Thread: Who's good at Math? - credit card calculations.

And if E-bay got you into this mess, use it to get out.


Sell any non-essential collectibles and treasures you have, and put the proceeds straight off your card balances.

Order of repayment should be all about cost

So if the rate is the same on all 3 it makes no difference which is paid off faster unless there are annual fees are involved - in which case as an earlier poster has said try to pay down the card with the fee first if it means you can close it out before the next fee is payable

If you have a mixture it's a little more complicated. Basically you need to work out whether it is better to target fee but pay higher interest elsewhere or not

It's a similar calculation for whether to consolidate into a loan or move to a zero rate card - if arrangement fees are bigger than the interest you would expect to pay by not moving then better to stay put

If consolidating into the mortgage you need to make sure you can prepay otherwise there is the risk of being trapped over a longer term, which an be costly despite a lower rate

I probably have some simple excel sheets on the pc that will estimate interest over term give basic repayment assumptions - I used to be in financial modelling for a job