Oll Korrekt
Founder · 1 product on SaaS Hive
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What our Reddit debt-planning research taught us while building MyDebtLens
I know this isn’t a technical update, but I thought it might be of personal interest to some here.We’ve just published some original research behind MyDebtLens looking at when people start seeking help with debt and, more importantly, what they’re actually trying to decide.We started with a random sample of 2000 r/personalfinance submissions. An estimated 15.3%, roughly 1 in 6 or 7, concerned planning or managing existing debt. That describes the Reddit sample, not Americans or households generally.We also reviewed separate cohorts from r/personalfinance, r/Debt and r/debtfree.What I found more interesting than the headline number was the range of decisions people were working through: whether to use savings, consolidate or refinance, which debt to pay first, how to deal with cash-flow pressure, what to do with a windfall, and how to adjust when circumstances change.It reinforced one of the ideas behind MyDebtLens: debt payoff planning makes more sense when debts are considered alongside the rest of someone’s monthly financial life, rather than as balances and interest rates in isolation.The full research, methodology and limitations are now published on MyDebtLens, but since external links aren’t available on my SaaS Hive plan, I thought I’d share the main takeaway here.
MyDebtLens: Debt Planning Built Around Your Real Monthly Life
MyDebtLens is a U.S.-focused debt-planning web app for people who want to understand not only how long repayment might take, but how a proposed plan fits into the rest of their monthly life.I mentioned MyDebtLens briefly when I introduced myself here. A privacy question in that discussion also made me realize that a proper product introduction should explain both what the app does and what happens to the information people enter.Debt planning is the coreMyDebtLens brings debts, payments, income, household expenses, emergency savings, and due dates into one planning workspace.Users enter the figures relevant to their situation, without having to connect a bank account. These can include balances, APRs, minimum and planned payments, income, expenses, savings, and due dates. First name, last name, and ZIP code are optional profile information.Those numbers drive the calculations. Balances, APRs, and payments are used to estimate payoff timing and interest. Income, expenses, and savings help show the monthly pressure behind a plan. Due dates make it possible to see when payments fall instead of treating the month as one undivided block.Depending on their plan, users can compare repayment routes, test changes, see how payment choices affect estimated interest and timing, review upcoming payments through calendar views, and create reports they can return to later.MyDebtLens brings these pieces together around one central task: helping someone build and understand a practical debt plan.What “U.S.-focused” meansWhen I describe MyDebtLens as U.S.-focused, I mean that the app is built around the debt types, terminology, repayment conventions, household-cost pressures, and public data sources that shape financial life in the United States.Where relevant, official or methodologically documented U.S. data can add geographic, rate, cost, and economic context. That helps explain the environment around a plan without replacing the user’s own figures.If someone enters an APR of 24%, MyDebtLens calculates from that 24%, not a national average. The same applies to balances, payments, income, expenses, savings, and due dates. The user’s numbers remain the foundation of the plan.The core product works without AIThe main planning calculations are deterministic. Payoff projections, estimated interest, route comparisons, scenarios, calendars, charts, affordability results, and report figures are produced by application logic, not by an AI model deciding the answer.Ask MyDebtLens is optional. It can help explain a result, answer questions about a scenario, or put tradeoffs into plainer language.When a user asks a question, the app may send it with relevant planning context, such as balances, APRs, payments, income, expenses, savings, debt labels, geographic context, and results already calculated by the app.The feature is designed not to add account email addresses, payment-provider identifiers, or internal account identifiers to the AI prompt. AI cannot edit saved records, move money, make payments, contact creditors, or replace the calculation engine.Privacy without impossible promisesDebt and household information is sensitive, so MyDebtLens does not make claims such as “absolute privacy” or “nobody can ever access your data.”Normal public and authenticated web connections use HTTPS, passwords are not stored as readable passwords, and many sensitive debt and household fields are encrypted in application storage. MyDebtLens is not end-to-end encrypted, and restricted authorized administrative access remains technically possible when needed to operate, secure, support, or legally administer the service.Third-party public-page analytics are kept outside the authenticated debt workspace and are not intended to receive private debt names, balances, income figures, report contents, or private Ask MyDebtLens questions.MyDebtLens does not make money by matching users with lenders, selling debt leads, or steering people toward debt-relief, settlement, or credit-repair offers. Personal debt information is not sold to advertisers.Anyone who wants to explore the product first can use the public Demo, which contains fictional financial information.MyDebtLens is a planning and educational product. It is not a lender, debt-relief provider, credit-counseling agency, or substitute for professional advice.The goal is practical: help people bring their debt and household numbers together, compare possible repayment paths, and understand the pressure behind those paths.Before you would trust a debt-planning app with your own numbers, what would you need to see explained most clearly?
Hi, I’m Ayman. My experience with debt led me to build MyDebtLens
Hello everyone,I’m Ayman Al-Adham, founder of MyDebtLens.Like many people, I have experienced what it means to live with debt. Not just the numbers themselves, but the uncertainty that comes with them.You may know your balances and monthly payments, yet still struggle to answer simple questions.Am I actually making progress?What happens if I pay a little more toward one debt?Can I afford a new payment without making everything else harder?How much pressure will this put on the next few months?That experience stayed with me. I did not start MyDebtLens because I had all the answers or because I wanted to present myself as someone who had solved debt for everyone else.I started it because I believed people dealing with debt deserved a clearer way to understand their situation, compare their choices, and see what those choices could mean before acting on them.That idea gradually became MyDebtLens.It is still growing, and I am still learning from the people who use it and from other founders building products around real problems.I am glad to be part of the SaaS Hive community and look forward to getting to know the people behind the products here.What personal experience or frustration led you to start building your product?