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Roll-down your credit card debt
The Credit Card Roll-down Calculator applies two simple principles
to paying off your credit card debt.
- Payoff your highest interest rate first.
- When a card balance is paid in full, apply its monthly payment
to the card with the next highest interest rate.
To see how this can be applied to your credit card debt, enter your
credit card balances and an additional Roll-down amount. The calculator
will then apply your additional monthly payment to the credit card
with the highest rate. When that credit card is paid in full, the
card with the next highest rate will be paid down. This continues
until you have rolled through all of your credit cards and your
debt is paid in full. Click the "View Report" button for a detailed
look at the results. |
>>Definitions
- Payoff highest rate first
- Leave this box checked to have the calculator payoff your
credit card with the highest rate first. You can uncheck this
box to see the results of an alternate payment method. The
alternate method pays off your credit cards starting with
the lowest balance.
- Credit cards
- Enter up to 10 credit card accounts, one on each line.
- Balance
- Your current balance on your credit card.
- Interest rate
- The annual percentage rate you pay on a credit card. The
rate you enter is used to calculate the interest on all future
payments for the credit card. The length of time to pay off
this credit card may be much greater than calculated, if you
enter a low promotional interest rate that is only good for
a short period of time.
- Payment
- This is your initial monthly payment. If you check the "use
credit card minimum payments" box, your monthly payment is
calculated as 2% of your current outstanding balance. With
the "use credit card minimum payments" box checked, your monthly
payment will decrease as your balance is paid down. This can
greatly increase the length of time it takes to pay off your
credit cards. Uncheck this box to enter your own monthly payment
that will remain the same until your balance is paid in full.
( We calculate your minimum monthly payment as 2% of your
current outstanding balance. While your actual minimum monthly
payment may be slightly different, this is one of the most
common methods used by credit card companies to calculate
minimum payments.)
- Additional payment
- This dollar amount is in addition to your monthly minimum
payments that you will use to pay down your credit card debt.
The higher this amount, the faster your debt will be paid
off. It is important that your additional payment is one that
you can afford. For the Roll-down method to be effective you
must be consistent in your payments. Should you choose an
amount that is too high, you may become discouraged if you
are unable to meet your payment goal.
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