About NumberPond

Trever Barney

Founder & Writer

Trever Barney is the founder of NumberPond. He builds calculators that show their work — publishing the formula, the inputs, and the arithmetic behind every borrowing and credit number, so readers can check the math instead of trusting it.

Credentials: Independent researcher and builder. Not a licensed mortgage broker, loan officer, credit counselor, or financial advisor.

Why this site exists

Most borrowing calculators are lead-generation tools. They exist to produce a number that moves you toward an application, and they are optimised accordingly: the payment shown is principal and interest only, the assumptions are buried, and the costs that would make you hesitate are absent.

The result is a predictable failure. People arrive at closing surprised by the escrow payment, the closing costs, the PMI, and the maintenance budget nobody mentioned — and those omissions are the difference between a comfortable purchase and a financially miserable one.

NumberPond takes the opposite approach. Every calculator publishes its formula and prints its arithmetic. Every page carries a Reality Check that names what the number leaves out. Every factual claim cites a primary source with a date. You should be able to check us.

What I am, and what I am not

I am not a mortgage broker, loan officer, credit counselor, financial advisor, attorney or accountant. I hold no financial licenses and I am not claiming any. Presenting otherwise on a site that deals with money would be exactly the kind of dishonesty this project exists to push against.

What I do is build calculators carefully and show my work. The math on this site is standard, publicly documented finance math — the amortization formula is not a secret, and neither are FICO's published category weights. My contribution is implementing it correctly, testing it against known values, sourcing every factual claim to a primary document, and being explicit about the limits.

Where a model is genuinely uncertain — most notably credit scoring, where the algorithm is proprietary — I report a range and label it an estimate rather than manufacturing a precise number I cannot justify. The methodology page documents all of this in detail.

For real decisions, talk to a professional

Calculators are for orientation. Before you sign a mortgage, refinance, or restructure debt, speak to someone qualified who can see your whole situation: a licensed loan officer for mortgage terms, a CPA for tax consequences, and a nonprofit credit counselor — you can find one through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling — for debt problems. Be particularly wary of anyone who contacts you first about debt relief or credit repair.

How this site is funded

NumberPond is free and requires no account. The intended funding model is advertising and, potentially in future, affiliate relationships. As of the current version there are no affiliate links and no sponsored content anywhere on the site.

If that changes, it will be disclosed prominently above the relevant content, as the FTC requires, and it will not change the numbers. Our calculators cannot be influenced by a commercial relationship because the formulas are published and you can verify the output yourself. See the editorial policy for the full commitments.

Corrections

If you find an error — in a formula, a figure, a citation, or a claim — please tell me. Substantive corrections get made and noted. This is the whole basis on which a site like this deserves to be trusted.

Publisher

NumberPond is published by Barney Global LLC
3336 Sugar Leo Rd, St. George, UT 84790, US
trever@barneyglobal.com