Debt Paydown Strategies
The Snowball and the Avalanche.
There are 2 primary methods that people use to paydown their debt. The Debt Snowball, and the Debt Avalanche.
Debt Snowball
The Debt Snowball was coined by Dave Ramsey and this is the best strategy to pay off debts because of the psychological boost of getting small wins as you work down the list.
Debt Avalanche
The Debt Avalanche is different in that you pay off debts in order of highest interest rate to lowest interest rate. It is claimed that this results in lower total payments (although this is disputed), but since it doesn't come with the psychological benefit of quick wins that the Snowball does, I argue the Debt Snowball is better.
Credit for the above pictures goes to articles published on Credible.com
Takeaway
While the Avalanche method might result in fewer dollars spent paying down your debt balance, the quick victories of the Snowball method make it the superior debt paydown strategy in my opinion.
And in all honestly, if you are the type of person who wakes up one day and realizes you are $40,000 in credit card debt, you were probably never too concerned with math to begin with.
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