And one of the reasons for this is that the math is complex. Finding the monthly payment on a loan or a lease requires the organizational skills of Martha Stewart! So if you’re more like Jack Black, here’s some help. Remember, multistep problems can be easier to solve if you ask a few simple questions. 1. What do you have? List the information that you know. That includes any formulas you may need to use and the numbers that may be plugged into those formulas. 2. What do you want? Write down the goal of the problem—finding the monthly payment or finding how much you can afford. 3. What can you do to make things easier? No, the answer isn’t “get someone else to do it”! Here are some simple ideas: Draw a picture, make a chart, act out the problem, look for a pattern, list rules (like PEMDAS). And don’t forget to toss out any information that you don’t need.
