Yes, I use the opportunity cost to motivate both my clients and myself! Right now, my hubby and I are super focused on paying off the mortgage. So every time I think about spending money, I ask, “Do I want this more than be mortgage free?” It’s definitely motivating!

Yes, pick whichever debt method is most emotionally motivating for you! And isn’t it funny that they are all meteorological terms (snowball, avalanche, volcano)? Maybe we can invent some new ones (tsunami? tornado?), lol!

I love that you are applying the Volcano method to all of your debt! Kudos for knocking out that student loan debt!

I tell people to think of someone coming into your home and your life and ruining the lives of yourself and your loved ones. To think that the person will force you and your loved ones to work and do things they would rather not do. It would be hard not to be angry at that person.

Then I tell those people. “Now imagine that person is a piece of paper, a debt that says you have to pay a certain amount.” Then I say “does that debt deserve any less than your full fury?”

I know that sounds intense, but it works. Plus you were writing about using emotions for finances, you all but invited someone to talk with this intensity.

My wife and I used this to pay off our federal student loans in little more than a year. Then the government told us we still had around $15,000 in student state loans. Do you have any idea of how angry we were about that? To give you an idea, that debt lasted months after we heard of its existence. Not a little more than a year, not a year, just months.

And just fyi I was a PhD student at the time making $27,000 a year before taxes and health insurance. Granted my wife was working too, but for about the same as what I was making.