A $60$-month loan is too be repaid with level payments of $1000$ at the end of each month. The interest in the last payment is $7.44$. Calculate the total interest paid over the life of the loan.
Let effective interest be $j$.
I tried finding the outstanding loan balance after 59 payments using the prospective method.
$B_{59|j}^p=1000[\frac{1-(1+j)^{-59}}{j}]$
Interest = $7.44$
Letting L=loan amount and P=Payment
$7.44=L-1000\frac{1-(1+j)^{-59}}{j}$
$L=Pa_{60|j}=1000[\frac{1-(1+j)^-60}{j}]$
$7.44=1000[\frac{1-(1+j)^-60}{j}]-1000\frac{1-(1+j)^{-59}}{j}$
Rearranging the above,
$(1+j)^{-60}=0.00794$
$\therefore, j=0.0839$
Hence replace $j=0.0839$ in L.
$1000[\frac{1-(1.0839)^-60}{0.0839}]=11, 824.31$
The problem is that the answer is $11,820.91
I cannot grasp where I went wrong.
For $0 < t < n$ the outstanding loan balance at time $t$ computed after making the $t$-th payment is $$B^p_t = P\,a_{\overline{n-t}|j}=P\,\frac{1-v^{n-t}}{j}$$ by the prospective method. So we have that the debt ad time $t$ is $D_t=B^p_t$ and the interest payed at time $t+1$ will be $I_{t+1}=jD_t=jB^p_t$, that is $$ I_{t+1}=jB^p_{t} = jP\,a_{\overline{n-t}|j}=P(1-v^{n-t}) $$
So at time $t=59$, we will have, for a loan to be repayed in $n=60$ payments of $P=1000$, $$ 7.44=I_{60} = jP\,a_{\overline{1}|j}=1000(1-v)\qquad\Longrightarrow\quad j=\frac{I_{60}}{P-I_{60}}=0.7496\% $$ The total Interest payed over the life of the loan $L$ is $$ I=nP-L=P(n-a_{\overline{n}|j}) $$ that is $$ I=1000(60-11.82091)= 11,820.91 $$