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A personal loan can beat a credit card on rate, but it can't fix the pay-period gap that built the balance, and that gap is what decides if it stays paid off.
The debt-vs-savings debate skips one step: whether your paycheck timing creates a gap that manufactures new debt, no matter which side you pick first.
Most credit card payoff advice assumes extra cash you don't have. This plan works around the paychecks you're actually getting, not a bigger one.
A $15,000 balance can take 18 months or 28 years to clear, depending on one number: the minimum payment quietly shrinks every month you carry it.
Every avalanche vs snowball comparison assumes a fixed surplus each month. Here's why that assumption, not the math, is where the plan actually breaks.
Rate order is the right answer to the wrong question. What derails a payoff plan is not which debt you chose, it is when the money actually arrives.