Enter your monthly budget and your cards, and get the cheapest order to pay them off, with a month-by-month plan for each card.
Cards are listed in the order they are paid off. The plan assumes you add no new charges.
When you owe money on several cards, the cheapest way to clear them is the debt avalanche. You pay the minimum on every card, then put every spare dollar of your monthly budget on the card with the highest interest rate. When that card is gone, the money you were paying on it moves to the card with the next highest rate, and so on. Because the most expensive balances disappear first, you pay the least interest overall.
Each month, interest is added to every card at one twelfth of its yearly rate. Then the minimum payment is made on each card with a balance, and the rest of your budget goes to the highest-rate card. Your total payment stays the same each month, so as cards are paid off, the freed-up minimums speed up the rest. The table shows how long each card takes, the interest it costs, the total you pay on it and the payments you make month by month.
Set the budget to the amount you can really commit every month. If it is below the sum of the minimum payments, the calculator warns you, because missed minimums bring fees and penalty rates. Try raising the budget a little to see how much sooner you are free of the cards and how much interest you save. The plan assumes you stop adding new charges and that rates stay the same.
It is a payoff plan where you pay the minimum on all your cards and put all your extra money on the card with the highest interest rate. Once it is paid off, you move on to the next highest rate. It usually costs the least in interest.
The snowball method pays off the smallest balance first for quick wins, while the avalanche method pays off the highest rate first to save the most money. The avalanche method costs less in interest, but the snowball can feel more motivating.
The calculator warns you. Paying less than the minimums usually brings late fees, higher rates and a lower credit score, so look for extra money, ask for help, or consider a balance transfer or consolidation loan.
No. The plan assumes you stop using the cards. New charges would add to your balances and make the payoff take longer.
Once a card is paid off, its minimum payment is added to the next card in line, so payments on that card go up. The last payment on each card is usually smaller, because it only covers what is left.
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