Most of us will have had some debt at some point in our lives, whether they be student loans, car loans, or mortgages. Today I'm going to talk about two very popular methods of paying down debt. You may or may not be familiar with either of them, but they are both equally effective depending on your personality type. Of course, there's no right or wrong way of paying off your debt, but you may find a strong preference for one or the other. We'll start by talking about the snowballing method of paying off your debt. You may or may not have heard of the financial guru named Dave Ramsey who popularized this method. I'll start by explaining that this is NOT the most efficient way of paying off debt. However, it's the most PSYCHOLOGICALLY proven way of being successful. The way it works is, rather than paying off the debt with the highest interest rates first (which makes the most sense), you would pay off the debt with the SMALLEST BALANCE. Doing it this way gives you the most psychological boost and builds momentum, getting you pumped to pay off even more debt as you go on. Pretty soon your 150k student loan debts for that med school program will be less than 35k. The downside of this is that bigger loans with higher interest rates are left untouched - which costs you more in the long run. However, as Mr. Ramsey explained it, paying off debt is 80% behavior. Another popular method of paying off your debt is known as the avalanche method. The way this works is, rather than paying off the debt with the smallest balance, you start with the debt that carries the highest interest rate instead. MATHEMATICALLY - this makes the most sense. If you think about it, this would mean you're paying less interest % in the long run, however, it may make you less motivated to pay down your debt since you will not get that fuzzy feeling from paying off your smaller balance debts, like that $50 credit card you opened from Marshalls when you were in high school 50 years ago. In conclusion, we explored two very popular methods of paying down debt. Now, choose which one is right for you. Are you the type that is highly driven by small successes? Or are you the type that just likes to do everything that is mathematically most efficient? Take your choice and share your thoughts in the comments below. Good luck!