Debt Consolidation Calculator

Calculate if debt consolidation saves money. Compare current debt payments with a consolidated loan to see monthly savings and total cost.

This calculator runs two very different projections side by side: what you're already paying (Current Total Cost) against what a single consolidation loan would cost (Consolidation Total Cost), then reports the difference. Only the consolidation side is a true amortization — the current-debt side is a simplified fixed-interest projection that charges interest on the full original Total Debt Amount every single month (lines 15-16), never reducing the interest base as principal gets paid down the way real amortization would; this calculator does not account for the current debt's balance actually declining over its payoff, which means Current Total Cost is only an approximation of what a real (non-consolidated) declining-balance payoff would actually cost. Current Total Cost first backs a payoff timeline out of your current numbers — it subtracts monthly interest (Total Debt Amount times Current Average Interest Rate, divided by 12) from Current Monthly Payment to find the principal portion, then divides that into Total Debt Amount and rounds up to a whole month (line 17-20). If Current Monthly Payment can't cover even that first month's interest, Current Months to Payoff silently reports 0 and Current Total Cost reports just Total Debt Amount with zero interest counted, as if the debt could be retired instantly, rather than flagging that it can never actually be paid off at that payment. At this calculator's own defaults, that break-even sits at exactly $375 per month. Total Debt Amount dominates Current Total Cost: its ±10% span is about 55% of Current Total Cost, versus Current Monthly Payment's 36% and Current Average Interest Rate's 34%. Total Savings and Interest Savings are built from two different-looking subtractions (line 35 and line 36), but they're mathematically identical: Total Debt Amount is added into Current Total Cost (line 22) but subtracted out of Consolidation Total Interest (consolidationTotalInterest = consolidationTotalCost - totalDebt, line 31), so it cancels out algebraically across the two savings formulas, not because it's added identically on both sides — and the two figures always agree to the penny, not just at this particular set of inputs. Consolidation Loan Rate and Consolidation Loan Term never move Current Total Cost — they only feed the consolidation side of the comparison. This calculator does not account for loan origination fees, prepayment penalties on your existing debts, or the risk of running up new balances on cards you've just paid off.