Custom Debt Payoff Calculator

Why you might not want the cheapest order

Pure avalanche is the cheapest order that exists, so if the only thing you care about is money, you already have your answer and you do not need this page. These are the reasons people reasonably want something else.

• Money you borrowed from someone you know: A loan from a parent, a sibling or a friend is priced at whatever rate you agreed, which is often nothing, so every rule here puts it last. That ignores the part that actually matters. Paying it back first can be worth real money to you.
• A debt somebody co-signed: If a family member guaranteed the loan, your balance is their risk. Clearing it first releases them, which is a return no rate captures.
• Freeing up the biggest monthly payment: Clearing the debt with the largest minimum first gives you the most breathing room per month, soonest. That is a genuine strategy, and it is neither snowball nor avalanche — a big payment can belong to a debt that is neither the smallest nor the most expensive.
• A debt tied to something you need to sell: A car you want to move on from has to be paid off before you can sell it. The order is set by the plan, not the rate.
• A debt where the lender is the problem: If one account is the source of the calls, the fees or the stress, being rid of it can be worth more than the arithmetic says.

What none of these change is the arithmetic itself. Moving a debt up the queue can only cost you against pure avalanche, never save you, and the point of the comparison is that you get to see how much before you commit. Sometimes the answer is nothing at all: reordering two debts that carry the same rate changes which one clears first, but not what you pay.

What your order costs

Every plan here spends the same money every month: your minimums plus your spare cash, with a cleared debt’s minimum rolling onto the next debt rather than leaving your budget. Because the monthly total never changes, the only thing your order decides is which balance the spare money is standing on while interest accrues.

That is why paying the highest rate first is the cheapest possible order, and why no order you choose can beat it. The gap between your order and pure avalanche is the price of your preference. It might be a few dollars, in which case take the order you actually want. It might be hundreds, which is worth knowing before you decide it is worth it.

Snowball is the other yardstick. It usually reaches its first cleared debt soonest, because it always attacks the smallest balance, and a custom order that ignores balances entirely can wait a long time for its first win. Your order can easily land on the wrong side of snowball on cost too, which is what the caution note tells you when it happens.

Setting your order

Your debts start in the order you entered them. Pick the debt you want to clear first, then the next, and the rest slide along to make room. There is no wrong combination to get stuck in: every debt always holds exactly one position.

Snowball and avalanche sit beside your choice for reference and cannot be edited, because neither is a preference. Both are decided entirely by the debts themselves, so there is nothing there to pick. The three buttons above the list adopt a whole ranking at once, and the useful move is usually to start from the avalanche ranking and then move the single debt you care about, so everything else stays as cheap as it can be.

The avalanche column is exactly the order avalanche attacks your debts in, from first to last. The snowball column is a snapshot: snowball goes after the smallest balance you have at the time, so it re-reads your balances every month and can change its mind as they move. Either way, the order your debts actually clear in can differ from the column, because every debt keeps paying its own minimum whether or not the plan is aiming at it — a debt with a large minimum can finish early without ever being targeted. The payoff cards in the results show what each plan really did.

The four plans you are comparing

• Minimum-payment baseline: Pays no extra and never moves money between debts. Each debt receives its own entered minimum until it clears, so the total you pay falls as debts drop away. A debt whose minimum does not cover its interest never clears on this baseline.
• Snowball: Directs spare money to the smallest current balance first. Balance ties go to the higher effective monthly rate, then input order.
• Avalanche: Directs spare money to the highest effective monthly rate first. Rate ties go to the smaller starting balance, then input order, so the whole order is settled by the debts you entered and never changes as you pay them down.
• Your order: Directs spare money to whichever debt you put first, until it clears, then to the next one you chose. Nothing about the balances or the rates changes it.

Calculator Inputs

• Balance: What you still owe on the debt today, not what you originally borrowed.
• Minimum payment: The least you must pay on this debt each month. Every plan keeps every minimum going.
• Interest rate: The APR on the debt. Credit cards compound daily and loans divide the APR by twelve, so the type you choose changes the monthly rate.
• Spare money each month: Anything you can add on top of the minimums. This is what your order directs.
• Your payoff order: The sequence you want to clear the debts in. Defaults to the order you entered them.

All four plans use the same total monthly budget, so the comparison is only ever about order — except the baseline, which keeps the freed-up money instead of redirecting it.

A worked example

Three debts: a $900 loan at 8% with a $30 minimum, a $3,200 credit card at 27% with a $90 minimum, and a $1,800 loan at 14% with a $45 minimum, with $220 a month spare. The $1,800 loan is from your sister, and you told her she would be paid back first.

Pure avalanche clears everything in 18 months for $848 in interest, starting with the 27% card. Pure snowball takes 19 months and $1,192, and gets you your first cleared debt in month 4. Your order — sister first, then the small loan, then the card — also takes 19 months, costs $1,160 in interest, and clears her loan in month 8.

So keeping your word costs $312 more than the cheapest possible order, and about four months of waiting for the first win compared with snowball. It is also $32 cheaper than pure snowball, which is the kind of thing you would never guess without running it. Whether $312 is worth it is not a question arithmetic can answer, which is rather the point.

How each month is calculated

Interest is added to every open balance first, then every minimum payment is applied, then whatever is left over — your spare money plus the minimums from debts that have already cleared — goes to the debt you put highest in your order that is still open. If that clears it, the remainder cascades to the next one in the same month.

The monthly rate depends on the debt type:

Understanding Your Results

The comparison shows payoff time, first debt cleared, total interest, total repayment and each plan’s payoff order. The balance chart uses one shared horizon so all four paths line up month by month, with your order drawn on top. The chart’s Debts view counts how many accounts remain open under each plan.

One thing worth expecting: a debt can clear without ever being top of your order. Every debt is paid its own minimum whatever you chose, so one with a large minimum relative to its balance can finish early on its own. Your order decides where the spare money goes, not the whole sequence.

A scenario that still owes money after the 1,200-month (100-year) calculation horizon is shown as not clearing. Calculations also stop safely if a balance grows beyond the supported range.

Assumptions & Limitations

Rates and entered minimum payments stay fixed. That matters here more than on the other calculators, because one of the best reasons to reorder your debts is a rate that is about to change — a promotional 0% ending, or a variable rate resetting. This model holds every rate where you set it, so it cannot show you the benefit of clearing a card before its promotion expires. Real card minimums also shrink as the balance falls, which this does not model.

The model does not include fees, missed payments, new borrowing, or credit-score effects. Results are estimates for comparing orders, not a quote or a guarantee. The order you can actually stick to may matter more than a small projected difference.