Snowball vs avalanche: which order clears your debt faster

Two strategies, one pile of debt, and the only difference between them is the order you attack it in. Both pay every minimum, throw all your spare cash at a single target, and roll that whole payment onto the next debt as each one clears. Avalanche goes after the highest interest rate first. Snowball goes after the smallest balance first.

Avalanche always costs less interest, because it kills your most expensive debt soonest. Snowball clears a whole account earlier, which is the visible win that keeps people paying. The maths favours one and the motivation often favours the other, and the worst option is the one most people run by default: minimums everywhere and spare cash scattered across all of them.

This runs your real debts through both strategies on the same monthly budget and reports the gap in rands and months.

List every debt except your home loan, which has its own tools: store cards, credit cards, personal loans, vehicle finance. Each one needs its current balance, its interest rate and the minimum you have to pay monthly. Then set the extra you can put in on top of all the minimums. That extra is the engine, and the more of it there is the faster the whole plan moves.

The headline names the cheaper order and what it saves. It also flags honest problems rather than printing a number over them: a single debt, where both strategies are identical; a budget that can't cover the minimums; a debt whose minimum doesn't cover its own interest, which never clears at that budget. The pay-in-this-order lists are the actionable part, giving the exact sequence with each debt's payoff month, and the chart draws both paths down to zero.

It assumes the rates and minimums you enter hold steady, and some accounts charge interest daily rather than monthly, so treat totals as close estimates.

Money Cat is an information tool, not financial or debt-counselling advice. If your minimum payments alone already exceed what you can pay, a registered debt counsellor is the right call. Confirm balances and rates with your providers.