[Tutor] Loop Question - Beginner Help (Thanks in Advance)

[Joseph Rishe]

#Operating System - Mac OS X 10.6.8
#Python Version - Python 2.6.6



##Goal:  I am creating a program to calculate credit card payments.
##       The user should be able to put in a credit card balance and
interest
##       rate, and the program will tell them what monthly payment will
allow
##       them to pay off the card in 1 year.  Note: it should only be
##       increments of $10.
##Problem:  The program returns incorrent values for some inputs.
##          ie ($1200 balance and 18% interest returns a value of $120.01
##          for a monthly payment.  Which is fine, but it only takes 11
##          months to pay off that card, not 12.

##          So, I need to try different payment values and play out the
final
##          balance over 12 months.  But it somehow needs to be dynamic
enough
##          to recognize that it will not take 12 months to pay off some
values
##          if we only allow multiples of $10.

##          I thought of scabbing something on the end that will check
negative
##          balances and somehow revert to the previous month but there
must be
##          a cleaner way of doing this.

# code follows:

print "This will help you pay off your credit card in under 1 year."


obalance = float(raw_input("What's your balance?"))
#takes user input for balance
yrate = float(raw_input("What's your interest rate?"))
#takes user interest rate
mrate = yrate / 12.0
#creates monthly rate
cbalance = obalance
#this will be experimental balance based on some monthly payment
gbalance = 0.0
#this is our goal balance
incrementpayment = 10.0
#initial monthly payment
x = 1
#our intitial month count


while cbalance > gbalance:
# while our experimental balance is greater than our goal of 0:
    for i in range (1,x+12):
        ppayment = incrementpayment - (cbalance * mrate)
        #amount of payment going to principle
        cbalance = cbalance - ppayment
        #new experimental balance after payment is applied
    if cbalance > gbalance:
        cbalance = obalance
        incrementpayment = incrementpayment + 10.0
        #resets experimental balance if monthly payment is not enough to
reach zero balance

    else:
        print "RESULT"
        print "Months to pay off: ",i
        print "Monthly Payment: $",incrementpayment
        print "Ending Balance: $",cbalance

-- 
Joe
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