Calculators to help you buy, rent, get out of debt and decide

I'm pretty good with basic math. I don't mind long lists of numbers. I actually enjoy balancing my checkbook. But when it comes to figuring out if it is better to buy or rent a home or how much my mortgage will ACTUALLY cost, it's just too much to figure.

Thankfully, there are some handy-dandy online calculators that will let you know the truth. (I suggest that you sit down before you calculate how much your mortgage is REALLY going to cost you!)

Here are some of the calculators that I have found that I think you might like.

Is it Better to Buy or Rent? From the New York Times, a great gadget to figure out how many years you have to live in a house before it is a better deal to buy it instead of rent it. One of the variables in this calculation is the increase or decrease in property values. When you mess around with the figures on this one, you can see when and why you would buy or rent. Of course, it does not take into account the value of having a home that you own and can do whatever you want with... priceless?

Credit Card Repayment Calculator from our good friends at the Federal Reserve Board. This one shows you how long it will take and how much it will cost in the long run to pay off an outstanding credit card debt if you make no more purchases and only pay the minimum payment due. You put in the total you owe and the percentage of interest you are paying.

I input some test figures to see how it works. A $10,000 debt at 23% interest will take 244 years to pay off and cost $219,348 if you pay the minimum monthly payment of $200.

Did you read this right?? It will take almost twenty-five LIFETIMES to pay off $10,000 at 23% interest paying the minimum payment!

However, if you pay $282 a month (just 82 dollars more) then it will only take you FIVE YEARS to pay off this debt and will only cost $16,195.

Running figures through this calculator should be mandatory before anyone (you love) is allowed to use a credit card.

Snowball Calculator. This one is a REAL help to anyone who is trying to figure out how to pay off several outstanding debts. You list each debt amount, the interest percentage and monthly minimum payment. You then input the amount you can spend toward paying off the debt. The calculator then lists out exactly how much to pay on each debt for each month until you are debt free. (For this calculator, make sure you click on the US flag if you want your figures in dollars. You can also calculate in pounds and euros.)

Don't have enough to even cover the minimums? Check out this forum on Dealing with Debt.

For a bit of fun, you might want to play with the Geek Logik calculator Should I Buy It? based not only on your finances, but on your need and interest (not the financial kind). Like this calculator? Get their book: Geek Logik: 50 Foolproof Equations for Everyday Life

I plan to spend some quality time with my kids "playing" with these calculators. Just running the figures through a few times will help them understand why they don't want to over-extend themselves with credit.

Hope this helps you and yours.

Credit Card Repayment Calculator

One of the top evil villains in our society is credit card debt. One of the worst parts of this little scheme is that it is almost impossible with simple arithmetic to work out how long it will take to pay off your credit card debt and how much you will actually end up paying.

I once spent an hour on the phone with customer service determining exactly what all the little abbreviations on my credit card bill meant and how to do the math. Perhaps that will be the subject of another posting. Right now, I will tell you... it is purposefully complicated.

However, the first step in handling any situation is to be able to face the truth about it. How can you ever get out of credit card debt if you don't even look at what it would take to do so.

Now, from an unexpected source (The Federal Reserve) comes a calculator to help you face the reality of your situation.

This is an easy calculator that gives you some startling facts.

Just put in the total of your debt and the highest APR on your cards and immediately you will see how long it will take to pay it off if you pay only the stated minimum payment. It also gives you the startling figure of the amount of interest you will pay.

The first figures I put in of $5,000 debt and 28% interest came back with a statement telling me that I would NEVER pay off the debt because if I only paid the minimum balance, I would never lower the principal!! Wow! I didn't think that was even legal any more.

You can then recalculate by stating a higher monthly payment or the amount of time you want to pay off the debt. Revealing.

OK.... I'm hoping you don't have credit card debt. But if you do, here is the "cold shower" wake up call to get you to cut those little pieces of plastic up and start working on a cash only system... or at least do whatever you need to do to pay off the balance and stop spending beyond your means.