Credit card debt · the arithmetic
Credit card payoff calculator
Put in your balances and your rates. The calculator shows how many years the minimum payment takes, what the interest adds up to, and what clearing the same balance in three years would cost instead. Then it is worth knowing what Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 do with the same number.
The arithmetic runs on your own device. Nothing you type is sent to us or to anyone else.
Why minimums last so long
The minimum payment shrinks as the balance shrinks.
It is set as a percentage of what you owe, so the less you owe the less you are asked to pay — and the longer the tail gets.
The calculator
Your cards, your rates, three paths
Add as many cards as you carry. Balances and interest rates only — never a card or account number.
How this calculator works out the minimum: 1% of the balance plus that month's interest, never less than $25. Your creditor may use a different method — a different percentage, a different floor, or fees folded in — so the minimum on your statement can differ from the one here. The figure that governs your account is the one in your cardholder agreement.
How the three columns are worked out
Minimum payments. Most card agreements set the monthly minimum at about 1% of what you owe plus that month's interest, with a floor of about 25 dollars. That is the figure used here. It falls a little every month as the balance falls, which is exactly why the path takes as long as it does. Creditors are not required to use this method, and many do not: your own agreement may set a different percentage, a different floor, or fold fees into the figure — check it, and tell us what it says.
Lock today's minimum. The same first payment, held steady instead of allowed to shrink. Nothing else changes.
Clear it in 36 months. The fixed payment that retires the balance in three years, worked out the way a loan payment is.
Interest compounds monthly at the rate you enter. Nothing is added for new spending, late fees, annual fees, penalty rates or a promotional rate ending — all of which make the real path longer than the one shown here. These are estimates for a conversation, not an account statement, and not legal advice.
Worked examples
What the arithmetic looks like on ordinary numbers
Illustrative balances and rates, not anyone's case. Each one opens the calculator with its numbers already in it.
One card, $6,000 at 24.99%
A single card at an ordinary rate, carried instead of cleared.
- Minimum payments take
- 20 years, 9 months
- Interest on that path
- $11,160
- First minimum payment
- $185 a month
- Clearing it in 3 years
- $239 a month
- Interest on that path
- $2,587
- Difference in interest
- $8,573
One card, $14,500 at 22.49%
The same card after a few years of carrying it.
- Minimum payments take
- 27 years, 8 months
- Interest on that path
- $25,834
- First minimum payment
- $417 a month
- Clearing it in 3 years
- $557 a month
- Interest on that path
- $5,568
- Difference in interest
- $20,266
Three cards, $31,400 together
$9,400 at 25.99%, $6,200 at 19.99% and $15,800 at 27.99% — the shape most people arrive with.
- Minimum payments take
- 29 years, 2 months
- Interest on that path
- $63,414
- First minimum payment
- $991 a month
- Clearing it in 3 years
- $1,263 a month
- Interest on that path
- $14,051
- Difference in interest
- $49,364
The comparison no calculator makes
Minimum payments, or one of the two chapters
A payoff calculator can only price the path you are already on. These are the other two, described by what they do rather than by what they might get you. The longer explanation — the alternatives, and what a creditor can do if nothing changes — is oncredit card debt you can't pay down.
Staying on the minimum
Nothing is written off. You pay the balance and every month's interest on it, for as long as the calculator above says, and the account stays open and current while you do.
What makes that path fail is rarely the arithmetic. It is a layoff, a hospital stay, a rate rising at the end of a promotion, or one more card used to cover the last one.
Chapter 7
Credit card balances are unsecured debt, and in Chapter 7 unsecured debt is what the discharge is for. There is no repayment plan and no monthly payment to the cards.How Chapter 7 works.
It runs three to four months from filing to discharge, and it is open to people whose income fits theIllinois means test. Whether your case qualifies is a question about your income and your property, not about the balance.
Chapter 13
One plan payment for 36 or 60 months, sized to what your budget can carry rather than to what the cards ask for.How the plan works.
Unsecured creditors are paid whatever the plan can afford after the mortgage, the car and recent taxes, and what is left unpaid at the end of the plan is discharged. It is the route when a house or a car has to be caught up, or when the means test is closed to you.
Which of the three fits is a conversation about your income, your property and your household, held in a scheduled consultation with a signed agreement in place. This page is arithmetic and general information, not advice about your case.
Questions
About the numbers on this page
On the minimum payment, far longer than most people expect: a balance in the thousands at a rate in the twenties runs for well over a decade, because the minimum shrinks as the balance does. Enter your own balance and rate above and the calculator prints the number of years.
At the start, most of it. The minimum used here is about 1% of the balance plus that month’s interest, so roughly half of a first payment on a high-rate card is interest and the rest barely moves the balance. The total interest figure above is the whole cost of that over the life of the balance.
On the same first payment, yes, and the calculator shows the gap: holding today’s minimum steady instead of letting it shrink shortens the payoff and cuts the interest, without you finding another dollar. It is the cheapest change available to anyone who can keep it up.
Because your cardholder agreement sets it. Some issuers use 2% of the balance, some use 1% plus interest and fees, and the floor is not always $25. Bring your statement to a consultation and we will work it with your own terms.
No. The arithmetic runs in your own browser and nothing is sent anywhere, stored or logged. If you copy the link to your result, the numbers travel in that link — so only share it with someone you mean to show it to.
There is no single figure. What tends to matter is whether the payoff the calculator prints is a length of time you can actually carry, and whether the payment still fits once rent, food, transport and medicine are paid. If the answer to either is no, the arithmetic has told you something worth sitting down over.
Bring the number to someone who can tell you what it means.
Arrange a consultation — by phone, by Zoom or at the Des Plaines office. We will tell you which records to bring.