Free Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Calculator (To Pay Off Debt Faster)

free debt snowball worksheet and calculator

Creating a debt snowball is my preferred method of getting out of debt. When My married woman in addition to I were paying off $46k of debt, nosotros really didn’t business a debt snowball worksheet, but looking dorsum I remember it genuinely could have got helped us. If you lot are wanting to pay off debt on your own, this works!

And while Dave Ramsey popularized the Debt Snowball method, he didn’t genuinely create it.

The strength of using this method is that it focuses on the behavioral side of personal finance rather than the mathematical. Since we are not robots that always do exactly what we know we should, I recommend this method for most people trying to pay off debt.

Debt snowball Definition:

So, if yous are novel to this method of paying downward your debt yous power pick out sentiment “what is a debt snowball anyway”?

Well, simply put it can be defined as a simple approach where you pay off the smallest debts showtime.

You just start with the smallest 1 likewise get it paid off ASAP.

As shortly every flake yous do, you direct have got to a greater extent to laid towards the adjacent smallest debt. And every bit yous maintain paying each off, yous accept to a greater extent in add-on to to a greater extent than going to the side yesteryear side ane inward add-on to the momentum builds similar a snowball rolling downwards a colina – thence the get upwards.

The Debt Snowball steps

Depending on who you lot hear discussing this method it may alive to a greater extent or less steps, but this how I define the steps:

Create a list of all of your debts: credit cards, car loans, educatee loans, mortgages, etc…

Next to each ane write downwards the total balance owed.

Re-society these from smallest to largest debts (role Excel or Google Docs to create this simpler.)

Pay the minimum payment on all of the debts – except the smallest i.

Put every extra dollar you tin notice towards paying off that smallest debt.

Celebrate similar crazy when yous get that start debt paid off.

Take the amount yous were paying towards the outset debt inwards improver to pose towards the side by side smallest debt. Do this until this ane is paid off.

Celebrate again!

Continue this treat until all debts are paid off.

What yous volition notice is that each time you pay off a debt, the “snowball” gets larger.

Since you lot are taking the amount you lot used to pay off the initiative debt besides putting it all + the minimum payment that you were already paying to the 2d together, yous are making more than of an impact towards that debt.

Each time you lot pay off a debt, the snowball gets larger in addition to to a greater extent powerful – which is peachy, because it just increases the speed that each debt gets paid off.

Watch this for an instance of how it found:

Debt Snowball vs. Debt Avalanche

If you are similar almost logical people out at that house (like me 🙂 ) you lot are likely saying, “you lot could salve more than money past times paying the highest involvement topographic point cards off showtime.” You are right – calculators do non prevarication as well as they testament give y'all the correct logical answer. Paying your credits cards off starting with the highest involvement say to the lowest is “mathematically” the best thought.

That my friend, is the Debt Avalanche approach. Investopedia defines it here:

“H5N1 method of repaying debts inward which a debtor allots enough money to brand the minimum payment on each debt, inward addition to so devotes whatever remaining debt-repayment funds to repaying the debt with the highest involvement accuse per unit of mensuration. Using the debt avalanche method, ane fourth dimension the debt with the highest involvement degree is completely paid off, the extra repayment funds kicking the bucket toward the side yesteryear side highest interest-bearing debt. This treat continues until all the debts are paid off.”

But, permit’s await it at from another angle:

If we DID what nosotros knew we SHOULD do 100% of the time, using the mathematical approach would be best. But, we are emotional beings together with 50-l the most disciplined with us however lead emotions as well as are affected yesteryear them.

Computers role logic 100% of the fourth dimension. Humans practise not. We were not created to. We brand decisions based on our emotions. We acquire permit downwardly, nosotros acquire encouraged, we experience motivated, we acquire scared, we sense hopeful, nosotros experience similar quitting. These are all emotional states that each ane of us could experience on whatever given solar 24-hour interval!!

Knowing that nosotros are emotional beings, the cardinal is to utilisation our emotions to our reward. Just similar jogging with the air current at your dorsum, it is a nice piddling boost to operate our emotions to give us a footling edge. So, rather than tackling the debt similar a math problem, we tin tackle it inward a agency that testament give us emotional boosts!

After all, isn’t it better to get out of debt and spend an extra $100 in interest than to give up halfway to our goal because nosotros were discouraged?

Status Bars as good Debt

Learn how to use the Debt snowball (Free Download of a Worksheet)

Ever wonder why there are status bars showing yous the progress of the particular you lot are loading on your info processing system? It is to hold us from going crazy slice waiting 10 minutes for the information processing system to do what we told it to practice!! Even though that petty bar moves slow sometimes, it is encouraging because we know how much longer we have to suffer the torture of waiting.

It is extremely DE-motivating when at that spot is no cease in sight. Without that “calorie-loose at the stop of the tunnel”, it tin alive difficult to hold going. That lilliputian bar that shows us the progress that we pick out made gives us promise. What if at that topographic point were no status bars? Or what if yous saw no progress on the bar until you got to the lxx% loaded indicate? Would you maintain waiting or would you reboot, assuming at that place was a task?

When on the phone, receive you lot ever been waiting on concur for xv minutes wondering, “Did they forget nigh me? Should I wait it out? What if they never phone ring back that I am on concord?” Do you lot cutting your losses or concur off it out, having no grab when they testament choice upwardly, or if they ever testament?

This is the advantage of using the snowball approach to paying downwardly debt. If you lot focus on the highest involvement bill per unit, it could live months or l-l years before yous range that commencement milestone. Would you concur the endurance to handle going that long without reaching that source milestone?

It is a wonderful feeling to be able to celebrate your first milestone – paying off the first credit card is a blast! Speaking from experience, I was fueled with motivation later reaching that get-snuff it milestone. The fact is that good-nigh people are strengthened yesteryear seeing l-fifty out a child goal accomplished.

I love the debt snowball approach to paying downward debt because it focuses on reaching these modest goals foremost too using them as motivation to maintain going. Let me know how it industrial constitute for yous!

Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Calculator [Free Download]

I just was making some updates to our budgeting templates page where we select a bunch of complimentary Excel besides Google Doc spreadsheets available.

While I was working on it inward add-on to getting a few novel ones added to the page I stumbled upon this Debt snowball estimator for Excel as well as it is really cool tool to aid y'all runway your debt snowball.

As you lot tin reckon below it has a lot of pretty helpful features together with I desire I had a spreadsheet this cool when nosotros were using the Snowball method to pay off our debt.

debt snowball spreadsheet - free download