Snowball starts off small but as it rolls down the hill and collects loose snow from the surface it gets bigger and bigger. Eventually you can easily have a snowball that’s larger than you! 

The theory here is that you start small and work your way up. Most people think that they need to pay off their biggest loans first so that they can get over them and get relief fast. What they don’t realize is that they just make every smaller debt grow because it takes much longer to get rid of the large debt so your once-small debts become large debts and any already out-of-control debts become tremendous.  

Thus, we employ the snowball method. Start paying your smallest debt first, the credit card with the lowest balance or the loan for the smallest amount. Whatever you choose make sure it’s the loan that you can pay off the fastest. The trick here is that time is more important than the loan amount; once you’ve paid off your small debt relatively fast, your larger debts have only grown a little bit and you can work on the next-largest debt. What’s more, since you’ve completely eliminated a debt, you can use the money you were going to use paying it off to work towards your next, larger debt.  

The snowball allegory fits well here but I like to compare this situation to the battlefield; because many of us feel like we’re in a direct war with our creditors and debts! Imagine you have a small platoon and your debts are enemy soldiers that are firing at you. You can direct each of your men (monetary assets) to attack a single enemy solder (debt) and eventually you may defeat them.  

Now, using the snowball tactic, you decide to have every one of your men attack a single soldier at a time. Now instead of fighting 6 wounded soldiers you’re fighting 5 healthy soldiers. Once that enemy (debt) is settled with you focus all of your men (money) on the next one and so you swiftly whittle down the enemy troops one by one and it becomes easier to fight with each soldier they lose.  

However, you like to imagine it, the point is that handling one debt at a time and focusing on the easiest debt to take out will allow you to get rid of debts systematically one-by-one and greatly decrease the time it takes to relieve you of your debt.