Change in how Purchases impact the Recommended Monthly Payments

[Debtonate]

A number of you told us that treatment of Purchases in your statements and how they impact the DebtPlan was confusing. We have therefore made changes to DebtPlan which will eliminate this confusion and improve your experience.

Please note that going forward, purchases on current month's statements will be now added to the total Recommended Monthly Payment for subsequent month. To optimize pay-off, this amount will be allocated to the Target Account and paying off the entire purchase amount in subsequent month will keep you on track of your plan.

For some of you, who had recorded purchases in October statements and paid them in the same month, you will notice that your October purchases are showing up in November again. If you have already made payments last month, you don't need to make an 'extra' payment to your Target Account (though it will be great if you can). Since the plan is self-correcting, your next month's statements and total recommended payments will adjust accordingly.

We hope that this change gives clarity to how Purchases impact your Recommended Monthly Payment and the DebtPlan.

[imarg]

I paid off my Chase account with a check from my Capital One account because the Capital One account has a lower interest. However, I don't want it to be considered as a purchase. i just want to add it into the balance and recalculate a new monthly payment with a debt free date of December 2011, which gives me a monthly committment roughly equal to what i had been paying before. I verified the statement from Capital One and deleted the purchase, then went into the plan and customized my plan with a debt free date of December 2011. However, my April payment is still asking for a "stay on track" payment that includes the payoff check from Capital one. Is there any way I can change this?

[ThriftyMan]

I paid off my Chase account with a check from my Capital One account because the Capital One account has a lower interest. However, I don't want it to be considered as a purchase. i just want to add it into the balance and recalculate a new monthly payment with a debt free date of December 2011, which gives me a monthly commitment roughly equal to what i had been paying before. I verified the statement from Capital One and deleted the purchase, then went into the plan and customized my plan with a debt free date of December 2011. However, my April payment is still asking for a "stay on track" payment that includes the payoff check from Capital one. Is there any way I can change this?

Yes. You can change it easily.

You've got it exactly right: the Stay On Track Payment amount compensates for your credit card spending and gives you a chance to add this amount to your Monthly Commitment to compensate for it. But you're right, it will pick up things like this check.

The easiest way to do this would be to just subtract the amount of your check from the stay on track payment. You just type in the number that you want it to be and click the action button to reset it at a different amount.

Hope that helps. You can play with this number a bit if you want to see how it flows through your payments.

Let us know if you have additional questions.