If you're paying off multiple debts, the two most popular strategies are the debt snowball and the debt avalanche. Both work. They differ in one thing only: the order you attack your debts — and that difference affects how fast you finish and how much interest you pay.
The debt snowball method
With the snowball method, you list your debts from smallest balance to largest, make minimum payments on everything, and throw every spare dollar at the smallest balance first. When it's gone, you roll its payment into the next-smallest debt — the payment "snowballs" as each debt disappears.
Why people love it: quick wins. Knocking out a $400 store card in month two feels like progress, and that motivation is the reason many people stick with the plan at all.
The debt avalanche method
With the avalanche method, you list debts from highest interest rate to lowest and attack the highest-rate debt first. Mathematically, this is the optimal order: every dollar goes where it saves the most interest.
Why people love it: it's the cheapest path out. Same debts, same monthly budget — the avalanche always finishes with less total interest paid, and usually a little sooner.
A real example
Say you have four debts and $500/month beyond your minimums:
- Store card: $800 at 26% APR
- Credit card: $4,200 at 22% APR
- Car loan: $9,500 at 8% APR
- Student loan: $12,000 at 6% APR
The snowball clears the store card first (fast win), then the credit card, car, and student loan. The avalanche starts with the store card too in this example (highest rate), but then the credit card — so the two methods are nearly identical here until the mid-game, where the avalanche's focus on the 22% card over the 8% car loan saves several hundred dollars in interest.
That's the honest truth about this debate: for most real debt mixes, the difference is a few months and a few hundred dollars. The best method is the one you'll actually follow through on.
Which should you pick?
Choose the snowball if you've started and quit debt payoff plans before — motivation is your bottleneck, and early wins fix that. Choose the avalanche if you're numbers-driven and your highest-rate debt is also one of your biggest — that's where the avalanche's savings get large.
See your own numbers
The fastest way to decide is to run your debts through both methods and compare. Our Debt Payoff Planner spreadsheet does exactly that: enter each debt once, pick snowball or avalanche from a dropdown, and it shows the exact month you'll be debt-free under each strategy — plus how much interest you'll pay and what an extra $50 or $200 a month would change. It works in Excel and Google Sheets.
Not ready for a paid template? Start with our free One-Page Budget Starter to find the spare dollars first — then come back and point them at your debt.