Cancer, bankruptcy, both jobs lost, two car loans, and five credit cards at the limit. $25 left at the end of the month. Thirty-three months later: debt-free, with $2,740 a month back.
Thomas and Jessica live in Seattle, Washington. No children yet — they are getting ready to adopt. First Jessica had cancer. Then came bankruptcy. Then both lost their jobs, both cars broke down, and they bought two cars with high-interest loans. They had been through it once, and they did not want to go back.
Today both work again. Jessica works in an office, $1,756 every other Friday. Thomas works in sales, $1,736 every other Friday plus a monthly commission. One paycheck lands every Friday. Together that is about $7,566 a month.
| Every month | Amount |
|---|---|
| Money in (two paychecks, every other Friday) | $7,566.00 |
| Living expenses, every single bill | $4,801.00 |
| Minimum payments on 9 debts | $2,740.00 |
| Left at the end of the month | $25.00 |
Two good paychecks, and $25 left. That is what a hard road leaves behind.
Before we touched a single debt, we went through every bill, line by line, looking for money that was paying for things they no longer used. We found $730 a month.
| Bill | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Food delivery | $640 | $120 |
| Groceries (organic stays) | $850 | $1,000 |
| Gym memberships | $90 | $0 |
| Streaming | $78 | $18 |
| Nails | $130 | $65 |
| Car wash plan | $50 | $0 |
| Phone insurance | $40 | $0 |
| Apps | $31 | $0 |
| Satellite radio | $24 | $0 |
| Found every month | $730 |
Living expenses went from $4,801 to $4,071. Instead of $25, they now had $755 a month to work with. A meal plan from AI and cooking on Saturdays replaced most of the delivery.
The organic food stays. The delivery fees go.
The Cash Release Method ranks every debt by balance ÷ monthly payment — how many months until that payment comes back to you. The shortest goes first. Here that is the medical bill: $2,974 ÷ $250 = 11.9 months. Then the personal loan: $5,600 ÷ $430 = 13 months.
| Debt | Balance | Payment | APR | Months to go |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medical Bill | $2,974 | $250 | 0% | 11.9 |
| Personal Loan | $5,600 | $430 | 19.90% | 13.0 |
| Card 5 (at the limit) | $1,500 | $50 | 31.49% | 30.0 |
| Card 4 (at the limit) | $2,900 | $90 | 29.74% | 32.2 |
| Card 3 (at the limit) | $4,500 | $135 | 27.99% | 33.3 |
| Card 2 (at the limit) | $5,800 | $170 | 26.49% | 34.1 |
| Card 1 (at the limit) | $7,200 | $205 | 25.24% | 35.1 |
| Car Loan — Jessica | $27,650 | $668 | 16.49% | 41.4 |
| Car Loan — Thomas | $31,400 | $742 | 18.74% | 42.3 |
| Total | $89,524 | $2,740 |
But there was a problem: all five cards were at the limit. No card had room for a single bill. So the plan had three steps.
1. Snowball first (January–February 2024). Pay off the smallest card, Card 5, to open room on it.
2. Cash Release (March 2024 – March 2025). Move bills onto the emptied cards and send the cash to the debt that gives the most back.
3. Avalanche (from April 2025). First pay off the cards that carried the bills, then the car loans by interest rate.
The sheet shows you the target. They made the decisions.
From March 2024, as soon as a card was empty, eight bills went on it instead of leaving checking: Prime $15, renters insurance $18, streaming $18, internet $65, water $70, electric $85, phones $110 and car insurance $265. That is $646 a month, and that cash went to the debt at the top of the list.
This is not a free trick. Those cards charge 26% to 31% interest the whole time, and every bill on a card has to be paid back. There is one rule they never broke: no card goes over its limit — they stayed at least $50 below it. Card 5 never went above $1,399.55 of its $1,500. That means watching every card, every month.
When a card got close to its limit, the bills moved to the next empty card: Card 5, then Card 4, Card 3 and Card 2. Over thirteen months $4,734 of bills went on cards. In April and May 2025 those cards were paid off first.
February 2024: Card 5 closed. The first room on a card.
May 2024: the medical bill closed. August 2024: the personal loan closed. Five months after the bills went on the cards, $730 a month of payments had come back to them.
Thomas's commission was never part of the monthly budget. First it filled a $5,000 safety fund (full in July 2024), then $6,145 went to debt, and from April 2025 every commission check went to the adoption fund.
October 2024 to March 2025: Card 4, Card 3, Card 2 and Card 1 closed, one after another. At the end of 2024 they owed $61,914.16, down from $89,524.
April 2025: the method changed to Avalanche. The cards that carried the bills were paid off in April and May, and then everything went to Thomas's car, the highest interest rate.
March 2026: Thomas's car closed. September 2026: Jessica's car closed. Debt-free. On October 1, 2026 they had a party for 30 people — debt-free and cancer-free, paid in cash.
