Guide: Finding & Using the Best Loan Payoff Calculators
Paying off debt is one of the smartest things that you can do, particularly before starting a savings plan. Compared to savings, loan debts often carry much higher interest rates.
Ultimately, this means that you are often paying much more than the original loan amount. High interest rates can make it difficult to get out of loan debt, particularly when you have multiple loans.
Savings interest rates, on the other hand, tend to be quite low, making it harder for savings to grow.
Source: Folio Investing
This certainly doesn’t mean that savings plans are not worthwhile – but it does shift priorities when considering saving amidst loan debt. Before investing your money into a savings plan, the most efficient way to use your money is to knock down your loan debt.
This will ensure that you are paying the least amount of interest possible while freeing up additional money for savings later on.
The best way to obtain better financial management through paying off loans is to have a solid financial plan. A loan payoff calculator is a great way to assist in making financial plans for paying off loan debt.
This tool can help calculate loan payoff amounts over time, providing valuable insight into the exact length and terms for settling debts. Additionally, an early loan payoff calculator can provide valuable assistance when looking to get rid of debt ahead of schedule.
These tools are essential to determining how to calculate loan payoff debt. Our review will cover the best loan payoff calculators that are currently available as well as provide a detailed method on finding and using the best payoff calculator for a loan.
By utilizing the best loan payoff calculators, debtors will find themselves well-equipped to calculate loan payoffs over short and long periods of time.
What Should I Look for in a Loan Payoff Calculator?
No loan payoff calculator is the same, as each one may deal with different elements. There are some loan payoff calculators that deal with more than one loan, as is the case with a multiple loan payoff calculator.
Others focus primarily on quick repayment, such as an early loan payoff calculator. These calculators typically include a loan payoff calculator with extra payments so you can see how additional payments can affect the life of the loan.
For debtors that want to calculate the loan payoff for a single loan, a simple loan payoff calculator will typically fit the bill. Still, when looking for ways to calculate loan payoff, there are a few common features to keep in mind:
- Ease of use
When determining how to calculate loan payoff, the best practice is to use a loan payoff calculator that is easy to use. Some versions may be simpler than others. This is particularly true when looking for a multiple loan payoff calculator as additional loans may complicate the calculations.
- Specific application
Make sure that you have a good idea as to what sort of loan payoff calculator you need. A specific early loan payoff calculator could be a lot different than a general loan payoff date calculator. Consolidating more than one loan may require a more advanced multiple loan payoff calculator.
When looking for the best loan payoff calculator for you, it is important to make sure that you calculate loan payoff appropriately, depending upon your specific situation.
- Additional features
While some loan payoff calculators will help you calculate loan payoff by providing a simple set of projected estimates for time, payments or interest savings, there are certainly more advanced methods.
For a more comprehensive analysis, look for an early loan payoff calculator or a loan payoff date calculator that provides additional features, like graphs or charts. Visual aids can be an important asset when providing ways to calculate loan payoff.
The Best Loan Payoff Calculators
When looking for the best loan payoff calculator for you, there are typically three types of calculators to consider:
- Simple loan payoff calculator
This type of payoff loan calculator will provide simple, basic information to help you calculate loan payoff over time. Typically, it will deal with individual loan amounts, making it ideal for those who are concentrating on one loan at a time.
Those who are looking for more specific estimates should consider a loan payoff calculator with extra payments, a loan early payoff calculator, or a multiple loan payoff calculator.
- Multiple loan payoff calculator
This is an excellent option for those looking to consolidate their loan debt. This type of loan payoff calculator will help calculate loan payoff for more than one loan, whether the loans are for credit cards, vehicles, mortgages or student expenses.
- Early loan payoff calculator
For those who are looking for a loan payoff calculator with extra payment, an early loan payoff calculator is the perfect fit. A loan early payoff calculator will take into account additional payments to calculate loan payoff over smaller periods of time.
In order to be truly efficient, an early loan payoff calculator will also show you how interest payments and overall savings are affected by additional payments, providing a more comprehensive way to calculate loan payoff.
Our review will not only focus on finding the best overall loan payoff calculators, but it will also take a more comprehensive approach, providing the best ways to calculate loan payoff amounts from each of these three categories. While finding the best payoff calculator for a loan is certainly a crucial part of eliminating debt, each option is structured differently.
Depending upon your unique financial circumstances, you may want to focus on a specific type of payoff loan calculator. By examining each category, consumers will find themselves well-equipped to pinpoint the best method to calculate loan payoff for their financial needs.
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The Best Simple Loan Payoff Calculator
Source: Debt Roundup
For those who are looking for a straightforward, uncomplicated payoff calculator for a loan, a simple option is your best bet. These tools to calculate loan payoff use three simple factors: principal amount, interest rate, and years (or current monthly payments).
For an easy loan payoff date calculator, the best options are:
- Bankrate Simple Loan Payment Calculator
In order to calculate loan payoff, Bankrate uses the principal amount, interest rate, and proposed life of the loan in order to provide an estimate for monthly payments. The loan payoff calculator itself is incredibly easy to use and provides fast, accurate results.
