Each debt needs a balance, an interest rate and a minimum payment. All three come off your last statement.
Steps
Add each debt as an account
Debts are accounts with a negative balance, in the same list as everything else. That is why the payoff plan never needs keeping in sync with anything: it reads the accounts directly.
Fill in the rate and the minimum
The annual percentage rate and the minimum payment from your last statement. Cashrou treats the minimum as fixed, which is the conservative assumption: real minimums fall as balances do, so your actual payoff tends to arrive a little early.
Choose a method
Snowball clears the smallest balance first, which is easier to keep doing. Avalanche clears the highest rate first, which costs less overall. Custom order is there for when the arithmetic is not the whole story.
Add an extra payment
Anything above the minimums. Cashrou applies it to whichever debt the method puts first, and the debt-free date moves as you change the figure.
What happens when one clears
The minimum that debt was taking does not disappear. It rolls into the pool attacking the next one, which is why the last debts fall much faster than the first, and why the plan is worth following in order rather than spreading money evenly.
You can watch this before committing to it. The calculator on the site runs the same simulation with nothing saved.
Switching method later
Switching recalculates from today's balances. Nothing is lost and no history changes: the order for the remaining debts is simply worked out again.
If the two methods finish within a few dollars of each other, pick the one you will keep doing. A method you abandon in March costs more than either.
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