The Pay off debt goal lays out the order in which you pay your credit cards, loans and mortgage, and estimates when each is paid off. It changes Assigned only, through the debts' payment Plans. Nothing is funded until you confirm each paycheck. Goals are free.
Debt terms
A payoff estimate needs each debt's terms, from your statement:
- APR, the yearly rate.
- Minimum payment for a card, or Monthly payment for a loan or mortgage.
- Due day.
- A card may have a Promo rate: a lower rate until a date.
- A mortgage also has Escrow (taxes and insurance) per month. Only the payment less escrow pays down the loan; escrow doesn't lower what you owe.
Terms are saved on each account, so you are asked once. Add them in the goal's Debt terms step, or on the account's own screen under Debt terms. Forward uses them only to estimate a payoff and never changes them. Months left on a loan is an estimate Forward works out; you don't type it.
Choosing a strategy
Open Make this a goal on a debt account, or +, Goal, Pay off debt. Pick the debts, add any missing terms, then choose an order:
- Snowball. Smallest balance first.
- Avalanche. Highest rate first.
- Breathing room. The debt whose balance is smallest compared with its payment first.
- Custom order. Drag the debts into the order you want.
Every debt gets its minimum each month. Extra each month goes to the first debt in the order; when one is paid off, its whole payment moves on to the next debt that month. Each card shows the month you'd be Debt-free and the interest, and Minimums only shows the same with no extra, so you can see the difference. You can leave a debt, such as the mortgage, out of the goal. A Pay off debt goal isn't a row in the Goals section; it appears on its debts' account screens.
The estimate
Every payoff figure is an estimate. Forward charges interest once a month at the APR divided by 12; lenders charge it daily. A debt whose own payment doesn't cover its monthly interest is named in an amber line, such as "Visa doesn't pay itself off on its own minimum." It shows "not paid off" only if the plan, with your extra and the payments rolled from other debts, doesn't clear it either.
How Forward pays each debt
On Review payment Plans, a table shows each payment now and after:
- A loan or mortgage tracked outside the budget is paid by its payment Plan. Saving the plan changes exactly those Plans. A mortgage's Plan stays the whole payment, escrow included.
- A credit card on the budget has no Plan. Its payment is a transfer from your checking, so its minimum and any extra are a planned payment: "Paid from your checking, no Plan to change". The amount is stored on the goal.
Saving the plan writes no assignment. Changed Plans reach Assigned at the next Rollover Review.
When a debt is paid off
At the month-end Review, once a debt in your plan reads $0.00, Forward asks about its payment. You pick one; nothing moves until you do and confirm the Review.
- Roll its payment into the next debt that still owes. That debt's Plan, or its planned payment for a card, rises by the amount, and the paid-off debt's payment ends.
- Not now ends the paid-off debt's payment and leaves the next debt as it is. Despite its name it isn't a deferral: Forward doesn't ask about that debt again.
- For the last debt there is nothing to roll to, so you pick End the payment and mark the goal reached. The goal is reached once you do.
Forward never moves or ends a payment on its own.
What to do
- On a debt account's screen, tap Add terms (or Edit terms) and enter the APR, payment and due day from your statement.
- Tap Make this a goal.
- Choose an order and, if you like, an amount for Extra each month.
- Tap Review payment Plans, check the table, then Save payment Plans.