Debt2Wealth
Debt Reality Check for South Africans
Understand how much of your monthly payment is going to interest vs reducing your debt
Our Debt Reality Check shows your total bad debt, weighted interest rate, and the percentage of your monthly payments going toward interest instead of your actual balance — all in one clear dashboard.
While this is not a repayment calculator or tracker, it gives you the most important insight first: whether your current payments are actually working in your favour.
Takes less than 2 minutes. No signup required
About this blog
This blog is where we document our real journey from debt to financial stability.
We share what we’re learning, the strategies we’re testing, and how we analyse and review our debt over time — from diagnosing the problem to applying structured repayment approaches and tracking real progress month by month.
Debt Reality Check - Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Debt Reality Check?
A Debt Reality Check is a diagnostic snapshot of your debt. It shows your total bad debt, weighted average interest rate, and how much of your monthly payment is going toward interest versus reducing your actual balance.
Is this a debt calculator or repayment planner?
No. This tool is not a repayment calculator or tracker. It focuses on the most important first insight: whether your current payments are working in your favour or mostly servicing interest.
What information do I need to run the Debt Reality Check?
You only need your current debt balances, interest rates, monthly payments, and any fees. The dashboard automatically calculates the rest.
Who is this Debt Reality Check for?
This tool is designed for South Africans with credit cards, personal loans, overdrafts, or other high-interest debt who want a clear, honest view of their situation before choosing a strategy.
What should I do after seeing my results?
If a high percentage of your payment is going toward interest, the next step is to actively change your debt strategy — not just observe the numbers.
This usually means doing one or more of the following: increasing your monthly payments where possible, targeting your highest-interest debt first, or restructuring your repayments using a clear payoff method.
The Debt Reality Check shows you the problem at a single point in time. To see whether the changes you make are actually working from month to month, we document and review our real progress on our Debt Scorecard, where we track how balances reduce over time as strategies are applied.
We explain these payoff approaches in more detail using methods like the Debt Snowball and Debt Avalanche, which help prioritise which debts to attack first.
Our posts are grouped by theme, from eliminating debt and building sustainable habits to creating income and long-term wealth.
