The Debt Payoff Planner is a strategic tool designed to help you create a clear and effective plan to eliminate your debts. It allows you to use two of the most popular and proven debt reduction strategies: the Debt Avalanche and the Debt Snowball. By inputting your debts and committing to an extra monthly payment, you can see a realistic timeline for becoming debt-free and understand the financial impact of your chosen strategy. All data is stored locally in your browser, ensuring your financial information remains private.

Here’s how it works:

1. List Your Debts: Add all your debts, including the current balance, interest rate (APR), and minimum monthly payment.
2. Commit to an Extra Payment: Decide on an additional amount you can afford to pay toward your debts each month. This is the "accelerant" for your payoff plan.
3. Choose a Strategy:
   • Debt Avalanche: This method focuses on paying off the debt with the highest interest rate first. It is the most mathematically optimal strategy and will save you the most money in interest over time.
   • Debt Snowball: This method focuses on paying off the debt with the smallest balance first, regardless of the interest rate. This provides quick, psychological wins that build motivation.
4. Follow the Plan: The tool will show you which debt to target first. You will make the minimum payment on all other debts, while directing all your extra payment (plus the minimum payment of the target debt) as a large, single payment to that one debt until it's gone. The payment then "snowballs" or "avalanches" to the next debt in line.