Agreed, and I do think the psychological impact of people seeing some debt bills go away completely is an emotional boost that helps them keep going. Imagine h

Agreed, and I do think the psychological impact of people seeing some debt bills go away completely is an emotional boost that helps them keep going. Imagine having bills for $8k, $12k, $6k and $2k. You decide to cut current expenses and take a side job - you're getting serious about this. Getting rid of a $2k bill completely in, say, 4 months, is a decent psychological boost. You might be paying a bit more in interest if the other bills are higher interest rates, but you now have one gone completely. That's bigger progress to many people. I think one of his quotes - or perhaps from someone else - is that you didn't get in to a bad debt situation purely by numbers and math in the first place. There were usually some emotional factors in overspending (and perhaps hiding the debt from family/friends). Trying to ignore the emotional component of getting out of debt is silly, and the 'debt snowball' is simple enough for people to grok and work.