On-line Snowball Calculator

moneyLost_2

Hello!

Sorry I haven't been around much recently. I've been very busy with both work and my little boy (18 months now).

I have however, been working a little on the https://www.whatsthecost.com website over the last few months. I've just (tonight) set live a version which allows people to save their snowballs, and log back into the site later to check how they're going with their debt reduction.

To be honest, I wrote most of it quite sometime ago, but wanted to spend a little more time testing it before I put it live. However I've recently come to the conclusion that if I wait until I'm happy with it, it'll never go live, so I thought I'd take a chance and just put the new version on the website! – I'll then tackle bugs if and when they arise, and as people will be using it, I won't be able to put it off!

You can create an account by using the “login” link on the new user menu to the right of the page. Once you've done that, just use the snowball calculator as normal (www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx ), but after you've clicked on the “calculate” button you'll see, just above the breakdown of your debt, and option to save your snowball.

Once your snowball has been saved, you can view it anytime by using the “my snowballs” option under the user menu. It will also allow you to reconcile your snowball each month, meaning that you can check you're on target for reducing your debt month by month...

...At least, that's the idea! Please, please let me know if you discover any problems!!

Cheers,
A.

southernscouser

You had me confused for a while but I'm assuming your are the creator of the website. :think:

Can I just personally say a huge thank you. The snowball calculator is a fantastic tool and has helped me so much! If I wasn't in debt I send you a crate in the post! :beer:

Just one thing though that I've had trouble with. When putting in a card thats 0% for a certain period then a high APR it always says to pay the most to the 0% card even before the high interest occurs!

Other than that it is fantastic. Thanks again!

SS

D&DD

Huge thanks from me too we always recommend it on here its wonderful :T

K9cuddles

Firstly.. a hooge thank you!!

Secondly.. omg.. I'm siging up! I don't need to save mine to excel now!!!

moozie_2

southernscouser wrote:

Just one thing though that I've had trouble with. When putting in a card thats 0% for a certain period then a high APR it always says to pay the most to the 0% card even before the high interest occurs!

Hello moneyLost

I am also grateful for the wonderful tool that you created. I have the same observation/question as SS above. Any ideas?

Many thanks

K9cuddles

Isn't the idea to pay it all off before the high interest happens, and if you don't then at least the balance is smaller??!!

moneyLost_2

southernscouser wrote:

You had me confused for a while but I'm assuming your are the creator of the website. :think:

Yep. that's me! - Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that! :-) I'm glad you've found the site useful.

southernscouser wrote:

Just one thing though that I've had trouble with. When putting in a card thats 0% for a certain period then a high APR it always says to pay the most to the 0% card even before the high interest occurs!

Yes, I'm kinda aware of that. The problem is that it's far more complicated to work out what order to pay debts when you put 0% cards into the mix. It sounds like it should be straight forward, but it isn't always. For example, if you had two debts, one on 0% for 6 months, but then back to a really high APR (say, 19% or something), and the other on a lower APR of, say 5%, then it may well be better to still pay as much as you can off the 0% card, because it means you'll have less to pay once the 0% period runs out and you're back at 19%, depending on the balances.

I did give it quite a bit of thought, but in the end decided it was "safer" to treat 0% cards at whatever their "normal" APR was for the above reasons. Also, my thinking was that if you have one 0% card, then you're more lightly to be able to get another 0% card once the current one runs out (where-as some people may not be able to get 0%). In an ideal world, you'd want to be able to snowball your debt on 0% all the time, and pay no interest, but if you could do that, then the snowball calculator isn't much use! (Well, it would be, but the interest column would just be full of zeros... which would be nice! :-).

I hope the above explains why it works like it does... However it's possible I've just confused the issue!!

Cheers,
A.

*zippy*

:T Thankyou so much for such a great site. You have helped so many people :T

K9cuddles

Okay.. I've saved two.. but I can't access the "overview" on them!!!! HELP!!!

Alleycat

Heym I noticed that option last night when I put my figures in again! Obsessed? Moi?

:beer: for the great site and long may it continue!!

K9cuddles

Me too alleycate.. I thought I'd better put in my car finance (I was trying to ignore that it is a debt!! which of course it is!!!) so my DFD has moved seriously!! = a change of in my sig! BIG TIME!! Much more realistic though!