Dave Ramsey's debt snowball calculator
Order debts by balance, roll each finished payment forward, and compare Dave Ramsey's debt snowball with the avalanche method using the same debts.
Dave Ramsey Reviewed Aug 6, 2026 Rule located in Ramsey Solutions, 2024 Portrait: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Self-hosted by JMM.
Put your numbers through the rule
The source establishes the rule. The values below belong to you, and the output is JMM's deterministic calculation.
Every field recalculates immediately. Changed values can be copied into a shareable URL.
- First balance gone
- 8 monthsCredit card
- Snowball interest
- $3,852
- Avalanche interest
- $3,852
The model keeps total monthly debt cash flow at 1210 dollars and rolls paid-off minimums forward.
Debt snowball
- Months
- 36 months
- Interest
- $3,852
Debt avalanche
- Months
- 36 months
- Interest
- $3,852
What the source says, and what the calculator adds
Source-supported ruleThe tracker orders principal balances from smallest to largest, directs extra payments to the smallest, and rolls that payment into the next debt. 
JMM calculationJMM amortizes each balance monthly and runs an avalanche comparison with identical balances, rates, minimums, and extra payment. 
What changes the answer
The order changes motivation and interest
The snowball chooses the smallest balance even when another debt has a higher rate. The comparison isolates the dollar cost of that behavioral choice.
Extra payment is the strongest lever
The schedule responds immediately to the amount available above minimums, making the tradeoff between an earlier first win and a lower total interest bill inspectable.
Who else has run the numbers on this rule
Everyone below has published a position on this specific rule with a figure attached. Each row names the document, the date and the passage, so you can check the number rather than take ours.
- JDavid Gal and Blakeley B. McShaneMarketing researchers, then at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, publishing in a peer-reviewed journalBacks the rule
Account closures predicted debt elimination; dollar balances closed did not
Working from a debt settlement firm’s account-level records, they found that the share of accounts a consumer had closed predicted whether the consumer eliminated their debt, while the dollar balance of what was closed did not once that share was controlled for. That is the behavioural claim behind ordering by balance, tested on real accounts rather than asserted.
closing debt accounts is predictive of debt elimination regardless of the dollar balance of the closed accounts, whereas the dollar balance of closed accounts is not predictive of debt elimination when controlling for the fraction of accounts closed
Journal of Marketing ResearchAug 1, 2012Can Small Victories Help Win the War? Evidence from Consumer Debt ManagementVolume 49, issue 4, pages 487-501. Abstract, findings (1) and (2). DOI 10.1509/jmr.11.0272.
The arithmetic is against the snowball and the evidence is for it. Follow the evidence.
The avalanche wins on paper every single time, and the calculator above will tell you by exactly how much on your debts. On the numbers loaded here that gap is a few hundred dollars across several years, which is not a plan, it is a rounding error on whether you stick with it. The one large study of real debt-management accounts found that closing accounts predicted getting out of debt while the dollar value of what you closed did not. So JMM would run the snowball, with one condition: check the gap first. If ordering by balance costs you thousands rather than hundreds, you are no longer buying motivation, you are buying it at a price worth arguing about.
Not the calculator’s limits. The rule’s.
One large high-rate balance flips the answer
The snowball is cheap when your debts are similar in size and rate. Put a $30,000 balance at 26% behind two small low-rate loans and the ordering cost stops being behavioural and starts being real money. Run both columns before you decide.
It assumes the freed-up payment actually rolls
The entire mechanism is that a retired minimum payment moves to the next debt instead of into your spending. Nothing enforces that. A snowball where the payment quietly disappears after the first win is slower than paying minimums with a plan.
What this model does not know
- A snowball is designed around early wins; it does not necessarily minimize interest.
- Minimum-payment rules can change as balances fall. This model holds the entered minimums constant.
- Fees, penalties, taxes, and refinancing are excluded.
Before you use the result
Does the debt snowball always cost more?
Not always, but the avalanche cannot produce more interest than the snowball when all other entered terms are identical and payments are applied without fees.
Is this a lender payoff quote?
No. It is an amortization model using the balances, APRs, and minimums you enter.
The next question this page cannot answer
-
Dave Ramsey, sourced rule Emergency fund calculator The step the snowball feeds into. The payment you just freed has to go somewhere before it quietly becomes spending.
Open → -
Calculator Savings goal solver Puts a date on the freed-up payment: how long a target takes at that monthly amount, with interest counted.
Open → -
Ramit Sethi, sourced rule Conscious spending plan calculator The upstream question this page cannot answer: whether the debt minimums are a temporary problem or a fixed-cost share that will rebuild the balances.
Open →