Switching from a debt snowball to a debt avalanche saved me $340

I was doing the whole snowball method for about 8 months, paying off my smallest loans first. But then I ran the numbers on two credit cards I had. One had a $1500 balance at 22% interest, the other was $2800 at 15%. After I switched to the avalanche method and put all extra cash toward the higher rate card first, I knocked out that 22% one in 5 months instead of 8. Total interest saved was around $340 compared to what I would have paid. Has anyone else run into a situation where one method clearly worked better than the other for their specific debts?

3 comments

3 Comments

jana88121d ago

Numbers don't lie. Avalanche saved you real cash, snowball just feels good.

sagecooper21d ago

Wait, is that really true across the board? I've seen some math that says snowball wins sometimes if you got a ton of small balances to clear.

the_drew21d ago

Yeah but "feels good" actually matters way more than people give it credit for... if you quit because you're sick of seeing no progress, the math doesn't help anyone. Snowball keeps you motivated and that's half the battle honestly. Numbers on a spreadsheet don't pay off a debt if you give up halfway through. I've seen too many people burn out on avalanche even though it's "smarter" on paper.