Debt Payoff Calculator

A debt payoff plan answers three questions: when are you debt-free, how much interest the privilege costs, and what one extra payment buys you. Type your balance, APR and monthly payment and this calculator walks the balance forward month by month — interest first at APR/12 on whatever you still owe, the rest crushing principal — until it hits zero, then hands you the exact payoff month.

The defaults show the typical credit-card trap. A $5,000 balance at 22% APR with a $200 monthly payment takes 34 months to kill and costs $1,749.88 in interest — more than a third of the original balance again. The first month alone sends $91.67 to interest and only $108.33 to principal. Interest is charged on the remaining balance every single month, which is why early extra dollars do so much more work than late ones.

Extra payments bend the curve hard. Bump that $200 to $250 and the payoff drops to 26 months with $1,285.72 interest — 8 months and $464.16 saved. Make it $300 and you are done in 21 months, paying $1,021.60 of interest — 13 months and $728.28 freed. The pattern holds for any debt: the extra amount attacks principal directly, and every principal dollar removed stops generating interest forever.

The flip side is the minimum-payment spiral. Card issuers set minimums near interest plus ~1% of the balance — great for them, terrible for you. Pay $92 instead of $200 on the same $5,000/22% balance and the payoff stretches to 310 months — nearly 26 years — burning $23,462.14 in interest, almost five times the debt itself. And pay $91.67 or less and the balance never goes down at all. If your budget cannot beat the interest line, a consolidation loan or a balance-transfer card is the realistic escape; model the first with our personal loan calculator.

One debt or several? If you have multiple balances, order matters less than most people think — total interest is dominated by how much you pay, not which card gets it. That said, two plans have earned their reputations: avalanche (highest APR first — mathematically cheapest) and snowball (smallest balance first — psychologically sticky). Use this calculator on each balance to see its individual finish line, then throw every spare dollar at the debt your chosen plan says first. To raise the spare-dollar supply, check what your paycheck actually nets after tax with our paycheck calculator.