New Feature: Custom Debt Snowball Payoff Order
What the Custom Sort Order Does
Quick update – I’ve decided to enable the custom sort snowball payoff method for all users. I’ve had this option setup for some time now and I was going to include it as one the upcoming “Undebt.it+” premium features. I decided that this should be part of the core functionality of the site so I’ve made it a standard feature.
Selecting the Custom Sort Order Payoff Method
There are two custom order choices in the “choose your debt payoff method” menu located in the Debt Snowball Table as well as the My Account page. Using a custom payoff method will you give you much more flexibility to setup a debt snowball payment plan that works best for you. I recommend starting with the regular snowball or avalanche and then create a custom plan based off of that. Switch back and forth to see how the snowball table changes. Using a custom method works best when you start using promotional interest rates because you may or may not want to pay them off first depending on your situation.
There are two custom methods to choose from: lowest sort order first and highest sort order. The lowest/highest refers to the payoff order number mentioned in the next section.
custom debt payoff method slection
Required Steps
The next step is to assign each account its’ place in the payoff order; this is done on the Debt Details page. The pulldown menu labeled Payoff Order has numbered selections zero through x (where x is the total amount of debt accounts you have). Repeat the process for each debt account, making sure to choose a unique number (for example, try not to assign payoff order #1 to more than one account).
account payoff order selection
Drag & Drop Custom Plan Creation
While the custom payoff order is free for all users, there is another option available to Undebt.it+ members that allows them to create a custom plan using drag and drop. You can get to it by clicking on the [edit] link shown above or by going to Payoff Plan > Custom Payoff Order.
drag and drop custom payoff order
When you click on the Save Payoff Order button, your plan will automatically be updated and displayed on the same page. This lets you quickly try out different payoff scenarios.
