Question

Your subscription to BusinessWeek is about to expire. You plan to subscribe to the magazine for the rest of your life. You can renew it by paying $50 annually, beginning immediately, or you can get a lifetime subscription for $500, also payable immediately. Assuming that you can earn 6.525% on your funds and that the annual renewal rate will remain constant, how many years must you live to make the lifetime subscription the better buy?
a) 7.48.
b) 8.80.
c) 10.35.
d) 12.18.
e) 14.33.

Answer 1

Answer: 15 years

Explanation:

The number of years that would make the lifetime subscription a better buy would be the one that would cause the present value of paying $50 per year to equal $500.

You can use the NPER function on Excel to find this out.

Rate = 6.525%

Pmt = 50

Pv = -500

Fv = 0

Type = 1 because payment begins immediately.

= 14.9997 years

= 15 years