This is exactly how much I should be paying toward my debt each month

Illuminating information from Club Money's CFPs

This post is written in partnership with Club Money, Debt Heads’ very first (!) ad partner. Club Money founder, Christine Devane, is a longtime fan of the podcast and shares our belief that none of us can get through this mess we call “personal finance” on our own.

At first glance, Club Money looks like a budgeting app. A fun budgeting app, to be sure (certainly the most fun I’ve ever had swiping), but a budgeting app nonetheless.

But where other budgeting apps stop at … well, budgeting, Club Money sees budgeting as a starting point, a launch pad if you will, for much more. And its most exciting innovation so far is customized financial advice— a new add-on feature called: Balance My Goals.

Here’s how it works:

You connect your accounts (credit cards, investments, bank account) to Club Money, and answer a few short questions in the app. Then, a team of Certified Financial Planners take stock (hehe) of your entire financial picture, and provide personalized recommendations for you based on the amount you’re realistically able to save each month.

For some people, that means focusing on saving or investing. For others, like me, it means figuring out the ideal amount of money to put toward debt each month.

My results were surprising for a few reasons: The CFPs take into consideration the cost of living in my city (read: VERY HIGH) and factor that in when making recommendations. Apparently I am living within my means (yay!) and have extra money to work with. It also alerted me to the fact that I’ve been paying for a savings account that I’m not using. They suggested that I would be wise to close it and avoid those fruitless charges.

The coolest feature is the visual graphing that come along with your recommendations. If your personal plan advises you to save or invest, it shows you how much you will earn in three, six and twelve months intervals.

In my case, based on my income and debt situation, the CFPs recommend I put $620 toward my debt each month, and I can see how my debt will change in those same three intervals.

My pain is your gain:

I won’t sugarcoat it, looking at my debt is still very hard, especially this current number. I was sure I was going to send in my data and the app would either break, or the CFPs would just send back a sad-face emoji 😢.

But Christine assured me that nothing can shock them— their only goal is to provide professional finance advice to people who, like me, cannot necessarily afford a financial advisor.

In full transparency, I did run into one small hiccup. The system logged my credit card interest rates at 0% (I wish!). In reality they were much higher, because … the Marquette decision and an unfettered capitalist agenda! See episodes two and three: The House Always Wins for more on that.

But, Club Money’s small, dedicated team looked into it right away. The error stemmed from a third-party app, and within 24 hours of noting the issue, they fixed it!

This is a new service from Club Money, and as one of its early guinea pigs, I figured something like this might happen. When you work with real human beings, there can be real human error. On the flip side, those same real human beings care deeply about making their product as effective and useful as possible and I look forward to how it will continue to grow!

Balance my goals costs only $25 on Club Money, which feels worth it for the graphs alone. Plus, because Club Money is a small operation (like Debt Heads!) you can reach out with questions about anything that needs clarification.

My debt is much higher than I’d like, and so is my suggested repayment number, but it’s encouraging to see the graph, to know there will be progress, and to feel like all is not lost— I can afford to contribute to my debt consolidation, and someday it will be paid off.

To get your own personalized recommendations, try out Club Money today!