Financial Detox Calculator

Only up to a point. Interest Saved on Debt depends on how many months remain in a fixed 12-month window after the challenge ends (line 34), so a longer challenge eventually leaves fewer months to apply the savings to. At this calculator's defaults, a 30-day challenge shows about $209 in interest saved, but stretching the same challenge to 360 days or more drives that figure down to exactly $0, even though total dollars saved keeps growing the whole time.

The duration bonus only applies once Challenge Duration is strictly more than 30 days, not equal to it (line 57) — a 30-day challenge, the calculator's own default, sits exactly on that boundary and gets no bonus. Push the duration to 31 days or beyond and Difficulty Score picks up a flat +1; beyond 60 days it picks up +2 instead, capped at a maximum score of 10.

No — Annualized Savings is calculated only from your four daily spending rates times 365 (line 45) and never reads Challenge Duration at all. It's meant to answer a different question than the detox total: not "what does this challenge save," but "what would I save every year if these same daily cuts became permanent."

Each category's total is just that category's daily rate times Challenge Duration, independently of the others (lines 26-29) — Dining Out, Entertainment, Shopping, and Subscriptions don't interact or get reweighted against each other. Raising your daily dining estimate by 10% raises Dining Out Saved by exactly 10%, and moves Total Detox Savings by a smaller amount proportional to dining's share of your combined daily total.

One-Year Invested Value multiplies Total Detox Savings by 1.07 once, a single 7% return (line 38). Five-Year Invested Value compounds that same 7% return five times in a row on the growing balance (lines 39-42), not five separate 7% additions to the original amount — which is why it comes out meaningfully higher than simply multiplying the one-year figure by five.