Plan and track debt payoff

Fireball's Pay down plan helps you understand when your debts could reach zero and how different repayment choices might change that estimate. It is a planning tool: it does not move money, make payments, or change your lender's instructions.

You do not need to know the right strategy before you start. Begin with the details you know, compare the options, and update the plan when your loan or repayment changes.

Pay down debts

1. Open Goals.
2. Choose Pay down.
3. Review the debts under Overall payoff and Included debt.

Liability accounts with an outstanding balance appear automatically. If you do not see a debt, check that the account is connected and has an outstanding balance before assuming the plan is missing it.

The overall view can show your remaining principal, how much has been paid down, the payoff strategy, and an estimated debt-free date. Tap an individual debt to see its balance, estimated finish, projected interest, repayment details, and its place in the payoff order.

Remaining principal is the debt balance itself. Projected interest is the estimated interest charged while you repay it.

Check each debt's details first

Tap Compare payoff plans, Finish setup, or Review payoff plan when there is an existing debt plan. In the planner, the Your debts step shows the information used in the estimate. Tap Review or Edit beside a debt when something is missing or no longer current.

The fields depend on the type of debt:

- A regular loan or mortgage may use an Annual interest rate and Planned monthly payment.
- A revolving loan may ask for an Annual interest rate and Balance decrease each month. This is how much you expect the balance itself to go down; your full cash payment can be higher because of interest or spending.
- A revolving loan can also have a Full monthly payment (optional). Fireball can use this amount when Budget sets aside the payment before showing what is left to spend.
- A credit card asks whether you Pay the statement in full or Carry a balance. A card paid in full is left out of the payoff date, but it still counts as money leaving your account. A carried balance needs an annual purchase interest rate and a planned monthly repayment.

Use the details you can reasonably confirm from your lender or recent account history. If you are unsure what a field means, contact support rather than guessing a rate or payment.

Compare repayment plans

1. Continue to Extra repayments.
2. Choose Current repayments if you want to see what your saved payments would do without adding anything.
3. Choose Add extra repayments to test an extra amount each month, a one-off amount, or both.
4. Tap Compare.

For example, imagine you can reliably spare $150 each month after essentials. Enter $150 in Extra each month. If you also want to test a $1,000 tax refund, enter $1,000 in One-off amount. Fireball applies the one-off amount once at the start of the scenario and the monthly amount throughout the scenario. These values change the estimate; they do not schedule a payment at your bank.

Fireball compares three approaches:

- Current order follows the order produced by your current repayments.
- Highest rate first(Avalanche method) sends extra and freed repayments to the debt with the highest interest rate first. This is often called the avalanche approach.
- Smallest balance first(snowball method) sends extra and freed repayments to the debt with the smallest balance first. This is often called the snowball approach.

When one debt is included, all three approaches are the same. With several debts, two approaches can still produce the same result if their priority order happens to be the same.

A simple example

Suppose you have:

- a $3,000 credit-card balance at a high interest rate; and
- a $10,000 car loan at a lower interest rate.

With extra money available, Highest rate first targets the credit card first, which can reduce interest. Smallest balance first also targets the credit card in this example because it is the smaller balance. If your smallest debt has a lower rate, the two strategies may produce different interest and finish-date estimates. Choose the approach that fits your priorities, then select Use this plan.

Understand the result

Each comparison can show:

- how long the plan takes to reach debt-free
- total projected interest
- whether a plan is faster or has less projected interest than your current repayments
- the starting payoff order

Open View plan details to see the order Fireball used and How this estimate works to review its assumptions. The estimate assumes that saved rates and repayments stay unchanged until you edit them. Interest is calculated daily and charged monthly. It does not include new card spending, fees, penalties, tax, or future changes to your repayments.

These are estimates, not guarantees. A lender can calculate interest or apply payments differently, and your balance, rate, spending, or repayment can change.

Save the plan and connect it to Budget

When you are happy with a comparison, select it and tap Use this plan. The saved plan becomes the basis for the payoff order and debt-free estimate in Goals and other Fireball views.

Fireball may also offer to add the plan to Budget. This lets Budget reserve the planned debt payments and follow the payoff order as each included debt reaches zero. It does not create a bank payment.

You may see messages such as:

- Already covered in Budget — Budget is already reserving the relevant payment.
- Add extra repayments to Budget — the saved plan includes extra money that Budget is not reserving yet.
- Review Budget plan — some debt details or currency information needs to be checked before Budget can reserve an amount.

You can choose which debts receive extra repayments. A debt left out can still appear in the payoff projection, but Budget will not reserve extra repayments for it. To stop Budget reserving the plan, choose Remove from Budget. The payoff plan stays in Goals; only the Budget reservation is removed.

If you see an “At term end” step

Some fixed-rate and flexible loan arrangements can show an optional At term end step. It models moving debt between existing loan portions when a fixed term ends. This is a transfer between loan portions, not a repayment, so the total debt does not decrease because of it.

If you are not sure how your loan is structured, skip this while learning and ask your lender or Fireball support before saving a term-end option.

When the plan needs attention

• “Finish debt setup” or a debt marked “Review”

Open the debt and use Review or Edit. Add or correct the interest rate, balance, or repayment that Fireball requests. Fireball cannot show a reliable payoff date until the required details are valid.

• “Review fixed-term plan”

A saved term-end transfer no longer matches the available loan portions or the capacity Fireball can calculate. Open Review payoff plan, check the At term end step, and remove or update the stale option before comparing again.

• “Debt projection unavailable”

Fireball may not be able to convert every debt into your reporting currency. When that happens, it does not show a payoff estimate. Check the account and currency information. If the message remains, contact support.

• “Payoff is not reached”

At the saved rates and repayments, at least one balance does not reach zero within Fireball's 100-year projection. Review the rate and payment for that debt. If the payment is zero or too low to reduce the balance, update it only when it reflects a payment you can actually make.

• A credit card is not in the payoff date

That can be expected when the card is set to Pay the statement in full. Fireball keeps it out of the payoff plan because it is not modelling a carried balance. If you are carrying a balance, edit the card and choose Carry a balance, then add the rate and planned repayment.

• Budget shows “needs review”

Budget will not reserve an amount when the debt setup, projection, or currency information is incomplete. Fix the debt details first, then return to the Budget plan and review it again.

If the account details are correct but the payoff result still looks wrong, contact support. Include the debt screen, the message shown, and the rate and repayment assumptions you entered. Never send a bank password, one-time code, or full account number.