Any clever maths people help me work this out?????

[fannyannie]

I'm trying to work out (roughly) how long it's going to take to pay off DH's credit card (which he doesn't actually have anymore(. We're on reduced payments for it and I'm cr*p with interest and stuff so can't figure it out.

OK - figures at moment are -

Balance £2670 (rounded up to the nearest £10)
Interest this month was £32
Minimum repayments are £70 - but most months we pay off £100.......

Anyone give me any rough estimates of how many years and months before it'll be paid off - given that the interest will gradually fall as the balance goes down????

Can't work it out with interest tailing off, but a very rough guide would be to say that you are paying off between £40 to £70 of the principal amount, so, say, an average of £60 to take into account months when you pay off less than £100.

That means that it will take you about 45 months or just under 4 years to pay off the full amount. Taking into account the interest tailing off, maybe 3.5 years?

See when I work it out - I either end up at nearly 6 years - or about 3 1/2yrs..........I'm confused - and I just want to work out long before we've paid of the majority (except for Mortgage and secured loan) of the debts. grrrr

How about switching balance to an interest free card (cutting up card when sent to you) and then when that starts charging interest switch again? It will pay off quicker and they aren't ripping you off with interest?

this calculator might help as a fast and dirty guesstimate

I used 36 months and 24% interst and got repayments of £104

because we won't get another credit card - we ran up a lot of debts trying to set up a business in 2005 - and we've spent the last 12 months starting to rebuild it all - unfortunately 2005 made our credit ratings very poor reading LOL.

ooo Oati - that's a great calculator - thanks . I'm working it out backwards now LOL.

About 3.5 years assuming you pay £85 per month.

I have no idea how cc companies work out the interest but if you assume the interest will stay the same, at least you will not be underestimating.

So £2670
average payment each month £85 (half way between min payment and £100
take off £30 interest = £55 per month
48 months - 4 years

I presume you have looked at interest free cards?

40 months actually I think, assuming the interest rate stays the same.

ooo - thanks everyone - seems I was right with my initial gut reaction, working out (whatever you want to call it LOL) of about 3 1/2yrs. That's not too bad - some of the other things (Car HP, Smaller of the 2 bank loans etc etc) will be cleared in about 4yrs - so we should be debt free in about 5yrs time

cc calculate interest monthly and add it on to the debt each month do they not? I think you would need a compound interst formula for accuracy

Depends on how much the interest rate is

At 10% it will be about two and a half years

33 months if you pay the full £100 per month, 52 if you pay £70.

I wrote a spreadsheet which may, of course, be wrong...

ha ha SD - I remember doing one for my motgage reepayments

assuming you carry on at about £80-100 per month it will take a bit over 3 years I think (say interest of £32 per month for the first year, then £22 for the next year, then about £10 for the next year - that is assuming the interest rate is about 14% per year which your £32 gives)

this might help
www.moneyfacts.co.uk/calculators/loanrepayment.aspx?pageid=0&Fee=0&APR=14&HowMuch=2670&HowLong=48&FirstPayment=1

But this isn't even my credit card!!

I used to love writing spreadsheets when I was at work.... I'm so soooo sad!

I had assumed you always pay £100 a month

If interest at 20% (surely not ?) it would still only be three years

I used interest/balance as an estimated monthly interest rate.

blimey - didn't mean to start a debate on how to work it out - and who has the best spreadsheet .

In "real" terms 5yrs to be virtually debt free feels like a VERY long time, but when I think about the fact that just over 12 months ago we were facing possibly repossession and bankruptancy it actually looks quite good .

I think that gives roughly 1.2% per month or 18% over the year which I think is about right for a credit card.

Oh, we can bicker over anything

Not bickering ,surely just enjoying maths !

My heart leaps when I find a thread requiring maths...

isn't it a bit dangerous to be writing spreadsheets whilst driving a lorry, Soupy?

I have a handsfree laptop