Be
Sure To Have All Of Your Bills In Front Of You Before Using This
Calculator, if Necessary, Call Your Companies for Imformation You
Do Not Have.
Payment Description: Enter the name
of the creditor.
Principal Balance: This is the amount
required to pay-off the debt today. If the debt is a regular installment
loan (comes with a payment book) you may need to contact your lender
and ask what the current payoff amount is. Or, you can Click here
to open the "Missing Loan Term" calculator in a new window.
If you know the interest rate, payment amount, and number of payments
remaining, this calculator will give you an estimated principal
balance.
Interest Rate :Enter
the debt's annual rate of interest. You can either enter the rate
as a decimal (.015) or as a percentage (10.5), it won't matter to
the calculator.
Payment Amount: Enter the amount of
your next payment.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Question:
What do I do if my credit card has two or more different interest
rates?
Answer: You can handle this in one
of three ways: The preferred method is to ignore the lower rate
and apply the higher to the entire balance. You could do that to
get your plan in place. By doing that the debt in question will
payoff more quickly than you expect and that's not so bad! The second
method would be to use the average of the two rates. The third method
would be to list the individual balances separately, splitting the
payment between the two based on the percentage the balance of each
represents the total balance owed. But remember, no matter what
method you choose, the most important thing is to have a plan --
and then begin following it.
Question: Why does the ADPO Calculator
sort my debts by the length of the payoff term, rather than by interest
rates? Wouldn't it make more sense to pay off the highest interest
rate debts first?
Answer: While we are planning to upgrade
the ADPO Calculator to allow more flexibility in sorting options,
the current version automatically sorts your debts from shortest
payoff to longest payoff -- per MsFinancialSavvy's preferred method
of sorting. Therefore, if you want to alter the sorting you will
need to increase the payment amount on debts you wish to pay off
first while lowering payments to those you want to sort to the bottom.
The reason MsFinancialSavvy suggests paying off shorter term debts
first -- versus highest interest rate debts -- is because that method
provides for small victories (paid-off debts) much earlier in the
plan, which helps to increase confidence, gain momentum and increase
commitment to stick with the plan. And sticking with the plan is,
after all, the most important aspect of the ADPO concept.
If a person gets discouraged and stops working the ADPO, then of
course it doesn't matter which method you were using. I guess it
all boils down to where you want to place the biggest hurdle --
at the beginning, or at the end where you're most likely to have
the confidence and momentum to clear it.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that MsFinancialSavvy's
Accelerated Debt-Repayment Plan (rolling paid-off debt payments
onto other debt payments) is the engine that will get you to debt-freedom
-- with or without a calculator, and regardless of how you sort
the debts for payoff. The ADPO calculator merely helps you to track
your progress and provides incentive by showing how much interest
and time can be saved by following the plan.
Question: How do I enter a debt that
I am making bi-weekly payments on?
Answer: In order to use biweekly payments
in the ADPO calculator, you will need to convert the biweekly payment
into a monthly payment. Since there are 26-biweekly periods during
a 12-month period, you would need to multiply your bi-weekly payment
by 26 and then divide that result by twelve. For example, if your
biweekly payment were $35, the monthly equivalent would be $75.83
($35 times 26 equals $910 per year, $910 divided by 12 equals $75.83
per month). A shortcut method would be to simply multiply your biweekly
payment amount by 2.1667 ($35 X 2.1667 = $75.83). Note that because
paying biweekly ends up saving a little bit of interest in the long
run, the conversion won't be a hundred percent accurate, but it
will get you to within a few dollars of the actual interest charges.
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