[Oneill474]

Is it better to pay off completely small balance credit cards or to attack
The higher interest credit cards with they have a larger balance?

[pready]

I would pay off the cards with the smallest balance first. This is done best by paying more than the minimum due. When one card is paid off use the amount you were paying and add that amount to your payment on your next card. Keep going this way and you will have your cards paid off in no time at all.

[Wondergirl]

From bankrate.com --

The best way to get rid of debt, experts agree, is to attack the balance with the highest annual percentage rate first. When that one is paid off, move onto the debt with the next-highest interest rate.

But always attack that high-interest debt first. On that debt, you want to "double, triple, quadruple minimum payments," says Howard S. Dvorkin, president and founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "When you're done with that one, move on to the next one."

Linda Sherry, editorial director with Consumer Action, a consumer advocacy group in San Francisco, agrees: Size up bills by interest rates rather than the amount of the balance.

"The amount you owe doesn't really matter when you're paying an enormous amount of interest," Sherry said. "Try to pay the highest interest rate ones first. Muster all the funds available and get the debt out of your life."

Also, stop using credit cards, and pay cash. Oh, and don't buy stuff you really don't need.

[JBeaucaire]

Wondergirl is right... mathematically.

Pready is right... emotionally.

As a financial consultant, I can speak to experience. People are more motivated by emotion than by math.

If people were able to do the financially smart/mathematically correct thing, they wouldn't end up tens of thousands of dollars debt. They wouldn't.

So people need motivation that is encouraging.

Therefore, although it sounds mathematically incorrect, the technique that works for EVERYONE I've ever gotten to try it is The Debt Snowball, which pready touched on.

1. Make a list of your debts from smallest balance to largest with the minumum monthly payments, too
2. Put money aside for rent/food/transportation/clothing
3. Pay the minimum on everything on the list from the bottom up.
4. When you get to the first item on the list, the one with the smallest balance, pay ALL the rest of the money you can afford that month onto that bill.
5. When the smallest bill disappears, which it will do FAST, so you have a sense of accomplishment, add the minimum payment from that bill onto the minimum payment for the next item...that becomes the new MINIMUM for the next bill
6. Repeat the process.
7. As bills disappear, your minimum payments keep going up on the smallest balance item remaining.

In this manner you see BALANCES disappearing. It's motivating. It's encouraging. It is the most likely method by which you will continue.

People who can get themselves $50,000 in debt just aren't going to "feel" the success of a list of debts that never changes because we're trying to get those expensive-interest-rate-items first, which usually have HUGE balances.

Think about it.

But either way, DO one or the other. Don't debate it. Do it.