Debt Snowball Worksheet: Free Printable Download Pdf 2022

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting the work we do.

Debt Snowball Worksheet

Debt is considered by many people to be a fact of everyday life. There are always surprise expenditures that can pop up here and there and sometimes these items end up on a credit card that you were hoping not to use for a few months.

After a few months of adding one thing here and another thing there, you might be shocked at the amount of debt that you have accumulated. There are so many ways that debt can add up, from medical bills, to surprise travel, to car fixes, that it can seem overwhelming to figure out how to get your debt taken care of.

This article contains 2 free downloads:

A debt snowball worksheet printable
A debt snowball worksheet calculator

Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Free Download

Thankfully, the debt snowball worksheet and the debt snowball method will take care of your debt and get you back on solid ground in no time.

Read on to find out how the free debt snowball spreadsheet can help you to consolidate and pay off all of your debt!

Free Debt Snowball Worksheet Printable

Download your debt snowball printable worksheet below. If you are looking for our debt snowball calculator download, that is further down the page.

Get Your Free Debt Snowball Worksheet Pdf

FREE DOWNLOAD

Send download link to:

Related content: Get the top apps for paying off debt

Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball Worksheet

This well-known debt management strategy is the simple concept of paying off each source of debt, one at a time, until you don’t have any debt left. Think about the way that credit cards work. Each card charges interest against your purchases that have been made with it.

When you only pay minimums each month, the interest keeps overwhelming your ability to actually pay off the card. The only way to break this cycle is to figure out a plan to pay off each card, one at a time, so you can use the money that you are saving in interest payments to pay off your other debt.

Enter the Debt Snowball Worksheet. This clever worksheet will help you to track your total debt and break it down into easy-to-manage chunks to be paid off. The debt snowball worksheet free download will track which items you need to pay off and help you to decide how much you need to pay on each one during the month to pay them all off.

Check out this debt snowball worksheet pdf and download it for your own use. The debt snowball system requires careful tracking to make sure that you focus all of your efforts on smaller card balances and pay them off first.

Use the sheet to track the process you are making toward paying off smaller cards so you can add the money you are saving in interest into the payments on the larger balances.

The debt snowball example that is included in this article will serve as a handy guide to follow as you erase your debts and track your successes!

Need professional help getting out of debt? Curadebt might be your answer

How to Prepare to Use the Debt Snowball Printable

This system is not only designed to help you to get out of debt it is also intended to teach you how to stay out of debt when you are debt-free.

You will need to do some preparation before you tackle your debts, or you won’t be able to handle them in an organized way that will lead to success. The debt worksheet is only to track your payments on your overall debts.

To figure out which debt to assign to the position of Debt 1, Debt 2, Debt 3, and so on, you will need to look at your current debts and figure out which one is the biggest balance.

Once you know which is the biggest balance, you will need to look at which debts have the highest interest rate. The smaller debt numbers that you tackle early on in your snowball process can sometimes be more efficiently paid off when looking at the interest rate versus the amount owed.

First of all, before you start using the debt snowball printable, you need to learn how to snowball debt payments in the first place.

To do this prep, follow the steps below:

Related content: The best debt consolidation companies

List Your Debts Out

On a sheet of paper, or a whiteboard, list out your debts from smallest to largest. The smallest debt will have the smallest interest payment usually, which will make it the easiest to pay off quickly.

You will focus your efforts toward paying off this debt first.

If you have multiple small payments that you are making on different cards, decide which one has the highest interest rate and pay that one off first.

This is a means to save money while also paying off debt. Getting rid of the highest interest payment will save you more money than paying off a card with a lower interest rate would.

Do Not Include Your Mortgage or Your Car For Now

Start out worrying about your credit cards and your other revolving debt. This debt is going to cost you the most money over fixed-rate loans and credit cards and other unsecured loans will actually injure your credit far more than a larger size loan that is not unsecured.

To be brief, secured debt is a loan against a real physical item. This is how a car loan works.

Unsecured debt is the kind of debt that you accumulate on a credit card.

Because the lending entity cannot seize an item to pay off an unsecured debt, the interest rate is higher. Start out worrying about your unsecured debt before you tackle your secure loans.

Credit cards and other revolving credit loans will affect your ability to make payments and they will also hurt your credit in the long run when compared to other loan types.

Related content: Do you know what your net worth is?

Use the Snowball to Build Up Savings

The key to the debt snowball method, and a place where the debt snowball worksheet shines, is in helping you to see just how much money you are throwing away in interest when you use a credit card to buy something.

As you pay off credit cards, you will see the compounding savings that you are building up by getting away from paying interest on those cards.

This is where the worksheet becomes a great tool to help you to learn to save money after your debt is paid off. Once you can truly see how much you are paying against a credit card each month, you will understand why it would be better to save money to buy large items with cash versus using a card to pay for them.

Credit cards are only for emergency use, and it will become obvious why this is the case when you see how your daily charges for coffee and other small items can really add up to a huge money pit!

