It’s great to hear you are taking a stand against your debts! You’re now a member of a very exclusive club. I’m running a series of posts at the moment about “Getting Out of Debt” that you might find interesting if you’re just starting out. This is about my own method, which is really just a combination of the best bits of everyone else’s methods! It can be a scary journey, but the result is very worthwhile. The first post can be read here.

To answer your question, Excel (or the free option – Google Documents Spreadsheets) can do this, but it would really mean working out your own formulae as I don’t know of any ready-made templates at the moment. It’s a good idea though; If I get an hour or so over the next few days I’ll have a go at putting one together for everyone to use.

That all said, this might be of use to you to begin with. It’s a “Cost of Debt” calculator, that seems may answer some of the questions you have about your own circumstances.

Good luck, I hope you reach your goals and stay tuned here. It’d be nice to know my words may help at least one person.

Lee.

Is there a money type program/software, that will give be a running “tally” on what I owe, or how much I have spent on finance charges? Maybe excel does this, but I have never used it. Any ideas?