Personal Loan Payoff Calculator
See how much sooner an extra amount each week clears the loan, and what it saves in interest.
How to pay your loan off faster
Three ways to send more principal. They stack, and each one updates the numbers on the right.
Paying half the monthly amount every two weeks makes 13 payments a year instead of 12. Tick this to set your own amount.
A refund or bonus put straight at the balance, once a year.
About $108 a month, because a year holds 52 weeks rather than 48. This is the number Pace frees up: what is left after bills, as one weekly figure.
Finding the extra is the hard part, not the arithmetic. Pace counts your bills first and shows what is genuinely free to spend this week, so the money you put at this balance is money you already knew you could spare.
Find your weekly numberEstimates are educational. They assume a fixed rate and a fixed payment, and they exclude fees. Pace is budgeting software, not a financial advisor.
If this loan consolidated something else
Personal loans are fixed-term instalment loans, so the payoff maths is the most straightforward of the four. Enter the balance, the rate and the payment, and the slider does the rest.
The one thing worth naming is what many personal loans are for. If this loan consolidated credit cards, the loan is not the achievement. A lower rate on the same debt is genuinely useful, and it only becomes a fix if the cards stay at zero. When the balances creep back, consolidation has doubled the debt rather than halved the rate.
That is the whole argument of a longer piece we wrote on it: consolidation is a tool, not a fix. The tool works. It just does not do the part that was actually hard.
Frequently asked questions
- Does paying off a personal loan early save money?
- Yes, on a normal fixed-rate loan. Less interest accrues because the balance falls faster. Check the agreement for a prepayment penalty first, which some lenders still apply.
- Should I pay off a personal loan or a credit card first?
- Whichever carries the higher rate, which is usually the card. The exception is when closing the smaller balance is what keeps you going, in which case finish it and move on.
- Is consolidating credit cards into a personal loan a good idea?
- It can be, if the rate is genuinely lower and the cards stay unused. The risk is running the cards back up while still owing the loan. We wrote about that in detail.
- How do I pay off a personal loan faster?
- Pay every two weeks, add one extra payment a year, or add a set amount each week. All three are in the calculator above. Check for a prepayment penalty first, which some personal-loan lenders still apply.
- Do biweekly payments help on a personal loan?
- They add up to 13 monthly payments a year instead of 12, which shortens a fixed-term loan. Confirm your lender applies each payment when it arrives rather than holding it.
More calculators
See the full set on the calculators page.