It is one thing to read that the debt snowball works, or that an avalanche saves interest. It is another to see what it looks like for someone whose situation resembles yours: the same kind of cards, the same kind of paycheck, the same kind of doubt.
So here are four paths out of debt, with every number worked out month by month.
Twenty thousand dollars. It is a car, a wedding, a year of rent in a lot of cities. When that number is sitting across four or five credit cards, it can feel less like a balance and more like weather: something that just happens to you.
Here is the good news up front. $20,000 in credit card debt is extremely beatable. Thousands of ordinary people clear it every year, and they almost never do it with a windfall. They do it with a plan, a fixed monthly number, and a little stubbornness. This guide gives you all three.