Debt Payoff Planner
Enter every balance you owe, each rate and each minimum, and one monthly budget: this debt planner returns the debt-free date, the total interest and the month each debt closes, under the snowball ordering and the avalanche ordering at once.
Debt-free September 1, 2028 after 24 months
- Months to debt-free
- 24
- Total interest
- $1,785.39
- Total paid
- $14,285.39
Payoff order
- 1 Credit card August 2027
- 2 Car loan August 2028
- 3 Store card September 2028
| Snowball | Avalanche | |
|---|---|---|
| Months to debt-free | 25 | 24 |
| Debt-free date | October 1, 2028 | September 1, 2028 |
| Total interest | $2,035.58 | $1,785.39 |
| First debt cleared | Store card, month 5 | Credit card, month 11 |
On these debts avalanche is 1 month shorter and $250.19 cheaper. Snowball clears its first debt in month 5, which is the trade.
Month-by-month plan — every month, every balance
| # | Date | Store card | Credit card | Car loan | Paid | Interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-10-01 | $1,470.00 | $3,670.00 | $6,920.00 | $600.00 | $160.00 |
| 2 | 2026-11-01 | $1,439.80 | $3,333.40 | $6,839.20 | $600.00 | $152.40 |
| 3 | 2026-12-01 | $1,409.40 | $2,990.07 | $6,757.59 | $600.00 | $144.66 |
| 4 | 2027-01-01 | $1,378.80 | $2,639.87 | $6,675.17 | $600.00 | $136.78 |
| 5 | 2027-02-01 | $1,347.99 | $2,282.67 | $6,591.92 | $600.00 | $128.74 |
| 6 | 2027-03-01 | $1,316.98 | $1,918.32 | $6,507.84 | $600.00 | $120.56 |
| 7 | 2027-04-01 | $1,285.76 | $1,546.69 | $6,422.92 | $600.00 | $112.23 |
| 8 | 2027-05-01 | $1,254.33 | $1,167.62 | $6,337.15 | $600.00 | $103.73 |
| 9 | 2027-06-01 | $1,222.69 | $780.97 | $6,250.52 | $600.00 | $95.08 |
| 10 | 2027-07-01 | $1,190.84 | $386.59 | $6,163.03 | $600.00 | $86.28 |
| 11 | 2027-08-01 | $1,158.78 | $0.00 | $6,058.98 | $600.00 | $77.30 |
| 12 | 2027-09-01 | $1,126.51 | $0.00 | $5,559.57 | $600.00 | $68.32 |
| 13 | 2027-10-01 | $1,094.02 | $0.00 | $5,055.17 | $600.00 | $63.11 |
| 14 | 2027-11-01 | $1,061.31 | $0.00 | $4,545.72 | $600.00 | $57.84 |
| 15 | 2027-12-01 | $1,028.39 | $0.00 | $4,031.18 | $600.00 | $52.54 |
| 16 | 2028-01-01 | $995.25 | $0.00 | $3,511.49 | $600.00 | $47.17 |
| 17 | 2028-02-01 | $961.89 | $0.00 | $2,986.60 | $600.00 | $41.75 |
| 18 | 2028-03-01 | $928.30 | $0.00 | $2,456.47 | $600.00 | $36.28 |
| 19 | 2028-04-01 | $894.49 | $0.00 | $1,921.03 | $600.00 | $30.75 |
| 20 | 2028-05-01 | $860.45 | $0.00 | $1,380.24 | $600.00 | $25.17 |
| 21 | 2028-06-01 | $826.19 | $0.00 | $834.04 | $600.00 | $19.54 |
| 22 | 2028-07-01 | $791.70 | $0.00 | $282.38 | $600.00 | $13.85 |
| 23 | 2028-08-01 | $482.18 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $600.00 | $8.10 |
| 24 | 2028-09-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $485.39 | $3.21 |
What this page tells you
A payoff calculator handles one loan. A debt payoff planner handles the several most people actually have, and the question changes shape when there is more than one balance. It stops being what the payment is and becomes where the money above the minimums should go, for how long, and what the whole set costs before it is gone.
The planner charges each debt its own interest, pays every minimum, then sends everything the budget has left to one target — the smallest balance under the snowball ordering, the highest rate under the avalanche. When that target closes, its minimum is not held in reserve for it. The minimum joins the surplus and reaches the next debt in the same month, which is where a plan's momentum actually comes from, and it is the part that is easy to describe and easy to get wrong.
Nothing here is saved. There are no accounts, no stored plans and no files to download. What a plan has instead is its own address: the balances, rates, minimums and budget are encoded in the link, so a bookmarked plan reopens with the same numbers on any device. The labels are never part of that link — it carries figures and nothing else.
