Top 5 FREE Excel Debt Snowball Spreadsheet of 2024

Microsoft Excel is a fantastic tool for managing finances. It helps us organize data, track expenses, and plan budgets easily. There are many built-in tools and formulas to calculate monthly or annual expenses instantly.

It is essential to keep track of monthly interest fees when you are paying debt.

You need proper tools to manage your debts like a pro and get rid of those high-interest fees as soon as possible.

Welcome to this guide, where we will discuss the top 5 FREE Excel Debt Snowball Templates.

Let us also learn the step-by-step process to create a Debt Snowball template from scratch in Excel. So, make sure to read the article till the end and do not miss any crucial step.

What is the Debt Snowball Method of paying debts?

Image Credit: Investopedia.com

There are two popular methods of paying debts: Snowball and Avalanche.

Both of them are pretty straightforward. The method or strategy to repay the debts depends upon the user.

The Debt Snowball method is considered the fastest way of paying debts. This focuses on repaying the smallest loan first while paying the minimum monthly EMIs of the larger loans, regardless of interest rates.

In simple words, it is a method where a person pays the smallest loan first using the extra money.

On the other hand, the Avalanche method prioritizes the highest interest rate loans first. You need to pay off the highest interest rate loan first. This method is focused on reducing the higher interest paid each month.

Top 5 FREE Excel Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Templates of 2024

There are tens of debt management spreadsheet templates available online.

We understand that you cannot try each one of them to find the perfect fit. So, we have compiled the best templates which are easy to use and include all the necessary features related to debt management.

The good news is all of them are free to download and customize.

1. Debt Management Spreadsheet by SoftwareAccountant

Top 5 FREE Excel Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Template | Step-by-step Guide

Click Here To Use This Template!

This is one of the top Excel templates by SoftwareAccountant. It helps users manage and pay their debts quickly.

The template comes with an attractive design. It can be accessed from both mobile and desktop devices.

You can download the above fantastic template for free and customize it as you prefer. The template is simple and best fit for beginners as well as advanced users.

How to use this template

The template consists of a single sheet divided into sections.

The first section is where you enter your details, the total number of loans, and their respective interest rates. You can even specify the monthly EMI, which will be used to prepare the total balance and due.
The second section includes a massive table to track your monthly payments over time. Start by selecting the start month. The template will automatically populate the months for the monthly payments of all debts.

This is a blank template where you can start entering the data immediately.

Note that the template uses formulas. The cells containing the formulas are highlighted using the light blue color. Avoid editing those cells; otherwise, the template won’t work as expected.

2. Debt Reduction Calculator by Vertex42

Click Here To Use This Template!

This is another beautifully designed Excel template created by the experts at Vertex42 to manage your loans. It comes with clear instructions in the form of comments wherever necessary.

You can download and use this template for free without any limitations. Make sure to remove the unnecessary links and the Vertex42 branding before getting started.

How to use this template

The template has a “Help” sheet, which includes all the instructions for beginners as well as advanced users. You are supposed to read them carefully. Once you understand each step to use the template, feel free to delete the Help sheet.

This template includes two main worksheets.

Calculator – In this sheet, enter the debt details, their interest rate, monthly payment, and total amount. There is a dropdown in the middle of the spreadsheet beside the option named Strategy, which allows users to choose from various debt-paying methods, like Snowball and Avalanche. Depending upon your selection, the template automatically calculates the money you will spend monthly as interest and total duration to pay off the debts.
Payment Schedule – This template is automated and includes a lot of formulas. Do not edit it and mess up with the formulas. The spreadsheet displays the monthly payment breakdown to pay off the debts from smallest to biggest.

You may have to dedicate some time to learning this template. But don’t worry because it is worth the time.

3. Debt Snowball Spreadsheet by Reddit

Click Here To Use This Template!

If you are looking for the best mobile-optimized Debt Snowball spreadsheet, then this template designed by an expert at Reddit is the right choice.

This template comes with a simple design that doesn’t use any color code.

You can easily customize it as per your preference by adding more rows, columns, formulas, colors, etc.

How to use this template

Start by downloading the template using the link above. Note that there are two tables in this template.

In the first table, you can enter the debt or loan name, amount, interest rate, and tentative snowball monthly budget.
The second one is fully automated using built-in functions in Excel. Once you enter the minimum monthly payment in the table at the top, it automatically reflects in this table.

The remaining things, such as snowball roll, principal amount, interest, remaining balance, and surplus, are calculated automatically.

All of the above calculations are done independently for each debt.

By default, the template is designed to let you track and manage up to 10 debts.

