Enter each debt with its balance, interest rate, and minimum payment. Set an extra monthly payment and get your ranked payoff order, exact debt-free date, and total interest paid.
Sort every debt from smallest balance to largest. Pay minimums on all of them, then put every extra dollar at the smallest balance until it is gone. When that debt hits zero, take the minimum you were paying on it and redirect it to the next smallest debt.
The payment grows with each payoff because you keep applying the same total monthly amount. By the last debt, you are sending the combined total of every freed minimum plus your original extra payment, which is why final balances often disappear faster than expected. Once debt-free, that same monthly cash flow can be redirected toward investing. A Coast FIRE Calculator can show you how much you need invested before contributions can stop.
Both methods pay off all debts using the same total monthly payment. The only difference is ordering: snowball goes smallest balance first, avalanche goes highest interest rate first.
| Snowball | Avalanche | |
|---|---|---|
| Sort by | Smallest balance first | Highest interest rate first |
| Best for | Motivation and momentum | Minimizing total interest |
| First payoff | Fastest (small balance) | Slowest (high-rate debt may be large) |
| Total interest | Slightly more | Least possible |
| Completion rate | Higher (research-backed) | Lower without discipline |
If your highest-rate debt also happens to be your smallest balance, both methods produce the same result. If motivation has been your obstacle in the past, use the snowball. If your debts are all similar in size and the rate difference is large (say, 8% vs. 24%), the avalanche saves meaningfully more in interest. Either method beats paying minimums only.
Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover uses 7 Baby Steps. Baby Step 2 is the debt snowball. His rules are specific: list every non-mortgage debt from smallest to largest, pay minimums on all, and throw every spare dollar at the smallest until it is gone. Mortgage debt is excluded until Baby Step 6.
After completing Baby Step 2, Ramsey directs 15% of household income into retirement in Baby Step 4. That includes maxing your Roth IRA contribution limit for the year before directing the rest to a 401k or other accounts.
Maria has three debts: a $1,200 medical bill at 0%, a $3,500 credit card at 22.99%, and a $9,000 car loan at 7.9%. Her total minimums are $290/month and she commits to $150 extra each month.
Paying only minimums, Maria would take over 7 years and pay roughly $3,900 in interest. The extra $150/month cuts that to 3 years and saves her nearly $1,820 in interest.
After month 36, Maria has $440/month freed up. Tools like a savings duration calculator can show how long that freed cash lasts as an emergency fund or how quickly it builds an investment balance.
Researches and verifies the formulas, methodology, and source data behind each calculator on CalculatorFlux. All tools are built and checked against the cited references before publication.