Enter every credit card you owe. Set what you can pay each month. See your freedom date, how much interest you'll pay, and which strategy gets you out fastest.
Add each card with its balance, APR, and required minimum payment. Update anything and your freedom date recalculates instantly.
Every month, each of your credit cards accrues interest based on its APR (annual percentage rate). If you only pay the minimum, most of that payment goes to interest, which is why cards can take decades to pay off if you don't intentionally attack them.
This calculator simulates your actual payoff month by month. It applies your minimum payments to every card first, then routes any leftover budget toward whichever card your chosen strategy is targeting. When a card is fully paid off, its old payment amount rolls into attacking the next card. That's where the compounding effect kicks in.
Avalanche targets the card with the highest interest rate first. Because interest is what makes debt grow, killing the highest-rate card fastest results in the lowest total interest paid, usually by a meaningful margin.
Snowball targets the card with the smallest balance first. It costs slightly more in total interest, but you knock out entire cards faster, which many people find psychologically motivating. If you've tried and given up before, snowball tends to have a higher completion rate.
The best strategy is the one you'll actually stick with. If the math is your motivation, use Avalanche. If wins keep you going, use Snowball.
Getting to zero on your cards is the first move, but the real transformation happens when the money you were sending to card issuers starts flowing to you instead. The average household with revolving credit card debt pays over $6,000 in interest across its lifetime. Redirect that same payment into an index fund at 8% average returns and you're looking at real six-figure wealth over 20 years.
Freedom date first. Wealth building next. That's the whole framework.