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Debt Snowball is a debt elimination strategy popularized by Dave Ramsey, a renowned debt and personal finance guru. Under this method, you reduce your debt by paying the minimum monthly payment to all accounts, except the one with the smallest balance, which you’ll try to pay down as fast as you can.

How the Debt Snowball Method Works

The basic steps in the Debt Snowball debt reduction plan are as follows:

List all debts from the smallest balance to the largest.

Pay the minimum payment on every debt, except the smallest debt.

Pay as much as you can towards that smallest debt until it is paid off.

Once the smallest debt is paid in full, repeat the process by paying as much as you can toward the next smallest debt.

The idea is that you’ll be able to pay more toward the “smallest” debt each time a debt is fully paid off.

The process is named the “snowball method” because the payments you are sending to creditors grow larger over time, much like a rolling snowball. You gain psychological momentum by achieving a quick win by paying off the smallest debt first.

Here is an illustration of the Debt Snowball method.

From the image, you can see Debt A is the smallest, followed by Debt B, Debt C, and the largest, Debt D. Assume you have $250 to pay each month and $50 is the minimum payment on each. You’d pay $50 on each, except you pay $100 toward your smallest one (Debt A).

Once Debt A is paid off, you roll the $100 payment toward Debt B, thus creating the “snowball” effect.

Debt Snowball Example

Let’s say you have 5 outstanding accounts in the following amount: $500, $625, $675, $1000, and $1200 — note, the interest rate is irrelevant in this method.

You would order the accounts from the lowest balance to the highest balance using the Debt Snowball Method, like below:

To keep this simple, let’s assume each debt requires a minimum payment of $25 per month and we are leaving out the increases in the balance due to finance charges. Also, let’s assume you’ve budgeted $200 per month to pay off your debt.

In the first month, you’ll pay $25 to all accounts, except the $500 one, which you’ll use all of the remaining $100 to pay down.

After 5 months, the $500 debt would be fully paid and the remaining ones are reduced to $500, $550, $875, and $1075.

Now, you’ll repeat the same process by paying $25 to all, except the next $500 one, which you’ll pay $125 per month ($100 from the original $500 debt that was paid off, plus the $25 you have been paying). After 4 months, the second debt is paid off (notice how it’s faster than the first $500?), and the remaining debts are reduced to $450, $775, and $975.

Rinse and repeat…

Debt Snowball Illustration

Here’s the example in a table format to help you visualize the process.

Debt Snowball Controversy

The biggest controversy surrounding the debt snowball method is the disregard of the interest rate when it comes to prioritizing the accounts.

The logic here is that if you choose to pay down the debts with the highest interest rates first (without taking balance sizes into consideration) you truly can eliminate debts in a faster period of time. By paying the higher interest accounts you also will be saving money in finance charges.

Depending on how logical your brain is with math the debt snowball may or may not work for you. Yet it is not uncommon for some people to stick to the snowball method purely for the psychological reasoning and benefits rather than pure math.

For instance, the debt snowball method works well for some people simply because they see results much faster. By starting with the lowest balances rather than the highest interest rates, they can see that “Paid in Full” statement faster. This can be a huge motivating factor when you are trying to stay on track for eliminating debts.

Conversely, if you start with the higher interest balances it likely will take you much longer to see the debt actually go away even though you’ll limit the amount of interest you pay.

Debt Avalanche, the High-Interest Method

Debt Avalanche is similar to Debt Snowball, but the idea is to pay off the highest interest debt first — something I also advocate and wrote in my debt reduction guide.

From the above example, you would order the accounts from the highest interest to the lowest interest using the Debt Avalanche Method, like below:

An Example of Debt Snowball vs. Debt Avalanche

Let’s take a look at another example.

The Jones have two car loans and some credit card debt. They have enough money to make all of their payments plus $170 extra each month to help knock their debt out faster.

This is what their debt looks like:

Car Loan #1: $5,000 remaining of original $12,000 60 month loan at 5.6%. Payment of $229.77.

$5,000 remaining of original $12,000 60 month loan at 5.6%. Payment of $229.77. Car Loan #2: $1,200 remaining of original $6,000 48 month loan at 4.99%. Payment of $138.15.

$1,200 remaining of original $6,000 48 month loan at 4.99%. Payment of $138.15. Credit Card #1: $6,800 balance at an interest rate of 19.99%. Minimum payment of $136.

$6,800 balance at an interest rate of 19.99%. Minimum payment of $136. Credit Card #2: $800 balance at an interest rate of 3%. Minimum payment of $20.

How do the two methods (Debt Snowball vs. Debt Avalanche) pan out?

With the Debt Snowball method the Jones would pay off their debts in this order:

Credit Card #2, paid off in Month 5, an interest cost of $5.29

Car Loan #2, paid off in Month 6, an interest cost of $20.42

Car Loan #1, paid off in Month 11, an interest cost of $177.10

Credit Card #1, paid off in Month 22, an interest cost of $1,927.69.

Total interest paid: $2,130.50.

Not bad, but let’s look at the Debt Avalanche method next. This is how the debt would be paid off:

Credit Card #1, paid off Month 19, an interest cost of $1,414.89

Car Loan #1, paid off Month 19, an interest cost of $269.27

Car Loan #2, paid off Month 7 (it naturally pays itself off due to the lower starting balance), an interest cost of $24.78

Credit Card #2, paid off Month 20, an interest cost of $32.47

Total interest paid: $1,741.41.

That’s a savings of $389.09 and paid off 2 months earlier!

Here are a few articles about Debt Avalanche:

More Debt Snowball Variations

There are many variations of the Debt Snowball methods, i.e., Debt Snowflake, Debt Deluge, etc.

Debt Snowflake

I first heard about Debt Snowflake from Paidtwice (site now gone). Debt Snowflake is a debt reduction plan based on Debt Snowball, but the idea is to actively find and use additional income to pay even more than the budgeted amount toward your top priority debt. Here are a few articles about Debt Snowflake:

Other Debt Snowball Variations

Bottom Line

Paying off debt with any methodology is a smart move.

Paying off debt by paying your highest interest rate debts first is mathematically the best way to get out of debt.

But paying off debt with the smallest balance first and snowballing forward works almost as well. You’ll pay more in interest, but the psychological perk of knocking out a quick win at the beginning of the process can help motivate you to finish.

Again, paying down debt in any method at all is much better than just paying your minimum payments.

More Articles On Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball

Here are additional articles about Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball: