Excel University Blog

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RATE

Cost of Borrowing Revealed

By Jeff Lenning | September 23, 2025 |

When it comes to understanding the true cost of borrowing, we can’t afford to rely solely on advertised rates. Terms like APR (Annual Percentage Rate) and APY (Annual Percentage Yield) might seem interchangeable, but they tell very different stories due to compounding. With Excel’s built-in financial functions like NOMINAL, EFFECT, PMT, and RATE, we can…

Money Math Five

By Jeff Lenning | September 9, 2025 |

Mastering 5 Key Financial Functions: PMT, PV, FV, NPER, RATE Whether we’re planning to buy a car, save for retirement, or pay off a loan, numbers play a central role in our financial journey. Excel gives us powerful tools to analyze and plan financial scenarios. In this post, we’ll walk through five key Excel financial…

RATE: Find Your Interest Rate

By Jeff Lenning | April 29, 2025 |

Understanding how to calculate interest rates is crucial for financial planning. Whether you’re determining the interest rate for a loan or projecting your investment growth, Excel’s RATE function is a powerful tool. In this post, we’ll explore how to use the RATE function to unlock hidden financial insights, covering loans, balloon payments, and investment goals.…