Research
Decision-making research has revealed that the debt-snowball method is a very common approach to managing multiple debts, even when larger debts have larger interest rates. Amar, Ariely, Ayal, Cryder, and Rick (2011) observed this tendency in surveys of indebted consumers and in incentive-compatible experiments. Amar et al. (2011) found that people naturally use the snowball method, by paying off small debts first, and this reflects negatively on their financial outcomes since they keep on paying off debts in an inefficient way. Moreover, Amar et al. (2011) found that restricting participants’ ability to completely pay off small debts actually helped them to reduce overall debt more quickly, by refocusing their attention on paying off high-interest debts. The natural tendency to pay off small debts first (which Amar et al. termed "debt account aversion") has been attributed to the appeal of achieving goals that are near completion and the tendency for multiple losses (e.g., debts) to be more distressing than a single loss of equivalent total value.
Read more about this topic: Debt-snowball Method
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