Figuring out how to pay off your debt isn’t just disheartening. It’s kind of a pain.
You have to gather all the data, run calculations, and even then, you’re left with one-dimensional numbers.
Now, one of the smartest things I did in the past year was to finally write out all of my financial information. My income, my expenses, my bills, and most importantly, my debt.
Adding together what I owed and what I could theoretically pay back really opened my eyes to the possibility of being debt free.
But something was missing. I wanted to know my future timeline. I wanted to change different variables to see how that would affect the end date.
And I wanted to do it without creating complex equations and/or touching an Excel spreadsheet. That’s when my friend Tyler showed me Unbury.us.
See Tyler, I did mention you. You’re welcome.
Unbury.us makes mapping your debt incredibly easy and surprisingly motivating.
Do you want a chart that displays your debt repayment based on your individual loans, how much you can pay a month, and what type of repayment approach you are taking? How about a month by month breakdown of each loan you have and the date it will be paid off by?
Then Unbury is perfect for you.
Unbury isn’t an app. It’s a relatively simple website that provides a very handy tool for free. No signup is needed. You won’t share any bank account information.
All you do is go to the website and enter numbers.
First, you enter your debt. You create one loan at a time, adding a total amount, an interest rate, and a minimum monthly payment. After that, enter a total monthly amount you’re able to put towards your loans.
(This amount must be equal and/or higher than the total minimum payment.)
Once you have your monthly amount set, select whether you want to use an avalanche method (prioritize highest interest loans) or a snowball method (prioritize smallest loans) and click calculate.
This is where the magic happens.
Unbury creates a color coordinated line chart, spreading each loan across a timeline that goes until the month and year you are debt free. Change the monthly payment or the payment method, and watch the chart instantly update.
If you want to be debt free by a specific date, this allows you to easily figure out how much you have to pay per month.
Below the chart, you’ll find each loan listed line by line with a payoff date attached to it.
To save the information you’ve entered, all you have to do is bookmark the page in your web browser once you’ve run a calculation. It really couldn’t be easier.
The Pros of Unbury.us
- No signup
- No personal info, account numbers, or passwords
- Save information for later
- Easy to read timeline of repayment
- Ability to quickly experiment with different variables
If you have multiple loans that you’re wanting to take out one at a time, this is a fantastic tool.
The Cons of Unbury.us
- Can’t account for fluctuating interest rates
- Doesn’t automatically update
- Can’t factor in early payoff penalties
- Lacks personality
It’s a pretty vanilla tool. If you have loans with changing interest rates, you’ll have to manually change them as you go. In fact, even if you bookmark your information, you’ll have to update it from time to time.
Unbury saves static information, so your loans amounts stay the same unless you change them.
This isn’t difficult. Every 2-3 months, simply go to your bookmark, change the loan totals, resave the bookmark, and you’re good to go.
Is Unbury.us right for me?
The best way to know is to simply try it out. It’ll take 10 minutes or so to enter your information, and like I said, there’s zero commitment on your part. If you have multiple loans/debts that you’re trying to wrap your budget around, it’s absolutely working looking into. Click here to go now.
If you know people who might benefit from Unbury.us, feel free to share this post with them!
Learn how I got into my current state of debt, and what I took away from it in That College Book, now available!
