Calculate the cash used to retire debt for each of the six months. since the company can't pay down more debt than there is cash available to retire the debt, the cash used to retire debt cannot exceed the cash available to retire debt. likewise, the company won't pay more money to retire debt than it has debt from the prior month to retire. therefore, the cash used to retire debt will be equal to the cash available to retire debt if that total is less than the loan balance from the prior month. otherwise, the cash used to retire debt will be the loan total from the prior month