Pay Off Credit Card Debt Calculator

example input:
Amount that you owe: $500
APR: 29.99%
Monthly payment: $19

I need to know how to calculate how many months that it will take to pay off. Thanks!

P.S. I do not have credit card debt. I just want to program a calculator. =)

First you got to see how much money the APR is going to add to the 500 dollars that you owe. To do this, set it up as a percent problem. When working with fractions, always remember the equation
%=part/whole. The whole is 500 and we know the percent is .2999. So now plug those into the equation to solve for p. To solve for p, you going to want to multiply each side by 500. p=149.95. Then add p to 500 to get the total amount of money you owe. This is 649.95. Then divide 19 into that to see how many times it will go in to that sum. This is how many months your going to have to pay off the credit card. Since you can have a Decimal of a month, your going to have to round it up to the next whole number. The answer is 35 months.

%=part/whole
.2999=p/500
500(.2999)=500(p/500)
500(.2999)=p
149.95=p

500+149.95
649.95

649.95/19
34.2

Round up to the next whole number

35

2009-03-28 13:19:13 by theflyingchicken

www.FreeDebtExam.com http This tutorial shows you the power of compound interest, and shows you how to use the free debt calculator at Bankrate ...

I need an EQUATION or two. I'm trying to program a credit card debt calculator in PHP to basically tell me this as a result.....

if you currently owe $80,000 in credit cards, and your average interest rate is 20%,

You will pay $159,196.96 in interest,
your total payment will be $239,196.96

and it will take you 54.33 years by paying the minimums.

the only part that i know for sure is to add the two numbers together to get the total amount.. beyond that i'm kind of lost, mostly because i don't understand how credit card interest works on a deep level.

I understand the "simple interest" model, which is NOT what credit cards work on.. most of the stuff i find on the net is for mortgages and simple interest. that doesn't help me in this case.

thanks in advance!!

the equations themselves will help.

Let B = credit card balance at the beginning of the month.
Let P = payment made on the credit card for the month.
Let i = monthly interest rate (e.g., if 18% annual, then 1.5% monthly)
Let N = credit card balance at the end of the month.

Assume no purchases or payments are made during the month (except at the end of the month.) Then,

N = B*(1+i) - P

If purchases are made during the month, then redefine B = average credit card balance.

2009-06-05 23:25:22 by __A_YAHOO_USER__

I have $25,000 in total credit card debt (3 cards). Interest rates are 4.99, 5.99 and 11.74. The card with the highest balance is also the highest interest rate. According to a debt calculator I used, I can pay them off in 42 months with my income. I have been offered a fixed rate personal loan of $30,000 at 7.74%. I would pay off the credit cards and use the rest for legal fees (personal situation). Using the same debt calculator, I can pay the loan off in 48 months easily and probably sooner.

Is it worth it to apply for the loan? Will it hurt or help my credit? I do need the extra cash and do not want to take it from my home equity or put more on credit cards. Thank you for your responses.

Why would you take 2 credit cards that interest rate is LESS than the fixed rate loan and transfer them to a higher rate?

Use the loan to pay off the highest interest card......pay the minimum on the 2 lower cards but take the payment you were making on the 11% card and send it to the fixed rate. This should help bring that balance down faster. When the fixed rate loan is paid, take that payment and add it to next higher interest card until paid off and then take THOSE payments and send them to the lowest card. Make sense? OR...see if you can do a balance transfer of all 3 cards onto a 0% credit card and go from there. It would only make sense to transfer all 3 if you can.

2007-03-18 06:45:49 by troyrissa

We are planning on buying a new house. We have enough money to put a 20% down payment. We also have credit card and car payment debt that is a little less than the 20% we could use for the house. The interest rate on the card is 4.99%. The car loan is 6.4%. The home loan will probably be 6+%. Since the interest rate on the credit card is less than the rate of the home loan, would it be better to put the 20% down on the house and then try to pay off the card and car loan in a few years or would it be better to pay off the card and car loan now and and just put 5% down on the house and have to pay PMI? Or maybe something in between like pay off the card but not the car (or vice versa) and put 10% down on the house. Is there a calculator out there somewhere to calculate the cheapest route?

Thanks...
We are working on paying down the credit card and car loan. At current rate they should both be paid off in about 4 years.

Pay off the car and credit first. The interest on the house is tax deductible, where as the others are not. so 6.25% on the mortgage actually becomes (6.25% x (1-marginal tax rate (say 25%) = 4.68%. As long as your PMI is less than (6.25% - 4.68%) 1.57% of your home value it is worth paying off your other debt first.

2007-09-01 20:13:04 by jpcoder

OK, I know I need to get a different vehicle soon and what better time to do it then at tax time? I am anticipating about $1,000 back and I was thinking of using it to assist in purchasing a vehicle, but then I got to thinking, "Would it be better to pay off $1,000 of the $1,400 in credit card debt i'm in or use it for the vehicle?" The credit score analyzer calculator said my score would be around 680 if I paid my credit cards down that much (compared to my current 647 score). Should I pay that towards credit cards or use it toward a vehicle. Either way, I am going to the bank to get a vehicle loan, so if I used that $1,000 toward a vehicle, that would be a $1,000 less I need to borrow. I am stuck on this one guys...any suggestions?

I would use the $1000 to pay off the credit card debt first as generally, credit card debts carry a higher interest rate. Besides, as you mentioned, this would increase your credit score, too. With a higher credit score, you might get a car loan with a lower interest rate as well. In general, a car loan from bank would have a lower interest rate than the interest rate from the credit card of the same bank. Thus, lower your credit card debt as soon as possible.

2006-12-25 22:53:08 by Don