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Pay Off Your Debts With Avalanches Of Snowballs And Snowflakes

By: Michael Redbourn Click author's name for more of his/her articles

The two most used debt reduction systems presently in use, are the Snowball and the Avalanche, and users of the Snowball system pay off their debts starting with the one that has the lowest balance, whereas users of the Avalanche system start with the loan that has the highest amount of interest.

Snowflaking means cutting back on your day to day expenditures wherever you can, even if means saving just saving a few bucks on breakfast or lunch, and the money saved is then sent that same day or at the end of the week to whichever creditor you are trying to pay off first, and Snowflaking can be used in tandem with either the Snowball or Avalanche systems.

Something that none of the above systems mention is categorizing your debts into what you might want to call, good, neutral and toxic, and well take a look at what that means, and how to do it now.

What Is A Good Debt?

Many people will tell you that all debt is bad, but they'd be wrong, and the following are just three examples of "good debt".

1) A mortgage

The interest rates are always low compared with other loans, and in spite of the fact that many homes decreased in value over the last eighteen months, the long term trend is, and will be up, and anybody that holds onto a property for a good amount of time sees it rise in value.

2) Federal Student Loans

The interest rates are very low, and a better education should later prove to be a big bonus.

3) Some business Loans

It's of course possible to take out a business loan, only to see a business fail, but if you take one out and the business flourishes, then it should certainly be classified and a good debt.

When you look to see which of your loans should be paid off first, you should move all of your "good loans" to the bottom of your list.

What Is A Neutral Debt?

Examples of neutral debts would be,

1) A vehicle loan

2) Debt consolidation loans

3) Retirement plan loans

None of the above are what could be described as toxic debt, which well take a look at next, but none of them are "good debts" either, but before we talk about "toxic debt", let's fully understand what the term means.

Debt is deemed as toxic if any of the following are true,

The standard or default interest rate is in the double digits, or higher, which typically prolongs the time you remain in debt.

The lender is able to change its rates at will, with almost no grounds for doing so.

Initially very easy payment terms that encourage you to increase your debt to more than you can comfortably repay.

Toxic debts that you might have are,

1) Credit cards

2) Payday loans

3) Title loans

4) Pledges from pawnshops

5) Any high or variable rate loan

Toxic Debts Should Be Paid Off First!

Medical Debt

If you were able to arrange an affordable repayment plan with a hospital or provider then it would be a neutral debt, but if you had sign up for a high interest loan, or are using a provider-supplied credit card to pay it off, then it's almost certainly a toxic debt.

Other Things To Consider

Maxed out, or near to maxed out credit cards should go near to the top of your list, because they will negatively affect your credit score and trigger higher interest rates from other lenders.

Try to keep all your credit card balances below 75%

If there's a chance that you might lose your job, then consider accelerating a retirement-plan loan, because most plans require you to pay back 401k and other retirement plans quickly after you stop work, and if you don't or can't do it, then the withdrawal will trigger a hefty tax bill.

You'll get lots of credit cards offers in the mail offering lower interest rates than you're presently paying, and many of them might be well worth considering and taking advantage of, but great care must be taken before transferring balances.

The fees charged for balance transfers are quite high, and will normally increase the amount of debt by 3-4% so be sure to do the math and make sure that the lower interest rate will more than offset the fees.

What's more, many of these low interest offers are for fairly short amounts of time, so make sure that the interest isn't going to get hiked after just six months or so.

Finally, if you're feeling like you're losing the debt battle and need a little encouragement, then choose a really small debt and get it paid off quickly, and the satisfaction of crossing it off of your list, and perhaps tossing it into the trash, should provide you with a little bit of a lift, and hopefully give you the determination to soldier on.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: The author of this article was a film producer, and award winning film sound editor for many years. He has a passion and a flare for economics, and one of his websites -> Pay Off Debts features a large number of highly popular articles about the world's economy in general, and debts, debt settlement, debt consolidation and bankruptcy in particular.