Keep in mind that you can add more months or debts to this template, but make sure to adjust the formulas. As the template uses simple formulas to add and subtract the values, it is pretty straightforward to change them.

4. Debt Tracker Template by Spreadsheetpoint

Click Here To Use This Template!

It is a masterpiece template by Spreadsheetpoint. The template comes with clearly labeled tables formatted with light green and orange colors.

Note that this template doesn’t include any formulas for calculating the remaining balance.

How to use this template

It includes a single sheet, which is divided into four tables.

You can specify the Total Debt Balance in the first table.
The second table lets you select the start and end date for all your debts. Use those dates and enter the months you need to get debt-free. The remaining two tables (third and fourth) are pretty huge and ask for detailed information.
In the third table, you must enter all the debts, total balance, interest rate, and final pay-off month. You can also tick the checkbox once you completely pay off a loan after a few months.
The fourth table is pretty straightforward. You need to add the details monthly when you pay an EMI. It includes columns for payment date, amount, and remaining balance.

5. Debt Snowball Calculator by LifeAndMyFinances

Click Here To Use This Template!

This is a comprehensive Debt Snowball calculator designed to help you calculate your debts and motivate you to repay them in time. The template comes with a range of graphs and visuals intended to help you quickly summarize your overall balance.

How to use this template

This template includes four spreadsheets. Let’s discuss each one of them:

Data: This worksheet consists of the debts from smallest to largest with interest. Start by entering the data in the “Data” tab and clicking the “Update” button. Then, enter the appropriate balance amounts, minimum payments, and interest rates for each debt and click on “Update.”
Dashboard: This sheet provides a visual overview of the user’s debt situation. It features metrics like total debts, months until debt payoff, total payments and interest, and payoff over time. It offers a quick snapshot of the user’s progress toward becoming debt-free, making it easy to monitor and stay motivated. You only need to enter your “Extra monthly payment” and “One-time startup payment” for the dashboard to update and reflect your debt repayment progress automatically.
Debt Snowball Calculator: The calculator uses the debt snowball method to calculate the order in which debts should be paid off. This is an 8-debt calculator that also showcases your smallest debts at the top to have a quick look at the Balance and minimum payment. And interest rates. Just enter all the details in the table and take the benefits of this fantastic template.
Debt Payoff Chart: The “Debt Payoff Chart” sheet visually represents the user’s journey to becoming debt-free. This sheet features a graph to illustrate the declining balances of each debt over time, helping users visualize their progress and stay motivated throughout their debt repayment journey.

What makes this template different from others is that it contains four buttons in every sheet, using which you can navigate to a particular sheet with just a click.

How to Create a Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Template in Excel

If you are not impressed by the top readymade Debt Snowball templates discussed in the above section, here are the steps to create a new template in Excel from scratch as per your requirements.

We are going to learn to create the following Debt Snowball template.

Note that you can adjust the following steps to include the debt details as per your requirements.

Now, without any further ado, let’s begin.

STEP #1 – Creating the Header

A header is a crucial element of a template. It allows you to add your name or logo.

It is advantageous while sharing the Debt Snowball spreadsheet with friends and family as it helps them quickly identify the purpose of the template.

Here are the steps,

Open a new Excel sheet
Select the entire first row
Increase the height of the first row
Click on the cell “A1”
Type “Debt Snowball”
Increase the font size to 23
Adjust the font alignment to the middle
Make the font bold
Select the entire row again
Change the cell background color to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change the font color to white

After following the above steps, our header should look like the one below.

STEP #2 – Add the Debt Duration Details

Here, we will enter the start and end dates of the debts.

Using that information, we will highlight the total months required to become debt-free.

Let’s start,

Select the cell “A3”
Type “Start Date”
Change the cell background to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change the font color to white
Make the font bold

Here’s how it looks,

Repeat the above steps and create two more fields, as shown below.

Next, let’s change the format of start and end dates so that whenever you enter a date, Excel automatically displays it in a compatible format.

Here are the steps,

Select the cell “B3”
Hover to the main menu
Click on the “General” dropdown in the “Number” group
Select “More Number Formats”
In the Format Cells dialog box, in the “Number” tab, click on “Date”
Now, select from the available date formats

That’s it! Now, when you enter a date, it will automatically appear in the selected date format.

Repeat the above steps for cell E3 so that the field is in the compatible Date format.

We will use the following formula to calculate the total overall duration for the debt payment.

=(E3-B3)/30

For example, let us select the start date as “4/1/2023,” 1st April 2023, and the end date as “12/31/2023,” 31st December 2023.

