Suppose you had a credit card with a $3,000 balance at an annual interest rate of 18 percent. If you paid only the two percent minimum monthly payment of $60 per month, it would take you eight years to pay off your bill.

Oh, $60 a month for eight years comes to $5,780. You would have paid nearly two times the original $3,000.

Now, suppose you added $50 to the minimum monthly payment of $60. That would come to $110 a month. At $110 a month, you could retire that debt in three years and save over $1,800 in interest payments .