Debt Payoff Planner
Debt Payoff Planner
Carrying multiple debts without a sequenced plan means paying more interest than necessary and losing momentum. This skill produces a concrete, ordered repayment plan with a debt-free date. The costly mistake it prevents is spreading extra payments evenly across all debts - which feels fair and maximizes total interest paid.
Operating procedure
Step 1: Inventory every debt
Collect four fields per debt: creditor name, current balance, APR, minimum monthly payment. Include everything - credit cards, personal loans, medical debt, student loans, car loans. Exclude the mortgage from the active payoff list; it is managed separately. Label estimated APRs as guesses and confirm from statements.
Also collect gross monthly income and compute debt-to-income (total monthly debt payments ÷ gross monthly income). Under 36% is workable. Above 43% is the red line: the plan likely needs professional restructuring, not just sequencing - see Escalation. If unsecured debt exceeds annual income, escalate immediately.
Step 2: Find the extra payment
Extra payment = total monthly amount the user can dedicate to debt minus the sum of minimums. Get this from a real budget (budget-builder), not optimism. Even an extra $50/month shortens a payoff timeline significantly. If the extra is $0, the plan is income or expenses, not sequencing - route to budget-builder first.
Precondition: a starter emergency fund of at least one month of essential expenses exists before going aggressive (emergency-fund-planner). Without it, the first surprise expense lands back on the highest-APR card and undoes months of progress.