Take note! I'm just recommending, and not selling anything!
"Pay Off Debt" is a highly successful debt application program from Apple/iTunes that's just been updated to include lots of new features that make it even better, and it's aim is to help you to pay off your debts more quickly, and more efficiently by showing you the effects of using different debt repayment strategies.
Although it's an Apple product, it's dual-platform and runs without any glitches on Windows. It's only obtainable from Apple's iTunes website, and if you don't already have iTunes on your computer, then you won't be able to see the Pay Off Debt download link until you install it!
iTunes is free, but it may not be available in some countries.
The program is beautifully designed, and it's a very clever and intuitive application, that first requires that you to enter in the following information,
1) Your Name
2) The type of Debt, such as credit card, car loan, generic debt, mortgage/HELOC or student loan etc.
And then the details of each debt.
a) Original amount of each debt.
b) Current Balance (what you have left to pay off the debt)
c) Interest Rate (APR)
d) Due Date (due date of the monthly payment)
e) The Minimum Monthly Payment.
After you've entered in all the above information, you can then start to compare paying off your debts in unlimited different ways,
a) Lowest balance to highest balance.
b) Highest interest rate to lowest interest rate.
c) In any custom order you select.
After you make your, choice you'll then see,
a) Graphs of your progress on each debt, plus a graph of your overall progress.
b) Estimated time left to pay off each individual debt.
c) The date that you'll be free from all your debt.
The ability to see the effects of paying off your debts with lots of various systems is incredibly helpful and it makes choosing one of them incredibly easy. Most people end up choosing a system that suits their psychological makeup in addition to being right financially, and this is the correct choice to make, because choosing a system that you later give up on, is far worse than choosing one which doesn't save you the maximum amount of money.
You Can Chose The Snowball Method If You Want
The Snowball system is a very popular way of paying off debts by which the debtor pays off the creditor that he owes the smallest amount of money to first, regardless of how high or low the interest is, and the system is so well liked because the rewards come early and more quickly, meaning that you soon pay off a creditor and start to feel liberated, but it is not the most effective method unless you need that emotional boost.
Other Options And Possibilities
a) There's a Debt's screen which allows you to record payments that you've made by pressing Record Payment for individual debts, or you can simply press Record All Payments to record all of the payments at once.
b) You can choose from English, French or Spanish, and four different currency types, dollars, euros, pounds and yen, or create a custom currency of your choice.
c) Password protection.
d) The ability to email your debt information to up to four different email addresses, although I'm not sure who you'd want to email such personal information to, and I'd be much more likely to choose the password protection option ;-)
Apart from all the math that it does, and the help that it gives, I loved the really super foolproof user interface which makes entering in even a ton of different debts, with different interest rates and time frames incredibly easy, and also in a way that's almost pleasant, because you don't have to dwell too deeply on what you owe which might possibly cause you to go into a tailspin.
The Pay Off Debt application obviously can't pay your debts for you, but it can do the next best thing, which is to show you the best way to pay them off, and you'll most likely be amazed at just how much tweaking a few things here and there will save you.
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The author of this article was a film producer, and an award winning film sound editor for many years. He loves and has a natural flare for economics, and one of his websites -> Need Credit Now has a growing number of extremely popular articles about the world's economy in general, and bad credit loans, debt settlement, debt consolidation, and bankruptcy in particular.
