What we're trying to do
Every guide has one job: explain a piece of the debt-payoff picture clearly and correctly, so you can make your own decision. We'd rather publish a short guide that's right than a long one that pads for length.
How guides are written and reviewed
Guides are researched against primary, non-commercial sources — chiefly the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — and each article lists the specific sources it relies on so you can check them yourself. Any figure that comes out of our calculator is cross-checked against the openly-documented methodology and its automated test suite, so the worked examples in the guides match what the tool actually computes.
Independence and funding
PayoffDebt is funded solely by display advertising (Google AdSense). We do not take affiliate commissions, and we do not accept paid placement, sponsored guides, or lender referrals — nothing in a guide is there because someone paid for it. Ads are served by a third party and never receive the financial figures you type into the calculator; see the Privacy page for detail. If our funding model ever changes, we'll say so plainly.
Corrections
If we get something wrong, we want to fix it. Email us through the contact page; we verify the report against the methodology and, where it holds up, correct the guide and update its “last reviewed” date. We don't quietly delete mistakes.
Not financial advice
These guides are educational. They explain how the math and the common strategies work; they can't account for your full financial situation and aren't a substitute for advice from a qualified professional. See our terms for the full statement.
Last updated: July 23, 2026