Debt Payoff - Forecast Commander Help

Your debts, side by side#

The planner reads the balances and rates already in your accounts, so there's nothing to re-enter.

The top of the Debt Payoff Planner in a 1440 pixel window with the sidebar open. Across the top, total debt 640 dollars, weighted average APR 24.99 percent and debt-free on minimums in 9 months. Then the Horizon Visa card: balance 640 dollars, APR 24.99 percent, a monthly payment field reading 85 dollars, and a line reading at this payment alone, 9 months, 64 dollars interest. Then the Strategy Comparison panel with an extra per month field at 0 and three cards, Minimums Only, Avalanche and Snowball, each debt-free in 9 months with Horizon Visa at 640 dollars and 63 dollars 53 interest, above a Debt Balance Over Time chart whose one visible line, the three strategies drawn on top of each other, starts today at the 640 dollars owed and falls to zero nine months out. — Your real debts, with a payment you can change to test against.

It covers credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and personal loans. Buy now, pay later plans are left out, since they're fixed, interest-free installments with their own page.

Rates and payments#

A debt joins the comparison once it has an interest rate and a monthly payment.

Debts missing a rate get their own section, headed Needs a Rate, with a field to add one inline. They're left out of every simulation until then.

The Monthly Payment field on each card is yours to change. It starts from what your recurring rules pay into that account, and editing it re-runs every projection on the page at once, so you can try a number without committing to it.

Avalanche, snowball, and the cascade#

Strategy Comparison with an Extra Per Month field set to 100. Three cards: Minimums Only, debt-free in 5 months, with the month named, Horizon Visa at a 640 dollar balance and 37 dollars 58 interest; Avalanche, 3 months, two months sooner, 25 dollars 10; and Snowball, the same 3 months and the same month, 25 dollars 10. Avalanche and Snowball each add a green line reading 12 dollars 48 less interest than paying minimums only. Below them the Debt Balance Over Time chart, with a Zoom to Differences button. Every line starts today at the 640 dollars owed: Avalanche and Snowball are drawn as one solid line that reaches zero three months out, and the dotted Minimums Only line reaches it two months later. — Three strategies on the same debts.

Minimums Only: The baseline. Each debt is paid down on its own, and money isn't redirected when one clears. The other two are measured against it.
Avalanche: Highest rate first. It always pays the least total interest.
Snowball: Smallest balance first. It clears individual debts sooner, at the cost of a little more interest overall.

Avalanche and snowball share a cascade. Every month, each debt gets its own minimum. Then a shared pool, made of your extra payment plus every minimum freed up by debts already at zero, goes to the top-priority debt still owing. Clear one and its payment joins the pool and goes to the next.

So a debt whose own minimum barely covers its interest can still be paid off under a strategy, but never under minimums alone.

With only one rated debt, avalanche and snowball give the same answer. They differ once you have several.

The two charts#

The Interest Paid Over Time chart. Every line starts today at zero and rises, then flattens at a dot labeled Debt-free where its strategy pays the last debt off: Avalanche and Snowball are drawn as one solid line that flattens three months out, and the dotted Minimums Only line flattens higher, five months out. The legend prints each strategy's total interest: Avalanche 25 dollars, Minimums Only 38 dollars, Snowball 25 dollars. — Cumulative interest. Lower is better, and each dot is a debt clearing.

Debt Balance Over Time: Shows when you're done. Three lines fall toward zero, and steeper is faster.
Interest Paid Over Time: Shows what it costs. Three lines rise, and here lower is better. They flatten as debts clear, and a labeled dot marks each debt clearing, so you can read the payoff order off the chart.

Zoom to Differences on either chart trims the early months where the strategies are effectively identical, so the part where they differ fills the space. A note appears when the zoomed vertical axis no longer starts at zero.

What an extra payment buys#

The What If I Pay Extra panel: a debt dropdown reading Horizon Visa, an extra per month field reading 50, and two results side by side: without extra, 9 months and 63 dollars 53 interest; with extra 50 dollars, 6 months, 22 dollars 64 saved, 3 months sooner. — One debt, one extra amount, and the difference it makes.

Pick one debt and an extra monthly amount, and it tells you how much sooner the debt is gone and how much interest that saves. It works on that debt alone, separate from the strategies above.

Reading the payoff dates#

"Never pays off" means the payment doesn't cover the interest, so the balance never comes down. Interest only falls as the balance falls, so a payment that can't cover the first month never will.

The headline figure at the top of the page reads Never with an asterisk when some debt never clears at its current payment.

Every date here is a month and a year, never a specific day, since the planner works in whole months.