthly payment comes from a standard amortized-loan formula using your price, down payment, interest rate, and term. You can check the same math with the Loan Payment Calculator.

Good to know

• The three items stay grouped. Edit the bundle to change any number and all three items are rebuilt. Remove the bundle and all three go away together — you can't edit or delete the asset, loan, or payment on their own.
• Only two bundles exist. Buy a House and Buy a Vehicle are the only purchase templates. For anything else, add items individually with Add Item.
• Bundles cover the basics only. They use purchase price, down payment, interest rate, and term. There are no fields for closing costs, PMI, HOA fees, taxes, insurance, or a trade-in — add a separate bill if you want to include those.
• It's still point-in-time. Like the rest of the What-if planner, a purchase bundle compares your money today against today with the purchase applied. It doesn't project the loan's payoff over the years — the retirement projection handles long-term loan payoff instead.