Simple Step-By-Step for How to Use Your Debt Snowball Printable

You might be understanding the overall concept of this method of debt reduction, but maybe you are looking at the sheet and still feeling overwhelmed. Don’t worry!

The sheet is easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Here is a great step-by-step guide to getting you started using this handy tool.

Related content: Download our free printable budget worksheet

Step 1

Let’s pretend that you are starting out at the beginning of the year with your debt snowball plan. Look at the month column on the left of the sheet.

Across from January, you will see a row for your starting balance and a row for your payment.

Across from those lines are columns for your other debts. If you have more than 4, you can add sheets to your list, but let’s just say you have three major credit cards that you are trying to pay off for this example.

Related content: Get your free budgeting app

Step 2

For the Debt 1 column, you will enter the first debt that you are going to pay off. This is your smallest debt number.

You will put the starting balance in the first row, and the payment for this card in the second.

Add the payments for the other two cards that you are going to be paying off on this sheet. They will have the same information entered in the rows for the month of January.

Step 3

You will decide to adjust your Debt 1 column payment up by as much additional money as you can afford at this time.

Ideally, this will be 50% more, but it can be even more than that if you are able to afford it.

Now your January column will show the regular payments for the other Debt lines and an increased payment for Debt line 1.

This is how you are going to pay off the Debt 1 line in a short number of months.

Related content: Are these bad money habits keeping you in debt?

Step 4

When February rolls around, you may have half of that first debt paid off, or even more!

Adjust your payment amount up again if you can, or stay the course through the next few months.

The starting amount of your January Debt 1 line will have come down now and you will change the starting balance to your new, lower number.

The payment will stay the same for all the lines in most instances, but your balance for Debt 1 will be lower by quite a lot.

Related content: Learn how to live on the cheap and save money

Step 5

By March, hopefully, you will have paid off Debt 1! This would be great but that may not be possible for you if the starting balance of Debt 1 is too high.

This may be paid off in May or June. Even if it gets paid off later in the year, that is fine.

When you get to a balance of zero for Debt 1, you are ready to move on to Debt column 2!

Now is when the snowball picks up speed to become an avalanche.

Take the money that you were applying to pay off Debt 1, and add it to your monthly payment amount for Debt Column 2.

With the increased savings, you should be able to aim for a payment on Debt line 2 that is up to 3 or 4 times higher than it was before. It may only be 50% more, but that is still great progress!

Related content: Personal finance tips everyone needs to know

Step 6

Keep adding the additional money that you were putting on each payment for Debt 1 onto Debt 2 until it is a zero balance! Good for you!

Now you can take the combined payment power of both of the other debt lines and throw it at Debt 3.

This should be your biggest debt and the hardest one to make payments on that will actually go to the principal amount you owe.

You will probably be shocked to see how much money you can now put toward Debt 3 since you have paid off the other 2 Debt lines.

This is how the snowball becomes a huge avalanche that will pay off your remaining debt fast!

Using these steps and sticking to the plan that you have put in motion will convert the small payments you have been able to make into big payments that really get something done!

The Debt Snowball Worksheet will show you this progression in action and you will be amazed at how easy it can be to solve the debt burden that you have been carrying around!

Related content: 100 side hustle ideas to earn extra cash

Want To Use A Debt Snowball Calculator Spreadsheet Instead?

If you were wanting to use a debt snowball calculator that is compatible with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, download the best debt snowball spreadsheet below.

Debt snowball worksheet Excel compatible
Debt snowball worksheet Google Docs compatible

Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Free Download

You don’t need to know how to make a debt snowball spreadsheet from scratch, just download our template and get started.

Download Our Free Debt Snowball Calculator

Faq

How to make a debt snowball spreadsheet?

The easiest way to create your own debt snowball spreadsheet is to use our ready-made template and upload it to Google Sheets or to Microsoft Excel. Then, all you need to do is add your information and our debt snowball sheet will automatically do the mathematical calculations for you.

Is your spreadsheet Google Sheets compatible?

Yes, it certainly is! To start, just download the file and upload it to a new Google sheet.

Is Google Sheets free?

Yes, you can use Google Sheets for free.

Now that You are Debt Free, What Comes Next?

So, you’ve used the Debt Snowball Worksheet to get out of debt, but you might be wondering how to stay out of debt. This is where making a budget and sticking to it comes into play.

Remember how horrible it felt to be buried under credit card debt? You don’t want to be back there anytime soon!

Look at all of the money that you are saving in total interest now that you are not making payments on your credit cards.

How could that money be saved, or put to better use?

It can be tempting to simply move that money to new items that you want to buy or to other costs.

At the end of the day, if you were paying $2,000 in interest on your credit card debt before the snowball method got you out of debt, you really need to make that money work hard for you now.

Invest, save, and budget and you will be able to save all the money you were throwing away in interest to have for a future rainy day or for a future planned expense!

Related content: 50+ at home business ideas