You can directly copy and paste the above formula into the cell H3. Also, make sure to decrease the decimal places using the following button.

Note that this is not the exact month count. Instead, it gives a quick idea of the approximate month count between the two dates.

STEP #3 – Create a table to record the Debt Details

In this section, we will create a table to enter the essential details like interest rate, total amount, balance, etc.

Let’s begin,

Select the cell “A6”
Type “Debt:”
Next, click the cell “A7” and type “Balance:”
Repeat the above steps and complete the table as shown below

As you may have noticed, the “Min. Monthly Payment” entry in the A9 exceeds the cell length. Let’s correct it.

Select the entire ninth row
Increase the height of the row
Click on the cell “A9”
Go to the “Home” tab and click on “Wrap Text” in the “Alignment” group
Adjust the text alignment to the middle

Here are the steps to change the formatting of the vertical section of the table we just created.

Select all the cells from A6 to A9
Change the cell background color to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change the font color to white
Make the font bold

Now, the template looks like this,

Now, we will get our debt names across the horizontal header.

Select the cell “B5” and type “Debt 1”
Repeat the above steps and complete the header as shown below
Select all the cells from B5 to G5
Change the cell background color to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change the font color to white

Finally, let’s adjust the table formatting.

Select all cells of the table
Change the cell background color to light gray (Hex Code – #f3f3f3)

Here’s how our table looks,

STEP #4 – Create a Monthly Payment Table for Debts

We will design a main table to record the transactions to pay off the debt.

Let’s first create the horizontal header for the table.

Select the cell “A13”
Type “Month”
Now, select all the cells from the “B13” to “D13”
Go to the toolbar section and click on “Merge & Center” in the “Alignment” group
Type “Debt 1”
Change the cell background color to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change the font color to white
Adjust the font alignment to the middle
Next, select the cell “B14” and type “Payment Date”
Complete the table as shown in the following image
Select all the cells from “B14” to “D14”
Adjust the font alignment to the middle
Change the cell background color to light green (Hex Code – #d9ead3)

Here’s how the Debt 1 section looks,

Complete the table header for the rest of the debts by repeating the above steps.

Now, let’s create the vertical header for the table.

Here, we will reference the debt start month mentioned in cell B3.

Then, we will combine the DATE, YEAR, and MONTH functions in Excel to increment months in ascending order.

Here’s the example formula.

=DATE(YEAR(A15),MONTH(A15)+1,1)

Let’s use it,

Select the cell “A15”
Type “=B3”
(This ensures the date entered as the debt start date is reflected as the first payment month)
Now, for the next cell, A16, copy and paste the formula mentioned above
Press the “Enter” key
Next, hover to the lower-rightmost corner of the cell A16, and you will see a Fill Handle icon. Refer to the following image
Click on the Fill Handle and drag it till the cell “A32”
(Note that here, we have considered the tenure of 1.5 years by entering the 18 months in the table. Make sure to drag the Fill Handle to include the month as per the tenure of your debt)

Here’s how the vertical header of the template looks,

Let’s change the plain date (numbers) to month (letters) and cell background color to make it more attractive.

Select all the cells from “A15” to “A32”
Go to the “Home” tab and click on “Date” dropdown in the “Number” group
Click on “More Number Formats”
In the Format Cells dialog box, click on the “Date” field and select your desired date format
Click on “OK” to apply the changes

By following the above steps, your plain dates will be converted to month names, as shown below.

Now, let’s adjust the formatting.

Select all the cells from “A15” to “A32”
Change the cell background color to dark blue (Hex Code – #001149)
Change font color to white
Adjust the width of the column

Finally, let’s change the table background color to light gray and our table to track monthly payments is ready.

STEP #5 – Adjust the Formatting of the Tables

Your template is almost done. What remains is that whenever you enter an amount, a dollar symbol should appear automatically at the beginning. It is true when you enter debt amount, remaining balance, etc.

Here’s an example,

Without a dollar symbol, it feels like something important is missing in this financial management spreadsheet.

So, let’s begin,

Select the cell “B6”
Go to the “Home” tab and click on the “General” dropdown
Select “Accounting” from the popup
Now, you will observe a dollar symbol in the cell “B6”

You can repeat similar steps for the rest of the cells where we are going to enter the amount to indicate payments and balances.

With that, our spreadsheet is ready to track your debts.

You can play around with the formatting tools to make your template more attractive—also, there are plenty of built-in functions and tools for adding more features to your Debt Snowball spreadsheet.

After adjusting the formatting and adding more features to the template we created using the above steps, we have come up with the following.