Enter your balance, your interest rate, and the payment you can make each month. The calculator shows your debt free date, your total interest cost, and what happens to both when you push the payment a little higher.
Each month the tool adds interest to your balance using one twelfth of your APR, then subtracts your payment. The chart tracks the balance until it reaches zero. If the payment is too small to cover the monthly interest, the balance never falls, and the tool will tell you so.
Try this experiment with the sliders. Add 50 dollars to the monthly payment and watch both the payoff date and the lifetime interest shrink. On high rate credit card debt, extra payments are one of the best guaranteed returns available anywhere.
A common rule of thumb is to attack any debt charging more than 7 or 8 percent before investing beyond an employer match. Credit cards charging 20 percent or more are almost always the first target.
Run it one debt at a time. The avalanche method targets the highest rate first and saves the most interest, while the snowball targets the smallest balance first and builds momentum.
Check your latest statement for the exact purchase APR. Credit cards in recent years have averaged above 20 percent, so do not be surprised if yours is higher than you guessed.
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