When I found out that I was going to be a Dad, I got hit hard by a sense of not wanting my child to be in debt and to be financially smart. One of the first things I decided was that my wife and I needed to get out of debt. So I went searching for a scam-free way to get out of debt that wasn’t going to cost me anything. What I found was the debt snowball.

I have an inherent skepticism about all things “get out of debt quick.” That is, what are you going to try to sell me today and in what way? As a blogger I know many of the tricks and as someone who was on the verge of bankruptcy, I knlow I’m all too susceptible to paying out when I’m desparate. But, if something appeals to my logical side(I’m a programmer), I’ll probably try it.

The debt snowball essentially goes like this: you commit to paying a certain dollar amount to debts each month. The snowball decides and maps out how much you pay to each debt so that you pay the least amount of money on interest and to pay off as quick as possible.

Real Life Scenarios

At first I was using an online debt snowball calculator. It allowed me to enter my debts and let me save and enter how much I paid each month. When I started I had $42,813.83 over 12 debts.

This website’s performance was an issue, so I started looking around for something better.

I never ended up finding a site that lived up to my expectations so I downloaded a free debt snowball spreadsheet and started tracking my debts in it each month.

My wife and I are now down to  $31,461.56 and only 4 debts left.

How I Keep Track

Each month I open my spreadsheet. I login to all of my credit card websites, get the remaining balance and edit the balances in the spreadsheet. I change the balance date to be the last day of the previous month so that it shows the calendar accurately.

Once the first of the month comes, I start paying as many as I can with the amount of money we have left. I also pay based on due date. So I pay whatever is due before my next paycheck so that I don’t end up with late fees.

Motivation for Paying off Debts
My first motivation was my baby and my new family. I wanted to be a good financial role model.

Then as I played with the spreadsheet I got excited. I put $1,000 in the “snowball amount” and found it would take years to pay off my debt. Then I started saying “what if I paid 1500 instead? What about 3000?” When I put in 3000, I saw how fast I could get out of debt(15 months total-9 months remaining).

At that point, I examined our budget, got my wife’s input and made a very realistic view of what expenses were needed, where I could trim and what expenses could go. I found money by aggressively cancelling un-needed services, finding cheaper services and negotiating cell phone plans.

Now, I don’t know what kind of financial issues lay ahead, but I assure you I am more prepared than I was 4 months ago and barring any unforeseen circumstances, I’m well on track to pay off all of my debts in less than a year.

What it all comes down to is that I believe the debt snowball method is the fastest, easiest and safest method to get out of debt fast! So I encourage you to give this a go.

-Mike