As a mortgage lender I use math all the time for debt ratios, down payment percentage, daily interest, tax computations, insurance cost, PMI, APR, rent vs own, Future Value, Bi-weekly payments, tax deductions, and amortization schedules. I am using math when I analyze taxes, pay stubs, and financial statements for loans.
In magic I do an entire show for Engineers and other Techies based around math. I do about 15 mind blowing tricks. If I gave them enough time I am sure that they would figure it out but I go quick and use double talk misdirection so they are always two steps behind. In mortgages I want my clients to be in step with me but in magic I want them to be lagging behind.
We were talking about the "old days" in finance and how we did calculations. In the old days every computation I did was by hand and with a financial table. Now, where I worked we did 'inerest bearing' loans and used a daily factor; not a 30 day factor (which is easier).
So if a customer came in to make a payment and the balance was $27,611 (this was 1968 and in San Jose a 3 BR 2 Bath home would cost $18,000- ) I would go the the charts and suppose the customer paid 27 days ago and the rate was 6%. I would go the the 6% factor and go to the 27 days line. Then I would find the interest for $20,000 - then for $7,000 - then for $600 then $11 and write down the interest and add all of those numbers together for the interest. Wow.
We did the same thing for savings accounts. And when a customer paid off a loan we had to compute the payoff amount and in those days many loans had pre-payment penalties so we had to know how to compute the pre-payment penalty.
Here is some simple math I put together a few years ago to show clients how to save on a mortgage. This is dated but the idea still works because one thing I have learned is: Math is Math.
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