Computing Mortgage Payments: Fill & Download for Free

I once got a free $1,050 mortgage payment because my bank’s computer caused an error that the bank was too proud or disinterested to correct.I use online banking, and my bank — part of a big national chain — also held my mortgage. The time came to make my usual monthly payment. I was on the bank’s website and in the middle of making the transaction when I noticed an odd and momentary screen glitch. However, seconds later things returned to normal, and the site confirmed that my payment had been made.That glitch left me a little uneasy, though, so a bit later I looked at my online checking account. The mortgage payment had not been deducted from my balance!If the error had been $10 or so, I might have decided it wasn’t worth notifying the bank. But I couldn’t ignore a $1,050 error, and I didn’t think the bank would, either. I kept expecting to get a phone call or letter requesting payment. But a couple of weeks went by with no such contact, so I went to my nearby branch bank to rectify things.The bank teller looked up my account on her computer and verified that, sure enough, I’d been credited with the mortgage payment but not with an equivalent deduction from my checking account. She said she’d notify her manager.A couple more weeks went by and again I’d heard nothing, so I returned to the branch and spoke to the same teller. She said higher-ups had assured her manager that no such error was possible. Despite the error being right in front of them on their computers, “it couldn’t have happened.”A friend advised me that given the size of the error, I should have some proof that I had reported it and tried to fix it. So I sent the branch bank manager a registered letter outlining everything. The manager signed for the letter … and that was the last I ever heard about it.A free mortgage payment. Who says banks are always heartless money-grubbers?- - - - - - - - - - -Edit: Wow! I’ve never gotten so many views and upvotes before. Thanks, everyone!

It depends what you're doing. If you’re in the right sub-fields, you can get paid pretty.My first job in Manhattan as a senior developer was around $225,000. (Now, I do quantitative modeling and we just send you a bill.)If you're doing lower-tier front-end work, your pay will be less. They'll try and start you around $80,000. If they can get away with it. And you'll top out around $120,000. Maybe $160,000 if you have background with the top requested skills. But you’ll typically have to change jobs to get those salary moves.No hate there, front-end people. Good front-end designers are hard to find. There's just more of you. Still, anyone sufficiently motivated can learn these skills in 6–12 months. And that's some damn class mobility, I say. 'Merica.If you have a decent work background, the salaries can creep up into the high 100s, low 200s, and it keeps going. I had someone doing a search about a month ago and the stated compensation was $350,000. But those are not “Oh, yeah, I dabble with Angular”-projects. And if you're not starting up or snagging equity, your pay will fizzle out somewhere up there. But there's not really a very bright line. Some people just want a steady paycheck, some people do absolutely fantastic work but they’re just not motivated enough to reach for the higher paycheck, and other people really want to get their hands dirty.The thing you really have to keep in mind about Manhattan salaries, is that these numbers sounds high. But Manhattan is expensive. Very expensive. Even a $120,000 salary gets hacked to death by cost of living. $120,000 in Orlando just isn't the same as Manhattan.And sorry to all the New York lovers: New York City sucks. It really does. I mean, you can certainly love things about it. I do. But on the whole, the quality of life is just so much lower, and there’s not much you can do about it.For context, this is my favorite store-brand yogurt:I'm used to picking them up for .80-$1 each. My corner grocer in Manhattan was selling them for something absurd like $4.00 each. I had a small heart attack the first time I saw that.I have a property in New England. House on the outskirts of a small city, built in 1890. For what the the monthly mortgage payment was, you cannot rent a small 1-bedroom in the East Village.But just last week, we were talking about purchasing a new place, I looked at the prospected five-figure monthly mortgage payment and thought, “Yeah, that’s much lower than I was expecting.”Manhattan will seriously distort your perception of prices.

A few years back, after being tired of working in labor intensive jobs, I apply with a temp agency that primarily had clients in the real estate market. My goal was to sit my tired ass down in an office, for once, and enjoy the feeling of not having pain in my back and knees anymore. It worked. Got a job in short order for a property preservation company.For those who are unaware of what a property preservation company does, here is the run down.Let’s say you pull out a mortgage loan to buy your first home. Until you have that mortgage paid off, that house isn’t really yours and the financial lender that coughed up all that cash has your balls by a grip. Fuck up, and they’ll kick you out of your own house in a heartbeat. That house you put so much love into is suddenly in foreclosure. That’s where I came in.Almost immediately, that house of yours is put on a list of foreclosures within the lending company. They gotta get their money back somehow, but they’ll often wait to list it as a foreclosure in the hope that the original mortgage holder will bounce back, pay the fees, and continue on. Until that time, however, the house needs to look good. It needs to be maintained. Lawns need to be mowed, pipes need to be capped and treated with anti-freeze, and locks need to be changed. Often, when evicted, the original tenants will trash the house or just leave most of their crap there. Teams will need to be sent to clear out and clean the house to make it presentable again. I’m the one that facilitated those changes. I’m the vulture that circled these foreclosed homes.It was a Saturday morning, and there was only a skeleton crew in the office. Me and a few other people were making calls and scheduling work to be done. I get a call, and it’s an older woman. I check her on my computer, and she’s in her late 70’s. Widowed, lives alone, and has struggled with her mortgage payments in the past; a mortgage taken when her husband was probably alive, but one that was hard to keep up now that she was alone. She calls, and she sounds confused and scared. She’s wondering why there are strange men in her home, pouring anti-freeze down her drains and packing up her belongings. They wouldn’t answer her questions, but gave her a number. Mine.Apparently, this poor woman was out taking care of her dying sister in another state. Mortgage payments were farthest from her mind. Her late husband used to take care of all that, after all. The bank sent her e-mails, but she doesn’t even remember her own e-mail address. They would call, but not leave any messages, and she doesn’t answer numbers she doesn’t recognize. It had been less than two months since she left her house to take care of her sister, and there she is, finally coming home only to see her door cracked open with the old locks lying on the ground. The police are called, but they can’t do anything. By then, the bank was in full charge of everything. As far as legality goes, this poor old woman was trespassing on her own home.She could pay, it would just have to wait until Monday. Can I please get these strange men out of her house? Can I please just wait until Monday? Can I please just show some compassion?I tried. I called my boss. I called his boss. I called her boss. I even tried calling the lender, against all protocol. They all said the same thing.“She should have paid her mortgage.”That was the first time I left a job for the sake of my own integrity. Told that woman that I was sorry, I tried everything I could, and hung the phone up in the middle of her crying. Put down my headset, stood up, walked outside. Lit a cigarette and took a walk. Kept walking.I’ve worked a lot of jobs, and many of them in retail and many of them dealing with the public. I would often times find myself sealed off from their minor complaints and gripes. The maxim that customers come first, in my mind, was bullshit. This job made me realize why that was.The customers only come first when it’s easy to do so. When it doesn’t cost a company anything. When the risk and the numbers and the liability allows it to happen.When those things don’t align? When people really need help, and when they really just need “a little more time”? Customers don’t come first. Not even a little bit. Kindness isn’t kindness when it’s the easiest road to take. That makes it convenience, not kindness. Nobody at that job seemed to see that, except for the one that had to listen to that lady, crying over the phone and wishing her husband was still around.