Free primer: avalanche vs snowball. One account: credit-card payoff. A 0% window is a different file: finish the transfer on purpose. Paid steps are the order of the whole sheet — starter cash, the match, which balance gets the extra dollar, and what a freed minimum becomes. They are not a second essay on those three pages.
Do this in order
One sheet, every liability, this weekend. Lender, balance, APR, minimum, due date, and type: revolving, deferred-interest store plan, auto, federal student, private student, medical. Add the login URL. A balance you cannot name is not in the order. Federal loans and a 28% card do not share a row just because both are “debt.”
Autopay every minimum the day after payday. The extra is one manual payment to the current target only. Missing a due date so you can “focus” buys a late fee and sometimes a penalty APR. The sheet dies that month. Minimums are the floor. The extra is the only dollar that moves.
Starter cash before extra principal, if checking is empty. Park $1,000 or one month of essentials, whichever you will actually not spend. Then freeze that sleeve. Spare dollars go to the target. The full emergency fund waits until the cards you are attacking are gone. Do not open a brokerage “for the habit” in the same month you are still carrying a card above roughly 8–10%.
Keep the 401(k) match the entire time. The match is not “investing instead of paying debt.” A plan that adds 50% on the dollars you defer is a 50% return before the market; some plans add 100% up to their own cap. The cap is in the plan document, not in this file. Pause taxable brokerage and Roth contributions above the match. Do not pause the deferral that captures the match. That pause is how people light a raise on fire to feel serious.
Highest APR, unless you have already quit a written plan. Avalanche is the default. Snowball the smallest two balances only if you have abandoned a written plan before, then switch back. Write the switch date on the sheet the day you choose snowball. The guide owns the personality argument. This file owns the date. “I’ll switch when it feels right” is not a date.
Worked sheet — labeled example, not a live offer. Store card $1,800 at 27.99%, minimum $54. Visa $6,400 at 21.9%, minimum $180 (same balance and APR as the payoff calculator’s defaults). Extra $200 after every minimum is already on autopay. Interest is APR ÷ 12, added before the payment — the calculator’s convention, not a daily periodic rate. The store is both smallest and highest APR, so snowball and avalanche are the same path here: store dies in month 8 ($190.76 interest), visa dies in month 24 ($1,831.29). Combined $2,022.05. The same two cards at minimums only: 59 months, $5,706.44. Difference $3,684.39. From month 9 the visa payment is $434 ($180 + the dead $54 + $200), not $180.
Where snowball actually costs money. Add a clinic bill of $480 at 0%, minimum $40, and cut the extra to $150. Avalanche still hits 27.99% first: store dies in month 10, clinic in month 12, visa in month 26. Interest $2,269.53 over 26 months. Snowball hits the clinic first (month 3), the store in month 12, and is done in 27 months with $2,412.42 interest. Gap $142.89 and one month. If you have quit before, snowball those two small balances, write the date you return to the 21.9% visa, and stop. Do not “finish the small one” as a lifestyle.
A federal student loan is not a card. Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans to undergraduates first disbursed July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 are 6.52% (Federal Student Aid GENERAL-26-33: the May 12, 2026 10-year Treasury note high yield was 4.468%, plus the 2.05% statutory add-on). On a $14,000 balance the 10-year standard payment is $159.11 a month. That payment stays on autopay. It does not jump the 27.99% store card. Do not refinance a federal loan into a private rate just to make the list shorter. A private student loan can be the target when its APR is the highest one left. IDR versus refinance already has a guide and a tool — do not rebuild them on this sheet.
A 0% offer is the other playbook. If a transfer might beat staying, stop and run that 12-step file. This sequence does not restate the promo window, the fee-inside-the-balance rule, or the “no new spending on that card” rule. One open promo at a time. The payoff calculator ignores 0% windows and deferred-interest plans. Do not type a promo APR into it and trust the month count. A deferred-interest store plan is not 0% APR. If the Schumer box says “no interest if paid in full,” you are in the transfer file, not this one.
The month a balance hits zero, its minimum moves the same payday. Dead minimum plus the extra is the next target’s payment. It is not dining, and it is not a smaller “reward” transfer to checking. On the step-6 sheet, month 9 is $434 to the visa. If the $54 stays in the grocery budget, the 24-month path was a story you told the sheet.
Prove the current target in the payoff tool before you believe the sheet. One card, no sibling minimum rolling in yet: the tool’s own defaults — $6,400, 21.9%, minimum $180, extra $120 — are 28 months and $1,781.76 of interest. The page rounds whole dollars, so it shows $1,782. Minimum only on that card: 58 months, $4,017.24. That 58-month / $4,017.24 visa line is also the visa slice of the step-6 minimums-only run, because the visa dies before the store and nothing rolls onto it. Your attacking path is not the default: the extra is $200, and the store’s $54 joins in month 9. A mismatch means the extra you typed is wrong. It does not mean the sheet is “close enough.”
When the last card above roughly 8–10% dies, the freed payment changes jobs. On the step-6 sheet that is $434 a month ($54 + $180 + $200). It funds the rest of the emergency sleeve, then an IRA, then taxable. It does not become extra principal on a 6-something percent auto note, and it does not raise lifestyle. A mortgage-rate balance stays in the extra-mortgage file. Hard stops: skipping a minimum, pausing the match, two card applications in one week, closing the paid card the week it hits zero, treating deferred interest as 0%, refinancing federal loans to “clean up the app,” and celebrating month 24 with a new payment.
One-page decision
Write every balance down. Autopay the minimums. Keep a small cash sleeve and the 401(k) match. Extra dollars hit the highest APR unless you have already quit a written plan — then snowball two small balances and date the switch. On the labeled sheet, $200 extra clears $1,800 at 27.99% in month 8 and $6,400 at 21.9% in month 24, for $2,022.05 of interest instead of $5,706.44 over 59 months at minimums. A $480 zero-percent clinic bill with only $150 extra is the case where order matters: avalanche saves $142.89 and one month versus paying the clinic first. Federal 6.52% loans disbursed in 2026–27 stay on their standard payment. A 0% card is the transfer playbook, one at a time. Freed minimums move the same payday. After the expensive cards die, $434 a month leaves the debt sheet. Educational, not a payoff quote and not advice.