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Free Printable Debt Payoff Ladder

List your debts down the side, months across the top, a payment in every cell. Cross them off as you go and start climbing the debt payoff ladder.

This one came from a reader. They had built a spreadsheet with their debts down the side and the months across the top, a planned payment in every cell, and they crossed each payment off as they made it. When a debt was cleared, every later cell in its row said Done. By the end of the year the sheet was not a chart of progress; it was a receipt for a year of effort, and nothing on it had ever been erased.

The Debt Payoff Ladder keeps that idea and adds one trick: the debts are listed in reverse payoff order, with the one you will pay off last at the top and the one you are attacking first at the bottom. That way the Done cells form a staircase that climbs up and to the right as the months pass. Sorted the other way, the same data reads as something being wiped out. Climbing is better, and that climb is where the name comes from.

Blank, it is a payment matrix with room for eleven debts and twelve months, a Total column on the left and Monthly total and Total left rows underneath. Filled in from a real plan, with the actual payment in every cell and the Done cells already placed, it is the single best picture of a debt snowball we know of; that pre-filled version is what Undebt.it will generate from your plan next.

Debt Payoff Ladder: page one of the free printable PDF

Download the free PDF

Free, no signup, no email address. Pick your paper size; every version is one page and prints on any home printer.

Download PDF (US Letter) A4 Ink saver

The ink saver version is the same sheet in black and gray for cheap printing. This one is landscape; choose landscape in your print dialog.

Rather have the numbers filled in for you? Undebt.it tracks all of this online for free, and personalized versions of these printables, built from your own plan, are on the way.

What it looks like filled in

The same sheet filled in with a sample snowball plan: eight made-up debts, $850 a month, twelve months, with the first three months of payments already crossed off in red. Watch the green Done cells: the dental bill clears in month two, the store card in month four, the furniture in month seven, the medical bill in month nine, the Visa in month twelve, and the Done region climbs up and to the right like a staircase. That is the ladder, and it is the snowball made visible; it only appears because the debts are listed bottom-up.

Debt Payoff Ladder filled in with sample data

Open the filled-in example as a PDF. The download buttons above give you the blank sheet.

How to use it

  1. List the debts bottom-up. The debt you will pay off first goes on the BOTTOM row; the one you will pay off last goes at the top. Write the APR under each name.
  2. Write the month names across the top, starting with next month, and each debt's planned payment in its cells. A dash in a cell means nothing is due that month.
  3. Fill the summary rows. Monthly total is what you send to debt that month; Total left counts your whole balance down toward zero.
  4. Cross off, never erase. Draw a line through each payment when it is made. When a debt is cleared, write Done in every remaining cell of its row and watch the ladder grow.

Tips that make it stick

  • Print it landscape and pin it somewhere long: above a desk, inside a cupboard door. It is a year-long document.
  • Use a red pen for the cross-offs. The sheet should look busier every month, not cleaner.
  • For a plan longer than a year, print one sheet per year. The second sheet starts with fewer rows than the first, which is its own reward.
Debt Snowball Worksheet filled in with sample data Debt Snowball Worksheet Order your debts smallest to largest and see how each payment rolls into the next.
Debt Payment Log filled in with sample data Debt Payment Log A running record of every payment you make, so the proof of progress is always in your hands.
Debt Tracker filled in with sample data Debt Tracker List every debt on one page, then log each balance month by month.

See all the free printables

Common questions

Because of what it turns into. The debts are listed with the first payoff at the bottom, so when that debt clears its row fills with Done from that month on, and when the next one clears a little later its row fills from a later month. The green region forms a staircase rising up and to the right, rung by rung. Listed the usual way the identical data forms a staircase falling down the page, and it reads like a wipe rather than a climb. Both were tried; the climbing version is not close.

It does the job of both, showing what to pay to whom in every month of the year, but it is arranged as a matrix rather than a calendar so that a whole year of payments fits on one page and each debt's history is a single row you can read at a glance.

Cross off the planned amount and write the real one beside it. The sheet is a record as well as a plan, and a payment that came in higher than planned is exactly the kind of thing you want to be able to see in December.

From your Undebt.it plan. Undebt.it computes every payment for every debt for every month, interest included, and the personalized Debt Payoff Ladder will lay that out in this format with the Done cells already in place. It is coming next; the blank grid on this page works today with a pen and the numbers from the snowball worksheet.