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.

Interest Cost: Leave Blank, this will be calculated for you, by the calculator.

Interest Left: This will be calculated for you, by the calculator

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.

Back To ADPO Part 1

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