On Jun 15, 2009, at 3:21 AM, Ben wrote: > Hi, downloaded and purchased Debt Quencher last night - I'm really > impressed with it and it has already shown me how I can be debt free > in a relatively short amount of time. Thanks for the impressive > package - I think I'll be looking into MoneyWell next! > Hi Ben,
Thanks! > One thing I did note - I don't know whether this feature exists and I > just haven't found it yet - most credit cards express your minimum > payment as a percentage of your overall balance (e.g. 2%, 2.25%) or a > minimum amount (e.g. £5), whichever is greater. DQ has a minimum > payment column, but it requires that this be altered every month. Is > it possible to set up a feature that adjusts the minimum payment based > on these rules as a way of showing how long it would take to actually > pay off your balance at the minimum rate? I've tried doing it myself > in a spreadsheet but I couldn't figure out the interest functions to > make it work properly. > Debt Quencher was kept simple on purpose. I do know that there are rules for minimum balances and even fees for over limits but the goal was to keep the data entry as uncluttered as possible. If you really are going to pay only 2% of the balance, you will be paying for many, many years. Putting in a static amount is generous compared to the credit card company methods but it gives you a baseline still. > I appreciate this is more of a "kick up the backside" feature designed > to scare rather than aid towards actual meaningful debt reduction! > Exactly. > The other feature I was wondering about is balance transfer. > > As an example: > > Credit Card 1: 15.8% (1.313% per month) balance of £400, limit of > £2000 > Credit Card 2: 9.9% (0.793% per month, based on paying 10% of balance, > else 14.9% APR) balance of £1050, limit of £1600 > > (yes, these are very close to my own figures!) > > I can transfer onto credit card 2, for 0% for 9 months, with a > handling fee of 2.5% of the transferred balance up to a maximum of 90% > of the credit limit of credit card 2. This would enable me to cancel > card 1, and reduce interest payments massively, except I cannot > transfer the full amount off card 2 for at least 1 month, otherwise I > break the 90% limit. The other option is to pay off more on CC2, > allowing me to perform that payment immediately. > > Whilst I can get just about work out the scenarios and benefits for > myself on this one, as it is relatively simple, transfers like this > are useful tools in debt management, and would be a great thing to > preview the effect of in DQ. > Messing with balances to pay off one card with another certainly is tricky. So are cash advances and balance transfers. They cause the payoff to require viewing multiple balances with different rates on the same card. You can split a single account (card) into multiple accounts with different interest rates to simulate this but again that gets complicated. What I generally suggest is to take the pessimistic interest rate (the higher one) and use that as your interest rate. You may save a bit of money swapping balances on cards or by paying just the purchase balance first but I've found that paying down each card is simple and effective also. > Again, it is a complicated sort of calculation though, and I guess the > timings of the offer rate and the handling fee etc. would make it > awkward to program, and would detract from the simplicity of DQ. > > Just a thought! Thanks for the great software! I appreciate the thoughts and suggestions. I did use a program that could handle most of this prior to writing Debt Quencher but it was so complex (and then the company went out of business) that I decided to avoid that complexity as much as possible. Debt Quencher will probably get a few more features as long as I can keep the interface nearly as clean. Thanks. Peace, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com No Thirst Software LLC http://nothirst.com http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
