How to Calculate Time Value of Money on a TI-83

The time value of money calculation is a valuable function that can be performed on a Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator, commonly found across America's classrooms. If you do not own a TI-83, then you can likely find a similar calculator online by searching for "Time Value of Money Calculator". The time value of money, referred to as TVM on the calculator, helps you understand the difference between present and future values and how money will grow over a period of time given a specific rate of interest. On the TI-83 calculator, the time value of money solver, will allow you to solve for present value, future value, rate of interest, or payments. This article will provide instructions on how to access and utilize the time value of money feature on the Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. 

   First, to access the time value of money feature, after turning on the calculator, push the "2nd" key, which is the yellow button near the top left of the calculator. Immediately following that entry, press the button that reads "x-1", which is found 3 buttons below the "2nd" key you just pushed. This gets you into the section labeled "Finance".

2. Now that you are in the Finance portion of the TI-83, you will see six "TVM" or time value of money functions displayed. You are ultimately going to use two of these functions, but initially, you will hit enter for the first option, the "TVM Solver".

3. 

   You should now be in the time value of money solver and will see eight different fields:
   N - stands for the number of time periods
   I% - stands for the interest rate
   PV - stands for present value
   PMT - stands for additional payments made or required over time
   FV - stands for future value
   P/Y - stands for number of payments per year
   C/Y - stands for number of compounding periods per year
   PMT END / BEGIN - stands for whether the payments are at the beginning or end of the period

4. You will now need to enter the information that you have available into each of the eight fields. Enter a 0 in the field that you will be solving for. If you are solving for either present value or future value, make the value that you enter a negative number. For example, if your present value is $100,000 and you want to solve for the future value at an interest rate of 5% for 10 year, you will enter N=10, I%=10, PV=-100000, PMT=0, FV=0, P/Y=1, C/Y=1, PMT: END.

5. 

   Now that you have entered your information into the time value of money solver, hit the "2nd" key and then the key just to the right of it "Mode" which will take you to a blank screen. Go back into the Time Value of Money function by again pushing "2nd" and then the (X-1) button, just as you did in Step 1.

6. Finally, select the time value of money option that you are looking to solve. In this case, since you are solving for future value, select option 6, which is "tvm_FV". Hit enter, which will take you to a clear screen that just reads "tvm_FV". Hit enter one more time and your answer will show. In this example, your answer is $162889.46.