Problem with my program.

[C.Cen]

Hi guys, I'm supposed to make a program that calculates how many months it would take to pay off your credit card balance with a 14% yearly interest rate. I've written out what I believe to be it but I end up getting this.

http://omg.wthax.org/error_2.png

The program doesn't seem to continue after typing in the balance, or rather seems to be stuck in an infinite loop. Can anyone explain why this is happening?

Edit- After looking more closely, it seems the problem is that the second while loop never ends since it's never greater than 12. Would that be the problem?

Edit2- It seems I fixed it with a simple AND statement.

Edit3- On trying the program out, it seems to have the same problem when you type in a value higher than 1900...

http://omg.wthax.org/error_3.png

# include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()

{
        int payment = 20;
        int month = 0;
        float balance;
        float interest;
        int counter = 0;
          //Ask what their balance is.
        cout << "How much money did you waste?" << endl;
        cin >> balance;
          //Calculate the time needed to pay off the balance.
        while (balance > 0)
        {
                while (counter < 12 && balance > 0)
                {
                  ++ month;
                  ++ counter;
                  balance = balance - payment;
                        if (counter == 12)
                        {
                          counter = 0;
                          interest = balance * .14;
                          balance = balance + interest;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                          balance = balance;
                        }
                }
        }
        cout << "It would take you " << month << " months to pay off your "
             << "balance." << endl;
}

[mike_2000_17]

If you have more than 1900 of debt at 14%, and you only pay 20 per month, you will never be able to repay your debt, ad infinitum. That's why you get an infinite loop. You should add a check at the start of the loop to see if the yearly payment is at least bigger than the interest accrued before going into an infinite loop (or add a check to see if the balance is actually decreasing from year to year).

Also, the loop at line 17 is redundant to the one at line 19. I think that just removing the one that starts at line 19 would work.

[C.Cen]

Thank you, that fixed it. Here's the end result.

http://omg.wthax.org/4thassign.png