What will the agent ask you?
A good agent asks before it answers. Expect questions like these, and answer the ones that matter to you.
- What's the interest rate on each card or loan? Your statement has it if you're not sure.
- Is any balance on a 0% promo, and when does it end?
- How much can you put toward debt each month without missing other bills?
- How much cash do you want to keep as a cushion?
- Would you rather pay the least interest, or get a quick first win?
- Will anything new go on these cards?
What does a good answer look like?
A worked example on sample data: one person with $6,400 on a Visa at 26.49% (minimum $205), $1,300 on a store card at 0% until January 15 and about 30% after (minimum $40), $11,000 in savings, and $900 a month to put toward the cards.
You
Make me a plan to get rid of my credit card debt.
Your agent
You owe $7,700 on two cards. The Visa at 26.49% costs you about $141 a month in interest. The store card is at 0% until January 15, then about 30%.
Your agent
The two methods split here. Highest rate first puts everything past the minimums on the Visa while the store card is at 0%, then switches to the store card once its rate jumps in mid-January. The store card is gone in March and the Visa in September 2027, with about $868 in interest.
Your agent
Smallest balance first clears the store card in January, before the promo ends, then the Visa by September 2027, with about $879 in interest. That's about $11 more for an early win and no promo date to watch.
Your agent
Your $11,000 in savings could clear the Visa today and save most of that interest, but it would leave you $4,600. Whether that's enough of a cushion is your call. Both orders finish in September 2027, so I saved that date as a goal in Candor. Tell me which order you'd rather follow.
Illustrative example with sample data, not a customer result.
What Candor's weekly review raises for this household
Once a week, Candor reads the records and notes and raises what's worth talking through, with why it matters and the records behind it. These are the areas it would raise from the sample records. Your agent brings each one up with you and works out the figures.
A high-rate Visa balance next to savings
The Visa carries a balance at a high rate while savings hold enough to cover it.
High-interest debt next to a large cash balance is a tradeoff worth talking through: interest saved against the cushion you keep. Candor raises it; you and your agent decide.
The store card's promo rate ends Jan 15
The store card's promotional rate ends Jan 15, with a balance still on it.
A promotional rate looks free until the date passes. The date decides when the highest-rate-first plan switches cards.
The review also names what would change the picture. Your agent may ask about: whether the savings is set aside for something; whether the store card charges back interest if the promo balance isn't cleared.
What does a weak answer look like?
Use the debt avalanche method: pay the minimum on every card and put extra money toward the highest interest rate. Your Visa has the highest rate at 26.49%, so pay that first.
- It took today's rates at face value and missed that the store card jumps to about 30% in January.
- It never asked what you can pay each month, so there's no date and no plan.
- It ignored the $11,000 in savings and the cushion you want to keep.
Get the debt terms right before comparing payoff plans
A payoff comparison depends on more than the current balance. Your agent needs each APR, minimum payment, due date, and any promotional terms, along with what you can afford after obligations. Candor may hold some of those facts; a current statement is the right place to fill gaps rather than guessing a rate.
Check the answer
- Ask which terms are verified and which are missing. Keep promotional periods, variable rates, and fees visible in the assumptions.
- Compare approaches using the same affordable payment amount and cash-buffer assumptions, so a faster result is not simply based on spending more.
Choose a next step
Talk through which approach fits your priorities and the amounts it implies. Your agent saves the plan you settle on as goals or budget changes and tells you what it saved. The plan does not initiate a payment or change your lender's settings.
Where Candor fits
Your agent works through the question with you, builds the plan, and keeps you on it. Candor gives it your real accounts, exact figures, and the goals, budget, notes, and decisions from earlier sessions, in whichever agent you use. Every week its review raises what's worth talking through and tells your agent why. Candor is not a licensed advisor and gives no advice; your agent does the advising, and the decisions are yours.
- Read-only: Candor cannot move money.
- Candor never sells your financial data or trains models on it, and you can export or delete it.
- Every agent read and change is recorded with its reason.
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Common questions
- What's a good ChatGPT prompt for paying off debt?
- List each debt with its balance, rate, minimum, and any promo end date, say what you can pay each month in total, and ask for two payoff orders compared at that same amount, with dates and interest. Tell it not to assume rates you didn't give.
- Avalanche or snowball: which is better?
- Paying the highest rate first (avalanche) costs the least interest. Paying the smallest balance first (snowball) gives quicker wins, which some people find easier to stick with. The CFPB describes both. Compare them at the same monthly payment before you choose.
- What happens when a 0% promo rate ends?
- Whatever balance is left starts costing the card's regular rate. A plan made before the end date should say what happens to that balance: paid off in time, or carried at the new rate.
- Does Candor pay my cards?
- No. Candor is read-only and cannot move money. Your agent builds the plan with you and saves it in Candor; payments stay with you and your bank.
Sources
- How to reduce your debt Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, June 25, 2026