What this calculator answers

If you carry a mix of credit-card balances, personal loans, auto loans, or other debts, it can be difficult to see how payment order and interest affect the finish date. This planner uses the balance, annual percentage rate, and required monthly payment you enter to estimate when you could be debt-free, how much interest each strategy could cost, and whether the entered balance-transfer or consolidation assumptions improve the estimate.

How the math works

Each credit card, personal loan, auto loan, or other debt is simulated one month at a time. Every month, interest accrues on each balance at one-twelfth of its annual percentage rate, required payments are applied, and your extra payment goes to a single target debt — the highest-rate debt under the avalanche strategy, or the smallest balance under the snowball strategy. When a debt is paid off, its entire payment rolls into the next target. The balance transfer scenario applies only to the highest-rate eligible credit card; personal and auto loans keep their existing rates. The consolidation scenario replaces all entered debts with one fixed-term loan at the rate you enter.

Read the complete Calculation Methodology, including payment timing, rounding, balance-transfer, and consolidation assumptions.

When to use it

• You carry a mix of credit cards, personal loans, auto loans, or other debts and want to know the single best order to pay them in.
• You received a 0 percent balance transfer offer in the mail and want to know whether it beats simply paying your cards down, after the transfer fee.
• You are considering a debt consolidation loan and want to compare its total cost against your current payoff path before applying.
• You want to see exactly how many months and dollars an extra 50, 100, or 300 dollars per month would actually buy you.

Common mistakes

• Paying only the minimums and assuming steady progress. On a typical high-rate card, the minimum payment barely covers interest, and payoff can stretch across decades.
• Choosing snowball or avalanche by ideology instead of arithmetic. For many debt mixes the difference is small — run both and see whether it is 50 dollars or 1,500 dollars for you before deciding.
• Judging a consolidation loan by its monthly payment. A lower payment over a longer term can cost more total interest than your current path. Always compare total cost.
• Running the transferred card back up. A balance transfer only works if the old card stays at zero; otherwise you end up carrying both balances at once.

A worked example

Suppose you owe 4,500 dollars on a credit card at 22 percent, 8,000 dollars on a personal loan at 11 percent, and 15,000 dollars on an auto loan at 7 percent. The planner includes all three in the snowball and avalanche comparisons. Under the avalanche, extra money attacks the credit card first because it has the highest rate, then rolls to the personal loan, and finally the auto loan. A balance transfer comparison moves only the eligible credit-card balance; it never pretends that the personal or auto loan can be transferred to a promotional card.

Frequently asked questions