Six guides, one dataset page, written and checked by our editorial team.
Current mortgage, auto, personal loan, and credit card rates from Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, and Experian, with dates and a downloadable CSV.
Read →A common guideline is that total monthly debt payments should stay at or below 36% of gross income. See how to calculate what loan amount fits your budget.
Read →Most lenders want a score of at least 580 to 640 for a personal loan, with the best rates going to borrowers above 720. Here is the full breakdown.
Read →Making even small extra payments toward principal can cut months or years off a loan and save hundreds in interest. Here is exactly how it works.
Read →The avalanche saves the most money by targeting high-rate debt first. The snowball builds motivation by eliminating small balances first. Here is how to choose.
Read →The interest rate is the base cost of borrowing. APR adds lender fees and other costs, making it the more complete number to compare loans by.
Read →Amortization splits each loan payment between interest and principal. Early payments are mostly interest; later ones pay off more principal. Here is how the math works.
Read →Each guide carries a named byline and a dated update line, not a house pseudonym. Jessica Martinez, who spent six years reviewing consumer loan files as a bank credit analyst, drafts them. Chris Terry, who builds the calculators, then re-runs every formula against a second worked example and traces every quoted rate to its primary source before anything publishes. Cited figures come with observation dates from Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve and Experian, and the checks themselves are spelled out on the editorial standards page.
If loans are new territory, read how amortization works first; every other page leans on it. From there, APR versus interest rate explains the two numbers lenders quote and why they differ, and the affordability guide turns your income into a borrowing ceiling using the 36 percent debt-to-income guideline. Already carrying balances? Skip straight to the payoff pair: paying off a loan faster covers the extra-principal math, and snowball versus avalanche settles which order to attack multiple debts in. The 2026 rates dataset is the reference the rest of the site quotes from, with a CSV you can download and reuse.
Every guide pairs with a calculator, so you can read the explanation, then run your own numbers without leaving the site.