How to read the result
The debt-free date is the month the last balance clears, counted forward from the first payment date rather than estimated from a formula. Twenty-five monthly payments beginning 1 October 2026 end on 1 October 2028, because the last one falls twenty-four months after the first. Every debt also carries its own payoff month, and the debt-free date is the last of them rather than a separate figure.
A freed minimum moves in the month it is freed, not the month after. In the example below the store card owes $127.17 in month 5; its own $40.00 minimum covers part of that and $87.17 of the $310.00 surplus finishes it. The $222.83 left over reaches the credit card in that same month and takes its balance to $3,673.09. A planner that reserves a closed debt's minimum, or waits until the following month to move it, leaves $222.83 unapplied for four weeks and ends month 5 somewhere else: this plan's three balances at that point are exactly $0.00, $3,673.09 and $6,591.92.
The ordering only controls the surplus. A $600.00 budget against $290.00 of minimums leaves $310.00 a month to direct, and putting it on the 24% card first rather than the $1,500 store card is worth one month and $250.19 here. Set the budget to $290.00 instead and the two methods return exactly the same plan — 66 months and $6,377.95 of interest — because with nothing above the minimums there is nothing to order.
Months and interest do not move together. Raise the budget on these same three debts to $750.00 and both orderings finish in 19 months, while the avalanche still pays $189.45 less interest. The date is the coarser of the two measures: it moves only when a whole month is saved, and the interest moves every month.
The last month costs less than the budget. On the $600.00 snowball plan, twenty-four months of $600.00 are followed by a final month of $135.58, because that month only has to clear what is left. The two add to $14,535.58, which is the $12,500.00 owed at the start plus $2,035.58 of interest — the same identity the schedule is built on, checked at the end.
How the plan is built
- B
- your total monthly budget across every debt
- iₖ
- each debt's interest for month k, rounded half-up to the cent
- bₖ₋₁
- that debt's balance before this month's interest
Each month: interest is added to every open balance, every open debt receives its minimum, and whatever is left of the budget goes to one target debt — the first in the chosen order that is still open.
When a debt closes, it simply stops receiving anything, so its former minimum stays in the budget and reaches the next target in the same month. That is the rollover, and it is a consequence of the rule rather than an extra step.
The rounding rule, the final-payment adjustment and the published test vectors are all on the methodology page.
A worked example
A worked example: three debts on a $600 budget, both ways
Take a $1,500 store card at 8.000% with a $40 minimum, a $4,000 credit card at 24.000% with a $100 minimum, and a $7,000 car loan at 12.000% with a $150 minimum. The minimums come to $290.00, so a $600.00 budget leaves a surplus of $310.00 a month. Month one charges 1,500.00 × 8 ÷ 1,200 = $10.00 on the store card, 4,000.00 × 24 ÷ 1,200 = $80.00 on the credit card and 7,000.00 × 12 ÷ 1,200 = $70.00 on the car loan, $160.00 in all. Under the snowball the order is store card, credit card, car loan, so the store card takes its $40.00 minimum and the whole $310.00 surplus: 1,510.00 − 40.00 − 310.00 = $1,160.00, while the credit card falls to $3,980.00 and the car loan to $6,920.00 on their minimums alone.
Four months later the store card is down to $126.33. Month five accrues 126.33 × 8 ÷ 1,200 = 0.8422, rounded half-up to $0.84, so it owes $127.17. Its $40.00 minimum leaves $87.17, which comes out of the surplus and closes the debt in month 5. The other $222.83 of that surplus does not wait: the credit card accrues $78.35 on its $3,917.57, reaching $3,995.92, and pays its $100.00 minimum plus the $222.83, ending the month at $3,673.09. From month six the credit card receives $450.00 — its own minimum, the $310.00 surplus and the store card's freed $40.00 — and drops to $3,296.55.
The credit card closes in month 15 and the car loan in month 25, which puts the snowball's debt-free date at 1 October 2028 with $2,035.58 of interest paid. The avalanche starts from the rate instead: credit card at 24%, car loan at 12%, store card at 8%. Its first month sends the $310.00 surplus to the credit card — 4,080.00 − 100.00 − 310.00 = $3,670.00 — while the store card gets only its $40.00 minimum and falls to $1,470.00.
The avalanche closes the credit card in month 11, the car loan in month 23 and the store card in month 24, finishing on 1 September 2028 with $1,785.39 of interest. Against the snowball that is one month sooner and $250.19 cheaper on identical inputs. The $250.19 is the whole of what the ordering decision is worth here; the $310.00 surplus is worth far more than that — the same three debts on their minimums alone take 66 months and $6,377.95.
