The Payoff Planner — Interactive Debt Payoff Simulator: Snowball vs Avalanche Simulated Live on Your Own Numbers, Debt-Free Dates, the Exact Interest Difference & a Payoff Order With a Date for Every Debt (Single HTML File, Works Offline)

Every debt guide tells you to pick snowball or avalanche — smallest balance first for the quick wins, or highest APR first for the lowest cost — and then leaves you to guess what your choice is actually worth on your debts, which is how people pick a route in January and quietly give up on it by June. The Payoff Planner is an interactive debt payoff simulator, delivered as one single HTML file, that runs both routes on your real numbers at the same time so the trade-off stops being a guess: type in each debt once — name, balance, APR, and the minimum from your statement — set one extra monthly payment you can drag up and down with a slider, and both strategies are re-simulated live on every change. You get a debt-free date for each route, the total interest for each route to the cent, your total repaid and months to free on each, the date your first debt disappears on each, a verdict line that states the exact dollar difference between the two routes in plain words, an animated chart that draws your total balance falling to zero under both routes month by month, and a payoff order for whichever route you select, listing every debt in the order it falls with the month it hits zero — plus a print-friendly view of the whole plan from the Print button, so the plan can live on paper as well as on your phone. It opens with a clearly labeled sample already loaded so you can watch it work before typing anything, and one tap clears the sample for your own debts; your entries save automatically in the browser on your device, a Reset button wipes them and brings the sample back, and the file works fully offline with no account, no login, and no subscription. Proof you can check from this listing alone: the built-in sample is five debts — a $620 medical bill at 0% ($25 minimum), an $850 store card at 26.99% ($25), a $1,475 credit union card at 9.99% ($30), a $3,240 credit card at 22.99% ($75), and a $5,600 personal loan at 11.49% ($112) — $11,785 in total, paid with the $267 of combined minimums plus a $150 extra. Simulated month by month, with interest charged monthly at APR ÷ 12 and rounded to the cent and every minimum held fixed, the snowball route finishes in 36 months with $2,825.45 of interest and its first debt gone in month 4, and the avalanche route finishes in 35 months with $2,439.11 of interest — a difference of exactly $386.34, which is precisely what the planner's verdict line reports when you open it, and the engine behind it was verified against an independently written simulation, matching to the cent. What this is: a planning tool that makes the cost of each payoff order visible before you commit to one. What this isn't: financial advice, and it never connects to your bank, moves money, or pays anything for you — your numbers are stored only in your own browser and are never uploaded. It assumes the minimums you enter stay fixed, that no new charges, fees, or penalty APRs land mid-plan, and that in a real month the timing of due dates can shift things slightly; if you cannot cover your minimums, are facing collections or legal action, or are considering bankruptcy, a nonprofit credit counselor should see your real numbers first, and the planner says so on its own page. Do not buy it if you carry only one debt — with nothing to reorder, a free calculator tells you the same thing — or if you want an app that syncs accounts automatically; this is deliberately a private, offline file you control. The price is $15, once, for a verified simulation engine you keep forever with nothing to renew: on the sample stack alone, the decision it prices is worth $386.34 and one month of your life, and it will re-price that decision every time your balances change. Ideal for anyone carrying several credit cards or a mix of cards and loans, people choosing between the debt snowball and debt avalanche methods, and anyone searching for a debt payoff calculator, debt-free date planner, snowball vs avalanche comparison, or an interactive debt tracker that works offline.