I paid off £57k debt with the Avalanche Method…my family’s not rich & I had no clue about money but it really helped me | The Sun

A WOMAN has revealed that she grew up not knowing much about money and didn’t come from a rich family, so had to find out for herself how to pay off her debt.

Money whizz Leona (@leonamarlene) explained that she found herself in over £57,000 of debt and thanks to the ‘Avalanche Method’, was able to pay it all off.

Taking to TikTok to reveal more about paying off her debt, she explained: “I don't know why financial literacy is not taught in school, but I'm gonna share how I paid off over $70k [£57,760] worth of debt, including about $35k [£28,880] worth of student loans, plus credit card debt.

“I didn't grow up in a very well off family and I didn't know anything about paying off debt or investing or saving until I was in my twenties and I had to teach myself everything.

“So here's what worked for me – there are two ways to pay off debt. I really recommend the Avalanche Method, just because it really helps you pay off your debt faster and you're paying way less of interest.

“I used to work with a CFO and he told me two things – one, you have to spend money to make money, aka investing, and two, he said think of investing and paying off debt like a piece of pie – you can have 10 pies you wanna try and you dabble in all of them and then you never complete one pie, so focus on this pie and then move to the next, and that's how I think about the Avalanche Method.

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“0% offers and balance transfer offers really helped me save on the amount of interest I was paying, because you get 0% for a certain amount of months.

“I also tracked all of my 0& APR end dates and that really helped me visualise my goals and keep track of them all.

“Live well below your means, I did this for a few years and helped so much.” 

Leona’s clip has clearly impressed many, as it has quickly amassed a whopping 231k views.

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It has 14k likes, 51 comments and 183 shares.

Social media users were grateful to Leona for her advice and were eager to reflect this in the comments. 

One person said: “Thank you for this.” 

Another added: “Yesss! I prefer the avalanche method.” 

A third simply commented: “Interesting.”

Whilst someone else noted: “I used snowball effect because it was what I knew back then! Both can work! This is all great btw! Congrats!” 

For those wanting to know more about the Avalanche Method – it is a debt method that can be applied to most kinds of consumer debt: personal, student, and auto loans; credit card balances; medical bills. 

It does not work with, and shouldn't be tried with, mortgage repayments.

The Avalanche Method focuses on paying off your debt with the highest interest rate first.

It involves making minimum payments on all your outstanding accounts, then using any of the remaining money earmarked for your debts to pay off the bill with the highest interest rate. 

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According to many, this method is the most logical, in the sense that you want to owe less money from an interest rate perspective, and then you go down that way.

As a result, using this method will save you the most in interest payments compared to other methods.

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