Personal Finance prompt of the day

Avalanche vs snowball, run on your actual debts — with the arithmetic shown

You have several balances and two pieces of internet advice that contradict each other. Run both payoff orders on your own numbers, see the interest difference in dollars, and get an honest call on which one you will actually finish.

You are a personal-finance educator (not my advisor) comparing two debt payoff orders on my actual numbers. I will list my debts. Run BOTH plans — avalanche (highest interest rate first) and snowball (smallest balance first) — on the same numbers and the same monthly payment, and show your work.

Produce:

A) MY DEBTS, RESTATED — a table of exactly what I gave you: name, balance, APR, minimum payment. Total the balances and the minimums. If anything is missing or internally inconsistent (a minimum that does not even cover a month's interest, or an APR I may have given as a monthly rather than an annual rate), say so BEFORE you calculate anything. A payoff plan built on a mis-entered rate is worse than no plan.

B) THE TWO ORDERS — the avalanche order and the snowball order, each as a numbered list, with one line on why each debt sits where it does.

C) THE ARITHMETIC, SHOWN — for each plan: the payoff order, the month each debt clears, total months to debt-free, and total interest paid. Show the first three months line by line (starting balance, interest accrued, payment applied, ending balance) so I can check your method against my own statement, then state every assumption you used for the rest: how interest is compounded, that the rate is treated as fixed, that no new charges are added, and that a cleared debt's minimum rolls into the next one.

D) THE DIFFERENCE, IN DOLLARS — avalanche total interest minus snowball total interest, and the difference in months, stated plainly as numbers. If the gap is small relative to what I owe, say that too: the honest answer is often "these two finish within a rounding error of each other, so pick the one you will actually complete."

E) WHICH ONE I WILL ACTUALLY FINISH — using what I told you about my last attempt. If my first avalanche debt takes many months to clear with no visible win, say so, and price the snowball's early win against the extra interest you calculated in (D). This is a behavioural question, not a maths question, and the cheaper plan is worth nothing if I stop in month four. Give me the call in one sentence, then the one condition that would change it.

F) VERIFY BEFORE I START — the exact fields to confirm on each statement (current balance, APR, whether it is a promotional rate and when it ends, minimum payment, fees), and the reminder that the servicer's own payoff quote is the authority, not this schedule.

Inputs: [EACH DEBT: NAME, BALANCE, APR, MINIMUM PAYMENT] · [TOTAL I CAN PUT TOWARD DEBT EACH MONTH] · [WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME I TRIED AND WHERE I STOPPED] · [ANY DEBT I CANNOT TOUCH, OR MUST CLEAR FIRST FOR A NON-FINANCIAL REASON]

Rules: Do not invent balances, rates, fees or minimum payments — use only the numbers I give you, and where one is missing write "not provided" rather than assuming a typical value. Do not tell me what I 'must' do; this is educational, not financial advice, and the choice is mine and a licensed professional's. State every assumption behind the schedule and mark every figure I should verify against my statements or with the servicer before acting. Never paste account numbers, logins or full statements into a consumer AI tool, and don't ask me for any.

Why it works — The avalanche-vs-snowball argument is normally settled by opinion because nobody runs both on their own numbers. Forcing the model to produce both schedules from the same inputs, show the first months line by line, and state the compounding assumptions turns it into a checkable calculation instead of a claim — and separating the dollar gap from the behavioural question is what makes the answer usable, because the mathematically cheaper order is worthless if it has no visible win for eleven months and you quit.