How to Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt this Fall | Credit Cards

A contrasting approach to the debt snowball is the debt avalanche. With the avalanche, after you make all of your minimum payments, you put any money left over toward the debt with the highest interest rate.

This allows you to start reducing interest charges more quickly, focusing on bringing down those balances. So your debt repayment grows in size and speed like an avalanche.

If you like elements of both the debt snowball and debt avalanche methods, another idea is to combine them into a debt blizzard.

This method is best for consumers who have a number of debt accounts with high balances. With a debt blizzard, you focus on the smaller accounts first, paying them off until you have a more manageable number of accounts – the snowball method. Then, you shift focus and pay down your accounts with the highest interest first – the avalanche method.

Paying off debt can be like shoveling snow by hand – tiresome work that takes a long time. In cases like these, a snowplow could come in handy.

With the snowplow method, you dedicate any extra cash you receive toward debt reduction. This means tax refunds, work bonuses, etc. Essentially, any cash you weren’t expecting goes to your debt.

While it may not happen often, these extra boosts can really make an impact. This is also why you shouldn’t only employ the snowplow method when paying down debt.

Like squirrels that hide away nuts for the winter, you’ve probably collected a decent amount of credit card rewards without realizing. According to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report from 2024, consumers let about $500 million worth of credit card rewards points expire every year. Imagine how much good that amount could do if it were put toward debt reduction.

Check if you have a hoard of unused rewards points you can tap into as statement credit to pay down your credit card debt.

Think of a parking lot in winter. People can’t usually get rid of all the snow at once. They just shove it into big piles to make it easier to deal with. You can do something similar with debt consolidation.

Ideally, you should also seek to reduce your interest rate in the process, helping debt reduction happen faster.

Remember, these methods are just a Band-Aid. To keep debt under control, you have to address the root of the issue, which can be the way you manage money.

If you’re working to pay down your debt, don’t accumulate new debt. Put your credit cards on ice (literally if you need to) and pause your spending. But just like resolutions for the new year, you need to stick to your convictions and focus on gaining financial literacy.

“Even if spending control enables some debt paydown, without a real mindset/behavioral change, it is likely the person goes right back into debt,” says Jeff Tyburski, founder of financial education company Your Sherpa. “In the end, success or failure will come down to just how seriously they attack solving the problem.”