The bills that went on a card that month, what they sent on top of their minimum payments, where it went, and what they still owed at the end of the month. Every number comes straight from their spreadsheet.
| Month | Bills on cards | Extra to debt | Where it went | Closed | Owed at month end | Freed each month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 2024 | — | $922.98 | Card 5 $922.98 Snowball: the smallest card first | — | $87,319.88 | — |
| February 2024 | — | $930.97 | Card 5 $531.24 Medical Bill $399.73 tax refund $300; Jessica's birthday | Card 5 | $85,066.58 | $50.00 |
| March 2024 | $646.00 | — | — Cash Release starts: 8 bills on Card 5; checkup and scan $450 | — | $84,408.42 | $50.00 |
| April 2024 | $646.00 | $376.96 | Medical Bill $376.96 | — | $83,323.01 | $50.00 |
| May 2024 | $116.00 | $1,870.95 | Medical Bill $947.31 Personal Loan $923.64 | Medical Bill | $80,212.17 | $300.00 |
| June 2024 | $51.00 | $551.00 | Personal Loan $551.00 | — | $78,575.72 | $300.00 |
| July 2024 | $15.00 | $1,467.99 | Personal Loan $1,467.99 $5,000 safety fund full; commission now goes to debt | — | $75,959.73 | $300.00 |
| August 2024 | $15.00 | $1,319.00 | Card 4 $1,319.00 | Personal Loan | $73,740.60 | $730.00 |
| September 2024 | $15.00 | $1,047.98 | Card 4 $1,047.98 | — | $71,884.09 | $730.00 |
| October 2024 | — | $2,137.98 | Card 4 $237.95 Card 3 $1,900.03 car registration | Card 4 | $68,883.15 | $820.00 |
| November 2024 | $646.00 | $3,649.98 | Card 3 $2,183.87 Card 2 $1,466.11 anniversary | Card 3 | $65,041.27 | $955.00 |
| December 2024 | $646.00 | $2,898.98 | Card 2 $2,898.98 Christmas $500 | — | $61,914.16 | $955.00 |
| January 2025 | $646.00 | $2,390.26 | Card 2 $681.47 Card 1 $1,708.79 | Card 2 | $59,097.07 | $1,125.00 |
| February 2025 | $646.00 | $2,601.76 | Card 1 $2,601.76 | — | $56,183.33 | $1,125.00 |
| March 2025 | $646.00 | $1,854.76 | Card 1 $1,828.93 Car Loan — Jessica $25.83 | Card 1 | $53,789.53 | $1,330.00 |
| April 2025 | — | $1,839.76 | Card 5 $1,298.99 Card 4 $257.26 Card 3 $283.51 Avalanche: first the cards that carried the bills; commission now goes to the adoption fund | — | $50,923.68 | $1,330.00 |
| May 2025 | — | $3,269.14 | Card 3 $436.01 Card 2 $843.22 Car Loan — Thomas $1,989.91 | — | $46,703.30 | $1,330.00 |
| June 2025 | — | $1,167.26 | Car Loan — Thomas $1,167.26 | — | $44,813.86 | $1,330.00 |
| July 2025 | — | $2,691.76 | Car Loan — Thomas $2,691.76 trip to see family $900 | — | $41,371.10 | $1,330.00 |
| August 2025 | — | $374.76 | Car Loan — Thomas $374.76 | — | $40,192.26 | $1,330.00 |
| September 2025 | — | $1,973.76 | Car Loan — Thomas $1,973.76 | — | $37,396.71 | $1,330.00 |
| October 2025 | — | $3,414.14 | Car Loan — Thomas $3,414.14 | — | $33,117.84 | $1,330.00 |
| November 2025 | — | $1,670.76 | Car Loan — Thomas $1,670.76 | — | $30,516.24 | $1,330.00 |
| December 2025 | — | $1,740.76 | Car Loan — Thomas $1,740.76 | — | $27,804.74 | $1,330.00 |
| January 2026 | — | $2,185.53 | Car Loan — Thomas $2,185.53 | — | $24,606.87 | $1,330.00 |
| February 2026 | — | $2,147.68 | Car Loan — Thomas $2,147.68 | — | $21,397.66 | $1,330.00 |
| March 2026 | — | $2,340.68 | Car Loan — Thomas $2,006.76 Car Loan — Jessica $333.92 | Car Loan — Thomas | $17,946.10 | $2,072.00 |
| April 2026 | — | $2,645.68 | Car Loan — Jessica $2,645.68 | — | $14,879.03 | $2,072.00 |
| May 2026 | — | $4,715.17 | Car Loan — Jessica $4,715.17 | — | $9,700.32 | $2,072.00 |
| June 2026 | — | $2,639.68 | Car Loan — Jessica $2,639.68 | — | $6,525.94 | $2,072.00 |
| July 2026 | — | $2,009.53 | Car Loan — Jessica $2,009.53 | — | $3,938.09 | $2,072.00 |
| August 2026 | — | $2,582.68 | Car Loan — Jessica $2,582.68 | — | $741.53 | $2,072.00 |
| September 2026 | — | $83.72 | Car Loan — Jessica $83.72 DEBT FREE | Car Loan — Jessica | $0.00 | $2,740.00 |
"Freed each month" adds up the starting minimum payments of every debt closed so far. Their checking account never went below $200.
| January 2024 | September 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total debt | $89,524.00 | $0.00 |
| Monthly debt payments | $2,740.00 | $0.00 |
| Adoption fund | $0.00 | $10,680.00 |
The $2,740 a month that used to go to minimum payments is now theirs, and the adoption fund keeps growing.
The honest part: what made it possible was Step Zero, bills moved to cards that had room, and Thomas's commission. A plain Snowball or Avalanche would have finished about a month sooner and cost a little less interest. What the Cash Release Method gave them was money back early: $730 a month by August 2024. And the price along the way was $25,787.97 in interest — I will always show you the price.
Every spreadsheet covers one year, January to December. Their plan lives in three files. Each file starts exactly where the one before ended — $61,914.16 into 2025, and $27,804.74 into 2026. Nothing lost between the years. The first tab in each file tells the case step by step.
Excel files. No email, nothing to pay. Want to start your own? Get the blank spreadsheet.
Names are changed. The numbers are real. I'm an accountant and financial coach — not a CPA, and not a financial advisor. I do the math and show you the options. Every decision Thomas and Jessica made was theirs. Every decision you make is yours.