Debt snowball calculator
The debt snowball pays the smallest balance first, then rolls its payment into the next. Enter your debts and see the month each one disappears, your debt-free date, and what the avalanche order would cost instead.
Snowball
$1,150.60 of interest, $12,570.60 paid in all
- Medical bill month 3
- Store card month 7
- Credit card month 14
- Car loan month 27
Avalanche
$1,048.83 of interest, $12,468.83 paid in all
- Medical bill month 12
- Credit card month 12
- Store card month 14
- Car loan month 26
Snowball clears its first debt in month 3, and avalanche its first in month 12. Avalanche would save $101.77 of interest and 1 month: that is the price of the early wins.
Month by month (27 months)
| Month | Paid | Interest | Owed after |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $480.00 | $90.19 | $11,030.19 |
| 2 | $480.00 | $88.66 | $10,638.85 |
| 3 | $480.00 | $87.13 | $10,245.98 |
| 4 | $480.00 | $84.67 | $9,850.65 |
| 5 | $480.00 | $81.20 | $9,451.85 |
| 6 | $480.00 | $77.69 | $9,049.54 |
| 7 | $480.00 | $74.14 | $8,643.68 |
| 8 | $480.00 | $69.29 | $8,232.97 |
| 9 | $480.00 | $63.78 | $7,816.75 |
| 10 | $480.00 | $58.17 | $7,394.92 |
| 11 | $480.00 | $52.49 | $6,967.41 |
| 12 | $480.00 | $46.69 | $6,534.10 |
| 13 | $480.00 | $40.81 | $6,094.91 |
| 14 | $480.00 | $34.83 | $5,649.74 |
| 15 | $480.00 | $30.13 | $5,199.87 |
| 16 | $480.00 | $27.73 | $4,747.60 |
| 17 | $480.00 | $25.32 | $4,292.92 |
| 18 | $480.00 | $22.90 | $3,835.82 |
| 19 | $480.00 | $20.46 | $3,376.28 |
| 20 | $480.00 | $18.01 | $2,914.29 |
| 21 | $480.00 | $15.54 | $2,449.83 |
| 22 | $480.00 | $13.07 | $1,982.90 |
| 23 | $480.00 | $10.58 | $1,513.48 |
| 24 | $480.00 | $8.07 | $1,041.55 |
| 25 | $480.00 | $5.55 | $567.10 |
| 26 | $480.00 | $3.02 | $90.12 |
| 27 | $90.60 | $0.48 | $0.00 |
The link carries these debts after the # in the address, a part browsers never send to a server, so only the people you give it to can open the plan.
Runs entirely in your browser on the debt engine of the Tavala app. Nothing you type is sent or kept.
How the debt snowball works
List every debt from the smallest balance to the largest, whatever the interest rate. Pay the minimum on all of them. Put everything you can spare on top on the smallest. When it is gone, add its payment to the next smallest, and so on. The amount leaving your account each month stays the same until the last debt is paid; only where it goes changes. That is the method as Ramsey Solutions describes it, and the reason it gives is the quick wins.
The calculator runs that order on the Tavala app's own debt engine: interest of a twelfth of the yearly rate each month, rounded to the cent, minimums first, then the extra and every freed payment to the smallest balance. Two debts with the same balance keep the order you listed them in.
Four debts, snowball against avalanche
A medical bill of $480 at 0%, a store card of $900 at 12%, a credit card of $2,140 at 21.9% and a car loan of $7,900 at 6.4%, with minimums of $40, $35, $65 and $190 and $150 a month on top: $480.00 a month in all.
| What | Snowball | Avalanche |
|---|---|---|
| Debt-free in | 2 years 3 months | 2 years 2 months |
| Interest | $1,150.60 | $1,048.83 |
| Medical bill gone | Month 3 | Month 12 |
| Store card gone | Month 7 | Month 14 |
| Credit card gone | Month 14 | Month 12 |
| Car loan gone | Month 27 | Month 26 |
Snowball clears two debts by month 7 and costs $101.77 more interest than avalanche, and 1 month more. The $150.00 on top is worth far more than the choice of order: against the minimums alone, it saves $842.14 of interest and 1 year 2 months.
When one of the debts is in another currency
Say the credit card is a €1,980 card with a €60 minimum, planned in dollars at an example rate of 1 EUR = 1.08 USD. The calculator converts it first, to $2,138.40, and the snowball order is then by the converted balance; the plan finishes in 2 years 3 months with $1,150.67 of interest. If the euro rises while you pay, the dollar value of what is left rises with it. The Tavala app plans the same way, converting at today's rate each time it plans; see debt payoff in Tavala.
What it assumes
One rate per debt, payments on time at the end of each month, and no new borrowing. The figures are arithmetic, not advice about what to pay; a debt in collections or one with a promotional rate about to end may need to come first whatever its size.
Words this page uses
- Snowball
- Every debt gets its minimum; every spare unit goes to the smallest balance. When it is gone, its payment rolls to the next smallest.
- Avalanche
- The same, but the extra goes to the highest interest rate first. It costs the same or less interest.
- Rollover
- When a debt is paid off, its minimum keeps being paid, to the next debt in the order, so the monthly total never drops.
- Debt-free date
- The month the last debt reaches zero, if every payment is made on time and nothing new is borrowed.
- APR
- The yearly interest rate. A twelfth of it is charged each month on what is owed.
Questions
- Is the debt snowball a good idea?
- It is a good idea if early wins keep you paying. It almost never costs less interest than the avalanche order: on the four example debts it costs $101.77 more. A study of nearly 6,000 people in a debt settlement program found that the number of accounts closed predicted finishing the program better than the share of dollars repaid, which is the case for snowball.
- Does the snowball method ignore interest rates?
- Yes, by design: the order is by balance only. A small card at a high rate can wait behind a smaller one at zero. That is why the calculator shows the avalanche order beside it, so you can see the price of the order in money.
- Can I share my plan?
- Yes. Copy a link to this plan puts your debts in the link itself, after the #, a part of the address browsers never send to a server. Whoever opens the link sees the same plan; nothing is stored anywhere.
- Can I use it for debts in different currencies?
- Yes. Give each debt its currency and the rate to plan at, and the calculator converts every debt into one currency first, as the Tavala app does. The snowball order is then by the converted balance.
Track this plan in Tavala
The calculator plans once. The Tavala app keeps the plan: record each payment and the debt-free month moves with you, debts in any currency in one plan, with snowball or avalanche, offline and without a bank connection.
Go further
- Debt avalanche calculatorHighest rate first, and what it saves.
- Debt payoff calculatorAvalanche, snowball or your own order.
- Snowball vs avalanche, the numbersThree real debts and 30,000 random plans.
- Plan to pay off your debtsSee your debt-free date, the order your debts clear in and what extra payments save, using highest-rate-first or smallest-first.
- Record a loan paymentTap Pay on a debt, enter what you paid and Tavala splits it into interest and principal, so the debt falls by the right amount.
- How Tavala converts currencies and which rate it keepsEntries keep the rate of the day you saved them. Balances and net worth use today's rate. See where rates come from and what Estimated means.
Start with what you spent today.
There is no account to create and no card to enter. Pick your currency, add what you paid, and Home shows what is left.