14 October 2005

Paying Off Your Credit Card Bill

Well, now you've done it. You've loaded up your credit card, and money is so tight that you can only make the minimum payments on the bill. Do you have any idea how long it will take to pay it down? (Assuming, that is, you don't go right back out and start charging it back up again.)

Political Calculations(TM) doesn't know either, but at least we have the tool to do the math for you. Enter your data in the fields below, including the information from your credit card issuer outlining what their minimum payment percentage and their minimum fixed payment amount, and we'll tell you just how long you'll be credit indentured servitude (for the record, we stop the calculations at 100 years, which we justify by assuming that the debt is fully paid by your heirs in settling your estate....)

Your Credit Card Debt Information
Input Data Values
Initial Amount Owed ($USD)
Interest Rate (%)
Minimum Payment (Percentage of Amount Owed)
Absolute Minimum Payment - Fixed Amount ($USD)


Credit Card Payment Data
Calculated Results Values
Accrued Interest
Number of Minimum Payments
Number of Years to Fully Pay Down Debt
Total Amount of Payments

Obviously, you want to avoid this situation - outside of not racking up debt on your credit cards, your best bet is to make payments substantially above the minimum level.

Also, if you'd like to see how long it would take to pay down your credit card to zero for a given amount of money per month, change the Minimum Payment percentage to zero, and enter your arbitrary payment amount for the Absolute Minimum Payment fixed amount in the tool.