Split Rent Payments built this worksheet for the personal loan requests that come in with a list of balances and a question about which ones to include. A debt consolidation worksheet answers one question: is a single personal loan cheaper and faster than the balances you are paying now? For most households carrying $2,000 to $5,000 across two or three credit cards and a store card, the answer is yes by a wide margin, but only when the right balances are included and the term is chosen deliberately. As a credit counselor I built this worksheet with families at a kitchen table hundreds of times. It has four steps, each with a table, and it works for any consolidation loan up to the $5,000 available through Split Rent Payments.
Step one: list every balance
Write down every balance you owe, with the APR, the minimum payment, and whether the rate is promotional. Pull the numbers from the latest statements, not from memory; card APRs have crept up and many people are surprised by the current figures. Include medical bills on payment plans, buy-now-pay-later installments, and any small personal loans. Leave out the rent, the car loan, and student loans, which are not what a small consolidation loan is for.
| Balance | Amount | APR | Minimum payment | Promotional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Store card | $1,100 | 29.9% | $35 | No |
| Credit card A | $1,900 | 26.5% | $57 | No |
| Credit card B | $1,400 | 22.9% | $42 | No |
| Furniture financing | $900 | 0% until month 14, then 27.9% | $75 | Yes |
| Medical bill | $650 | 0% | $54 | Plan |
| Total | $5,950 | $263 |
This household pays $263 a month in minimums and, at those minimums, will be paying the cards for more than a decade.
Step two: sort by APR and draw the line
Sort the list from highest APR to lowest. Then get an APR estimate for the consolidation loan from the rates page; for fair credit, 20% to 30% is realistic, and for good credit, 12% to 20%. Draw a line at the loan's APR. Everything above the line is a candidate for consolidation. Everything at or below it stays where it is, because moving a 0% balance into an 18% loan costs money.
In the example, with a loan estimate of 18% APR, the store card, credit card A, and credit card B are above the line: $4,400 total. The furniture financing is at 0% for now and the medical bill is on an interest-free plan; both stay. One caution on promotional balances: if the furniture financing will not be paid off before the promotional period ends and the deferred interest hits retroactively, it belongs in the loan after all. Here, $75 a month clears $900 in twelve months, before month 14, so it stays out.
Step three: size the loan and pick the term
The loan amount is the sum of the balances above the line, plus any origination fee the lender charges so the net deposit covers the full payoff. $4,400 with a 3% fee means requesting about $4,540. If the lender charges no fee, request $4,400. Do not round up for a cushion; a cushion is how a consolidation loan turns into a consolidation loan plus a new expense.
The term sets the trade-off between payment and total interest. Use the personal loan calculator:
| Term at 18% APR on $4,400 | Monthly payment | Total interest |
|---|---|---|
| 12 months | $403 | $441 |
| 18 months | $281 | $654 |
| 24 months | $220 | $868 |
Choose the shortest term whose payment fits with room to spare. The household in the example was paying $263 in minimums; a 24-month term at $220 is lower than that and clears the debt in two years, while 18 months at $281 is close to the old minimums and saves another $214. Either beats the decade of minimums.
Step four: compare the total cost
The final step is the number that justifies the loan. Estimate what the balances above the line cost if paid at minimums, and compare it to the loan's total interest. Three cards totaling $4,400 at an average APR near 26%, paid at roughly 3% minimums, take about eleven years to clear and cost about $4,200 in interest. The 24-month consolidation loan costs $868. The difference is about $3,300 and nine years.
If the numbers do not show a clear saving, the loan APR is too close to the card APRs; in that case, wait, improve the profile using the steps in the eligibility guide, and rerun the worksheet in three months.
The day the loan funds
Consolidation fails in the week after funding more often than at any other point. The loan lands in checking, the cards are still open, and the payoff feels less urgent than it did. So the plan for funding day is written in advance: the morning the deposit posts, pay each card in full online, screenshot the confirmations, and then follow the card decisions in the closing cards guide. Set the loan to automatic payment the same day.
Some lenders offer to pay creditors directly. Accept it when offered; it removes the temptation entirely and sometimes earns a rate discount.