- The debts
- $1,500 at 8% (min $40); $4,000 at 24% (min $100); $7,000 at 12% (min $150)
- Minimums, budget, surplus
- $290.00, $600.00, $310.00
- Snowball — debt-free
- 25 months, 1 October 2028
- Snowball — total interest
- $2,035.58
- Snowball — each debt closes
- store card month 5, credit card month 15, car loan month 25
- Avalanche — debt-free
- 24 months, 1 September 2028
- Avalanche — total interest
- $1,785.39
- Avalanche — each debt closes
- credit card month 11, car loan month 23, store card month 24
- Avalanche against snowball
- one month sooner, $250.19 less interest
Every figure here is derived from the formula above and checked to the cent against vector V14 / V15 in the published test vectors — not read back off this page.
What this does not model
- The plan assumes every dollar above a minimum reaches the debt it is aimed at, in the month it is sent. A lender that treats it as an advance on the next instalment leaves that balance where it was — and the ordering then stops mattering, because snowball, avalanche and paying the minimums all return the same answer. Ask for extra payments to be applied to principal, in writing.
- Interest is charged once a month on each debt's outstanding balance. There is no daily accrual and no compounding within the month, so an issuer that compounds daily will charge a little more than this plan shows.
- Each minimum is a fixed amount for the life of the plan. A card's real minimum is usually a percentage of the balance and falls as the balance does, which makes a fixed minimum slightly optimistic for any debt that is not yet the target; the credit card page models the percentage rule instead.
- Fees, annual charges, late charges, promotional rates and rate changes are not modelled, and every rate is fixed for the length of the plan.
- The budget is the same every month and nothing new is borrowed against any of these balances while the plan runs. New spending on a card that is still open is the usual reason a real plan takes longer than the one on this page.
- Nothing typed here is transmitted. There are no accounts and no saved plans; the calculation runs in the browser, and the only thing that ever leaves it is the link you choose to copy — balances, rates, minimums and the budget, never the labels.
When to use a different page
One loan or several, fixed payment or revolving — that is the real question behind this family of calculators, and it decides which page answers yours.
Debt snowball
The same engine with the decision already made: smallest balance first, for the order in which the debts disappear rather than the interest. That page runs the snowball alone and is written for someone who wants the early closures, having seen what they cost.
Debt avalanche
The other ordering on its own — highest rate first, which is what makes the avalanche the cheaper of the two whenever the rates differ. That page leads with the rate ordering and with the interest figure rather than with the list of closing dates.
Debt payoff
The same planner reached from the plainer question: how long several balances take in total on a given monthly payment. Start there for one debt-free date, and come here when the question has become which debt the surplus should go to.
Credit card payoff
One revolving balance rather than several, with the issuer's minimum rule modelled properly — a minimum that shrinks as the balance falls, which is why $5,000 at 24% takes 234 months to clear on minimums alone.
Questions people ask
How does a debt payoff planner work?
It runs every debt forward one month at a time. Each month it charges each balance its own interest, pays every minimum, then puts whatever the budget has left on a single target debt — the smallest balance, or the highest rate, depending on the method. When a debt reaches zero its minimum stops being spent on it and joins the money going to the next target, and the plan ends in the month the last balance clears.
Is the debt snowball or the debt avalanche better?
The avalanche costs less. On the three debts below it finishes one month sooner and pays $250.19 less interest, because the $310.00 surplus goes to the 24% card before the 8% store card. Whether that is the better plan depends on something the arithmetic cannot see — whether closing the store card in month 5 instead of month 24 changes what actually gets paid — which is why both run here and the difference is printed rather than argued.
What happens when one debt is paid off?
Its minimum joins the surplus and goes to the next debt in the plan, in the same month it is freed. In the example the store card closes in month 5 using $40.00 of its minimum and $87.17 of the surplus, and the $222.83 that was not needed reaches the credit card that month. From month six the credit card receives $450.00 a month: its own $100.00 minimum, the $310.00 surplus and the store card's freed $40.00.
Can this debt planner save my plan or track my progress?
No. There are no accounts, nothing is stored between visits, and nothing typed is sent anywhere. What replaces a tracker is the address bar — the balances, rates, minimums and budget are encoded in the link, so a plan can be bookmarked, reopened later or sent to someone else and it recomputes from those numbers. Debt names are never in the link, so a bookmarked plan carries figures and no labels.
What if my budget is less than my minimum payments?
The plan does not run, and the page says how far short the budget is instead of printing a schedule. With these three debts the minimums come to $290.00, so a $250.00 budget is reported as $40.00 short. At exactly $290.00 the plan does run, with no surplus at all: 66 months and $6,377.95 of interest, identical under both methods, because there is nothing left over to order.
How many debts can the planner handle?
Up to twenty. A debt with a zero balance is listed as already paid and left out of the ordering. A minimum smaller than that debt's own monthly interest is allowed, since the surplus may well cover it, but the page names the debt and says its balance grows until it becomes the target rather than letting that pass unremarked.