It's essential to know the total amount of debt that you carry. By knowing how much you owe, you can determine an appropriate budget for paying off your debt. It is relatively simple to calculate the total amount of your debt if you have all the correct paperwork.
Instructions
- 1
Gather your account statements for all loans and obligations. This includes your mortgage statement, statements on any student loans you have, credit card statements and statements from personal and car loans. Make sure you have a statement from every lender from which you have borrowed money.
2Add up the remaining balance on all of your statements. For example, if you owe $500 on one credit card, $300 on another, $100,000 on your mortgage, and $15,000 on your car, you would add up all of those numbers to arrive at the total amount of debt you owe.
3Check your online credit report. You can get three copies for this report free each year, one from each of the major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and Transunion). This report will list all of your creditors as well as balances owed and will total up the debt you owe.
4Compare the total debt shown on your credit report with the number you arrived at from adding up all your statement balances. These numbers may not align exactly if you have recently made debt payments, since your credit report does not update instantly. However, the numbers should be close. If you have debts on your credit report that you do not have statements for, contact the lender to verify the balance owed and that you do in fact owe the money. If the listed debt on the credit report isn't yours, you will need to correct this error with both the lender and the credit bureau.
5Determine the total balance owed once you have added up the remaining balance on all accounts that are listed on your credit report that are actually yours. This number should be equal to the number you get from all of your statements on the accounts you owe money on. This number is your total debt.
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