Every article on debt payoff order stops at the same place: avalanche (highest interest rate first) saves the most money, snowball (smallest balance first) is easier to stick with. Both claims are true and neither tells you what you actually need to know: what each ordering does to your account while you are paying it down. Total-interest saved on paper does not matter if the order you picked leaves you short in month three.
Recurna Flow does not tell you which order is “correct.” The credit card payoff calculator already gives you months-to-zero and total interest for a single card. What Flow shows you is the part that calculator cannot: what paying extra toward one debt, while the others sit at their minimums, does to your weekly balance across every account at once.
How to think about it
- Avalanche is a total-interest bet, not a cash-flow plan. Sending extra to your highest-APR debt first is mathematically optimal, but it is often your largest balance too, which means the extra payment is the biggest drain on your account for the longest stretch before you feel it lighten. It is the same weekly-drain question you would ask about a car loan or extra mortgage payments: the payment is optimal on paper only if your trough can carry it.
- Snowball trades interest for a shorter squeeze. Clearing the smallest balance first frees up its minimum payment sooner, which can raise your trough earlier in the plan, even though you pay more interest overall.
- The trough is the real constraint, not the payoff date. A plan that clears debt eight months earlier is worse than a slower one if it pushes your balance under your floor in the meantime. See where each ordering bites before you commit to it.
Model it in Flow
You will build each ordering as a set of adjustments to your existing debt payments. Nothing here changes your real data.
- Open the Forecast page, set the account scope to include every account with a debt payment, and set the date range to Next 1Y, the same full-year view the 52-week cash flow forecast guide walks through building.
- Open the simulation panel. The sidebar slides in and the URL gains
?sim=1. - For the debt you are paying extra toward, tap +, pick the Modify type pill, select its recurring payment, and raise the amount by the extra you are considering. Leave every other debt’s recurring payment at its current minimum.
- Tap Add. The forecast redraws with the heavier payment running against the rest of your recurring bills.
- Save the simulation with a name that records the order, like Avalanche: extra to highest APR.
Read the forecast
Find the lowest week in the week-by-week breakdown, the same trough test the big purchase timing guide uses. That is the real cost of this ordering, not the total interest: the point where your balance is thinnest while the extra payment is running.
Now build the other ordering and compare them directly:
- Undo the modification, then repeat the steps above pointing the extra payment at a different debt, the smallest balance instead of the highest APR (or vice versa). Save it as a second simulation, like Snowball: extra to smallest balance.
- Tap Compare and select your first saved simulation to put the two orderings side by side. The chart switches to dual-line mode and shows the week-by-week balance delta between them.
The trade-off is visible instead of argued: one ordering may clear a debt sooner but carry a deeper trough getting there; the other may take longer but never leave your balance as thin. Pick the order your account can actually sustain, not just the one that wins on paper.
Saving simulations and comparing them side by side are Pro features. On the free tier you can still build one ordering at a time and read its effect on your 12-week forecast.
Exit simulation mode and your real forecast returns untouched. The extra payment only becomes real when you decide the order that works.
Want to compare orderings across the full year, not just 12 weeks? The unlimited forecast horizon and the comparison view come with Recurna Flow Pro.