Some of his advice (mainly the first “baby steps” of paying off debts and getting some money saved) is reasonable enough. Snowball method of paying off debt may not be the most mathematically advantageous, but it does give psychological quick wins to those who may need it most. Paying off high-interest loans first doesn’t mean much if you get frustrated and give up. Setting a budget is also important.

Once you get past that his advice is pretty awful though. Yes, I use credit cards but I pay it off. Yes, I have a car loan but its interest rate is so low I pay a rounding error’s worth of interest through the life of the loan. No, I’m not paying my mortgage off on a 15-year schedule because its interest rate is plenty low as well and I’ve got better things to do with my paycheck.

Snow ball method’s great when you’re really up shit’s creek and aren’t going to be done paying everything off anytime soon anyway.

By paying off the smaller loans first, your total minimum monthly payment is reduced quicker, leaving you better off psychologically because you finally have money to spend on food, but also you can then use the extra money every month to pay off the debts with worse interest rates.

Personally I wouldn’t fully adhere his snowball method OR the optimal “high interest first” strategy. I’d first identify the low hanging fruit and then look at the rest as a tradeoff between “how quickly could I pay this off” vs “how much would not having this payment anymore improve my life” vs “how much is this going to fuck me in the ass with interest if I don’t pay it off ahead of schedule”.