1. The problem asks for the principal portion of the May payment in a loan or mortgage context. 2. The principal portion of a payment is the part that goes toward reducing the loan balance, as opposed to the interest portion. 3. To find the principal portion, we use the formula: $$\text{Principal portion} = \text{Total payment} - \text{Interest portion}$$ 4. The interest portion for a given month is calculated as: $$\text{Interest portion} = \text{Outstanding loan balance at the start of the month} \times \text{Monthly interest rate}$$ 5. We need the loan balance at the start of May and the monthly interest rate to calculate the interest portion. 6. Once the interest portion is found, subtract it from the total May payment to get the principal portion. 7. This principal portion reduces the loan balance for the next month. Without specific numbers for the loan balance, interest rate, or payment amount, the exact principal portion cannot be calculated here. If you provide those values, I can compute the exact principal portion for May.