Here’s a scary thought…The average American has at least $5,000-$10,000 in credit card debt with APR interest rates as high as 25%! To break it down, if you have a credit card balance of $1,000 and a 25% APR it would take you about 8 years to pay it off making the minimum payment of $30. Based on the current balance of $1,000.00, you would pay a total of $1,127.33 in interest.

If you are only making minimum payments, it’s time to get more aggressive and stop feeding credit card companies your hard earned money.

A debt calculator is a very useful tool when trying to paydown credit card debt and can help you save hundreds of dollars in interest! Take a few minutes to crunch some numbers and get a clear idea of how long it will take to pay off those plastic monkeys on your back based on your debt-free goals and higher, fixed payments.

If you’d like to see how snowballing your credit card debts (paying off in order from highest interest rate to lowest) would work out for you, give this snowball calculator a whirl. This is often a better plan of attack then a consolodation loan.

To play around with factors like adjusting your monthly payments would effect your debt payoff goal, try this debt calculator from the Money page over at CNN for a basic breakdown.