I’ve been thinking about writing a post for a while that includes a good sample of some of the better credit and debt calculators available on the internet today.   Well, here it is!  I hope this post will be a helpful to you, or bookmarked in your favorites for future use.

Note:  this isn’t a unique list.  Some of the calculators are used for the same purposes, but may be slightly different or offered on a different website.  Regardless, I think these are all good tools.

Debt and credit calculators

Crown Financial Ministries provides several debt and credit calculators worth mentioning.

The Credit Card Minimum Payment Interest Calculator shows you how much interest you will end up paying if you make only the minimum required payment on your credit card bill

The Fixed vs. Minimum Payment Calculator will show you how much interest you will end up saving if you start making fixed payments on your credit card rather than the prescribed minimum payments

The Debt Pay off Goal Calculator tells you how much you need to pay towards your debt each month to pay it off by a certain date in the future.  It also tells you how much interest and how many payments you will pay between now and the pay off date.

The basic Debt Calculator estimates how long it will take to pay off any debt and the interest you’ll pay each month.

With the Debt Investment Calculator you can add an extra payment to your debt.  It will show you how much quicker you’ll pay it off and the savings in interest charges.  The savings is translated into a guaranteed, tax-free, average annual return on your money.

The Accelerated Debt Payoff Calculator shows you how much money and time can be saved by using the rollover or snowball method (smallest balance to largest) of paying off your debts.

YahooFinance has a calculator that tells you how long it will take to pay off your debt.  There is also a calculator, how long until my loan is paid off, that will help you determine how much longer you will need to make regular payments in order to pay off your debt.

CNNMoney provides a Debt Reduction Planner that tells you how long it will take to become debt free and how much you’ll pay in interest by only making minimum payments.  You can also use a fixed number to pay on your debt and see the results.  You can also include when you would like to pay off the debt and see the payments you’ll have to make to reach that goal.

Bankrate provides a debt calculator that will tell you how long it will take to pay off your debt.  You can either enter your minimum payment or the desired months in which you want to have the debt paid to see the results.

If you want to know the amount of debt in relation to your income, you can use Bankrate’s Debt to Income Ratio Calculator.  Lenders use the debt to income ratio when deciding whether or not they will lend you money or extend credit.  It’s also a good measure to see how much debt you’re managing in your monthly budget.  The lower the better. Note: the calculation includes your mortgage payment.

MSNMoney also has a Debt to Income Ratio Calculator.  This particular calculator asks specific questions to help insure you include the appropriate debt in the calculation.  For example, it asks the question: do you have student loan payments?  If so, you’ll include the monthly payment in your debt to income ratio.

DebtGoal is an online service that is one of the more robust debt calculator tools I’ve come across.  It provides the option of either paying off debt by highest interest first or by lowest balance.  DebtGoal includes much more than just a debt calculator and payment plan.  Read my review of DebtGoal to learn more.

Debt calculators recommended by other personal finance bloggers

I recently tweeted others requesting a link to their favorite debt calculators.  Here are a few I received.

• JoeTaxpayer featured this debt reduction calculator in his Dave Ramsey post.
• MattAboutMoney prefers the Accelerated Debt Payoff Calculator.
• Debt Free Adventure has a spreadsheet that helps you see how much debt costs.

Do you have a favorite debt calculator?  If so, please share it with us in the comments.

To quickly recap, our family is pursing the debt free goal for the following reasons:

• Living debt free is God’s advice
• Remove debt as an obstacle in fulfilling life purpose
• Avoid the stress associated with debt
• Help position our children well for the future

Tools to live debt free

Hopefully, you’ re now more motivated to live debt free and pursue a plan to get out of debt.  I think the proper way to end this series is to provide you some great practical steps and tools you can use to apply to your situation today.

1. Organize Your Debt 

Collect your debt information before building a debt plan.  This is typically the information you’ll need to collect in order to set up a payment plan:  whom owed, contact name/phone number, pay off amount, payments left, monthly payment, due date and interest.  Here is a good debt list template to print and fill out which was created by Crown Financial Ministries.

2. Measure Your Debt

A high debt ratio may indicate that your monthly expenses are becoming unmanageable.  Here is a good debt ratio tool to use from MSN Money. 

3. Create a Debt Pay Off Plan 

You will find a lot of debt pay off calculators and spreadsheets on the internet today.  I like the DebtGoal application I recently learned about.

DebtGoal includes the following features:

• Consolidated debt balances and tracking over time
• Dynamic, flexible debt pay-down plan with optimized payment schedule
• Goal setting and progress tracking
• Recommendations to accelerate debt pay-down
• A support community of like-minded people working to pay off debt
• Ask an Expert DebtGoal forum

4. Learn More 

If you’re looking for some good books about debt and managing your finances, I recommend the below resources to get started.  Both of these books helped motivate me to take initial steps in creating a plan to get out of debt and conduct wise personal money management.

• The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
• Debt Free Living

What other tools and resources have you found helpful to live debt free?