How much over the minimum should I pay each month to pay off my credit card balance in a certain amount of time?
Enter all the information about your credit card terms and the number of years and/or months you would like to have this card paid and this calculator will show how much additional you will need to pay each month (over the ‘Payment Due’ amount on your credit card statement) in order to meet that payoff time. Your payment will still be based on the minimum payment amount so it will still change each month. You will simply pay the same additional amount with each payment you make.
Field Help
Input Fields
Title: A title for these calculator results that will help you identify it if you have printed out several versions of the calculator.
Credit Card Balance: Your current outstanding balance on this credit card.
Interest Rate: The current annual interest rate charged for the outstanding balance on this credit card. You may actually have different interest rates for different balance amounts. This could happen if part of your balance came from a cash advance (many credit cards charge a higher interest rate and no grace period for cash advances), or if you made some purchases during a lower percentage promotion period, or maybe you transferred the balance from another credit card for a special low interest rate promotion.
Minimum Payment Percent: The minimum percentage (usually 2%-3%) of your outstanding balance the credit card issuer expects you pay each month. They usually calculate this for you and it shows up as the ‘Amount Due’ on your statement each month.
Minimum Principal Percent: The minimum percentage (usually 1%) of principal federal guidelines require you to pay each month. Your actual payment will be either just the ‘Minimum Payment Percent’ or the ‘Minimum Principal Percent’ plus interest and fees, whichever is greater. Enter 0 if your credit card is issued by a credit union or other issuer that is exempt from the 2006 federal guidelines.
Minimum Interest Amount: If your credit card has a balance and you’re paying interest, there is probably a minimum amount of interest (usually $0.50 or $1.00) that will be charged for the month.
Minimum Payment Amount: The minimum amount (maybe $5.00) the credit card issuer expects you to pay each month, regardless of what the ‘Minimum Percent Payment’ calculates as. In other words, if the ‘Minimum Percent Payment’ (3%) calculation says you’re obligated to pay $3.75 this month, your ‘Amount Due’ will actually be this amount ($5.00).
Desired Payoff Time: Enter the desired number of years and/or months when the balance should be paid.
Output Fields
Additional Each Month: Add this amount to your regular payment each month in order to pay off this credit card by the ‘Payoff Time’.
Actual Payoff Time: The number of years and months it will take to pay off this credit card balance. This is the ‘Number of Payments’ expressed in years and months.
Number of Payments: You will make this many payments to pay off this credit card balance.
Total Paid: Total amount of principal + interest you will have paid when this credit card balance is paid off.
Total Interest: Total amount of interest you will have paid to get this credit card balance paid off.
this is crap no one understands this