The Telegraph have launched a new online calculator to help you work out how long it will take to pay off your credit card debt.
If you have an outstanding credit card balance, are paying off what you can afford each month or just the minimum payment, it’s worth using the calculator as it will put in perspective just how much your credit card debt is costing you.
The tool will tell you how long it will take to pay off, how your balance varies over time, and you can also animate the graph too.
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For example, if you were to pay off an extra £1 a month on top of the £42 minimum payment on a £2,000 balance, at 25% APR,  you could clear the whole debt five years earlier (16 years, instead of 21). However, reducing your payment by £1 a month could mean that you never pay if off, as the amount you’d own would increase more and more, and you’d never catch up.
There are lots of other credit card calculators out there that do similar things, but this is a simple way of highlighting how costly credit cards can be, and if you need some motivation to pay off yours, there’s nothing like seeing just how much quicker you can get rid of your debt with a tool like this to get you to take action.
If you are looking to pay off your credit card debt, it’s worth reading about snowballing your debts, posted on this site a while ago but still relevant today.
What a great post, I’ve always followed the snowball method, great advice, keep up the work.
Great post will be easier to see what the difference will be for us and thank you very much for sharing this information.