Consolidating shared household debt
Some balances belong to more than one person: a card used for groceries in a shared apartment, a furniture purchase for the living room, a utility deposit one roommate fronted. When those balances go into one person's consolidation loan, the household should split the loan payment the way it would split rent payments, using written shares and a collection date before the draft. The roommate split guide has the agreement. A split pay app can carry the monthly shares; the worksheet above tells you what the shares are a percentage of.
Keeping the consolidation from unwinding
Three habits protect the result. Freeze the paid-off cards and remove them from stored profiles. Keep a $300 to $500 cushion in checking so a surprise does not go on a card. And put any windfall, a tax refund, a third paycheck in a biweekly month, toward the loan, since nearly every lender in the network allows prepayment without penalty. A 24-month loan with two extra payments a year is a 20-month loan.
The worksheet in one page
List every balance with its APR. Sort high to low. Draw the line at the loan's APR and consolidate only what is above it. Size the loan to the total plus any fee. Choose the shortest comfortable term. Compare total interest to the cost of minimums. Pay the cards the day the loan funds, freeze them, and automate the payment. The household in the example replaced $263 in minimums with a $220 payment, cleared the debt in 24 months instead of eleven years, and saved about $3,300. That is what one payment instead of many looks like in numbers.
How Split Rent Payments routes a consolidation personal loan request
When the worksheet produces a personal loan amount, the request goes through the same form as any other personal loan, and the routing depends on the applicant's credit tier and state. A $4,400 consolidation request from an applicant with a 680 score reaches prime and near-prime lenders whose personal loan APRs sit in the teens; the same request from an applicant with a 590 score reaches fair-credit lenders whose personal loan APRs sit in the twenties and thirties. The worksheet's line, the APR below which balances stay put, moves with the tier, so an applicant should get the tier estimate from the rates page before drawing it. The debt consolidation loans page explains the product; the worksheet decides the amount.
The worksheet at the top of the range
The example above consolidates $4,400. At the $5,000 maximum, the worksheet works the same way but the line matters more, because the personal loan cannot cover everything. A household with $6,800 in balances across four cards and a store account consolidates the $5,000 with the highest APRs into a personal loan and keeps the lowest-rate $1,800 where it is, paying its minimum until the personal loan is done. If the remaining balance carries a promotional 0% rate that ends within the personal loan's term, the household should plan to pay it off before the deadline from the room the personal loan payment created; otherwise the deferred interest lands on top of the personal loan.
A second personal loan for the remainder is possible after several months of on-time payments on the first, and lenders in the network accept repeat requests from borrowers in good standing. The eligibility guide explains how an existing personal loan payment is counted in the debt-to-income calculation.
Personal loan terms and the worksheet's total-cost line
The total-cost comparison in step four depends on the term, and the term is the one worksheet input that is a choice rather than a fact. A 12-month personal loan on $4,400 at 18% APR costs about $441 in interest; a 24-month personal loan costs about $868; the cards at minimums cost about $4,200. Both personal loan terms win by thousands. The difference between them, about $427, is the price of a payment $183 lower each month. A household with a stable income and a buffer should take the 12-month personal loan; a household on shift income or with a roommate's share in the mix should take the 24-month loan and prepay. The personal loan calculator shows every term between.
Splitting a consolidation loan in a household
When part of the consolidated debt was shared, the loan payment is split the way the household would split rent payments: the shared portion by the household's shares, the personal portion by the borrower alone. If $1,200 of a $4,400 loan paid off a shared furniture balance in a two-person household splitting 50/50, the roommate owes 50% of the share of the payment attributable to $1,200, about $30 of the $220 payment on a 24-month term. Write it down, put it in the split pay app as a recurring item, and collect it before the draft. The SplitPay style approach keeps the shared piece visible for the whole term, and the roommate split guide has the agreement.
The worksheet as a repeatable habit
The worksheet is not a one-time exercise. Run it whenever a card balance carries for more than two statements, whether or not a loan follows. Most of the time the answer will be to pay the balance down from cash, because it is small and the loan's APR is close to the card's. Occasionally the answer will be a loan, and the household that has run the worksheet before will know the amount, the term, and the shares in thirty minutes. The habit is what keeps a consolidation from being needed twice.
Households that track rent in a split payment app can add the shared portion of the consolidation payment as a recurring line, using the rent split payments shares Split Rent Payments describes and a SplitPay style reminder before the draft; the worksheet decides the amount, and the app only carries it.
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