Debt Snowball

The debt snowball is a behavior-first way to get out of debt. You list your debts from smallest balance to largest, pay the minimum on all of them, and throw every extra dollar at the smallest one. When it is gone, you roll its old payment into the next-smallest, and the amount you can attack each debt with grows like a snowball rolling downhill.

The math is not optimal: paying the smallest balance first ignores interest rates, so you usually pay a little more in total than you would with the avalanche method. The point is psychology. Knocking out a whole debt quickly delivers a visible win that keeps people going, and finishing what you start is worth more than a perfect spreadsheet for many borrowers. Our debt snowball versus avalanche playbook compares the two head to head so you can pick the one you will actually stick with.