Free Debt Reduction Tools
There are a number of good and more importantly, completely FREE, debt reduction tools and resources online.
These are:
- Dinkytown: This company has some pretty advanced calculators – you’ll have to ignore ads on their site, but their tools are more advanced than the competition. So, if you’re deciding weather to consolidate or figure out which debt to pay down first, they might be a good site to visit. Click here for the direct link.
- Unbury.me: Unbury.me is a nice compact online calculator. Its a bit limited because it only lets you evaluate snowball versus avalanche repayment strategies, but it does that comparison well. Probably resolves better on bigger screens.
- CNN’s Debt Calculator: For this one, CNN and Money Magazine collaborated. It pretty much just tells you how long it takes to pay off your debt, but its totally free.
- Debt Payoff Assistant: This an Apple smartphone app. Pretty much it helps you tally your debts, then helps you model how long it would take to pay them off.
- Credit Card Payoff: This an Android smartphone app. It’s advantages are a) charts and b) it help you evaluate “what if” scenarios.
- Bankrate.com has a pretty good calculator section. There are two that authors here on BAD have singled out. First, Bankrate’s minimum payment calculator – hint: don’t make the minimum payments on your credit cards, pay them off ASAP! Second, Bankrate’s credit card payoff calculator is useful if you are actively working to payoff your credit card debt.
- Finally, Savedbythecents.com has a nice article on Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball, with associated templates and instructions.
Debt Reduction Communities
Getting of out debt can be a significant challenge. One thing that helps is getting a supportive community. Online forums are good place to start. So, here are some sites to check.
Debt Consolidation Care’s Forums
Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention Mr. Money Mustache. The “Money Mustache” community is mostly about financial independence early retirement (FIRE), but there are plenty of debt related threads so its worth a login.
Finally, a lot of online debt forums are migrating to Facebook. Here are a couple of smaller Facebook groups focused solely on getting out of debt.
Our Debt Free Family (Christian focused)
Got any great resources to add? Leave a comment below.