What makes this calculator stand out is that it offers the ability to alternate between different lengths for the loan. If you want to see how stretching or condensing a loan over time can affect monthly payments, this is a great way to calculate loan payoff terms.
Of course, this won’t work for all loans as most work with a fixed amount of time. Unless you are refinancing a loan under different terms, adding more years onto the life of a loan is not advisable. Still, the ability to decrease the length of the loan provides valuable insight into how overpaying a loan can help, allowing it to double as an early loan payoff calculator.
- CalcXML Simple Payoff Calculator for a Loan
This calculator takes the opposite approach, using the principal amount, interest rate, and current payments to calculate loan payoff terms. This allows for the ability to variate between larger and smaller payments. With oversized boxes and detailed explanations, this is, overall, a user-friendly calculating tool.
What makes this a great method to calculate loan payoff is that this option will provide the total amount of interest that would be paid throughout the life of the loan. For those looking to knock down debt, this can be a great motivator to pay off debt sooner.
As an additional benefit, this payoff calculator for a loan will calculate loan payoff in terms of the number of payments and years, providing a thorough estimate of time.
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The Best Multiple Loan Payoff Calculator
Source: Wela
When dealing with more than one loan, a multiple loan payoff calculator is often the best choice. These calculators have preset options to enter the interest, amount, and length for each and every loan that you have. More often than not, these types of loan payoff calculators are meant to follow with a consolidation loan, which can help accelerate the payoff process.
To calculate loan payoff for more than one loan at a time, the best loan payoff calculators are:
For those looking to calculate loan payoff for multiple debts, Bankrate provides an excellent tool. Its debt payoff calculator is split into three different types of debt: credit cards, auto loans, and various other loans which include mortgages and personal loans. All in all, this multiple loan payoff calculator can analyze up to 19 different loans.
Bankrate offers two additional features for this particular loan payoff calculator: a customized bar graph and an extensive list of definitions, meant to explain each part of the process to calculate loan payoff amounts.
If you have a wide array of different loans, this loan payoff calculator is a dynamic and informative tool to use in order to calculate loan payoff through a consolidation process. It certainly requires investing more than just a few minutes, but the end result is worth it.
This particular early loan payoff calculator uses a “rollover” method to help debtors pay off their loans on a financially beneficial schedule. This method works by arranging loans by highest and lowest interest rates. The loan with the highest interest rate is paid off first and so on down the list until the loans are all paid.
This multiple loan payoff calculator allows for up to 10 individual loans to be entered, with the balance owed, interest rate, and monthly payment amount. Users can see their total current debt (including interest costs) for each month and can compare that with the “rollover” method.
FinancialMentor also leaves room for any additional monthly payments that can be made, making it a good choice for a loan payoff calculator with extra payment options as well.
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The Best Early Loan Payoff Calculator
Source: Seawanhaka Press
An early loan payoff calculator is perhaps one of the greatest tools to have when looking to actively chip away at debt. These calculators are formatted to calculate loan payoff by formatting a simple loan payoff calculator with extra payment options.
Debtors can quickly and accurately see the impact that higher payments can have on decreasing overall interest payments.
An early loan payoff calculator can be an important motivational and directional tool to use when trying to calculate loan payoff times and payments into the future. When looking for a loan payoff calculator with extra payments, the best options are:
Another great calculating tool from CalcXML is its early loan payoff calculator. This tool will take into account typical factors, like the original loan balance, interest rate, and length of the loan. For this type of loan payoff calculator, however, there are some important additions. As an early loan payoff calculator, factors like the number of payments already made and the proposed additional payment are also used to calculate loan payoff when making extra payments.
This early loan payoff calculator will tell you how much interest you can save with your additional payment. It also provides an estimate as to how many months or years can be shaved down from the life of the loan.
Though marketed specifically as an early loan payoff calculator for car loans, this particular calculator can work for virtually any loan. As with all loan payoff calculators, the same set of criteria applies along with an extra section for additional payments.
What makes this calculator an attractive option is that users receive a customized bar graph along with a detailed report that displays payments, interest, and balances for each remaining year of the loan. As an early loan payoff calculator, this is one of the best to use. It provides a wealth of additional information to help debtors form specific and manageable long-term financial plans.
Conclusion
Source: Mint Life
Learning how to cut down on loan debt is undoubtedly a crucial part of gaining financial stability. While some may have more loans than others, it’s likely that nearly every person will encounter debt management sometime during their lifetime.
Currently, the average American household has a total debt of around $132,922. These debts come from credit cards, personal loans, auto loans, student loans, and home loans.
Given these figures, it’s safe to say that loan payoff calculators will continue to be incredibly useful tools.
With such a vast variety of loan debt, utilizing an early loan payoff calculator becomes even more important. Adding a loan payoff calculator to your financial planning can help you determine loan payoff options in manageable and fully customizable ways.
More importantly, a loan payoff calculator can provide essential guidance for knocking down loan debt, allowing for greater financial freedom in the future.
Read More: How to Find the Best Personal Loan Calculator to Calculate Payments & Interest (USA)
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