Work8 min read

Getting out of debt: the order that actually works

How to get out of debt in the UK, in the right order: list it, protect priority debts first, then snowball or avalanche, with free regulated help.

By Azemuldin Hussain 31 August 2026 Updated 8 September 2026 8 min read

Six bars stepping down to a dawn gold point at zero.

You are not lazy and you are not bad with money. You are almost certainly paying your debts in the wrong order. Most men in this position throw spare cash at whoever shouts loudest, usually a credit card with an aggressive app, while the debt that could actually cost them their home or their heating sits quietly in a drawer. Getting out of debt is less about heroic willpower and more about sequence. Do the steps in the right order and the same income goes a lot further.

This is general information, not advice about your specific situation. If your head is already underwater, skip to the last section and phone one of the free services today. They will not judge you and they will not charge you.

Step one: get it all on one page

You cannot plan around a number you are avoiding. So before anything else, write down every debt you have in one place: a notebook, a spreadsheet, the back of an envelope. For each one, note who you owe, the total balance, the interest rate, and the minimum monthly payment.

Include the awkward ones. The overdraft you have stopped thinking of as debt. The buy now pay later balance. The £200 from your brother. If you miss things out, your plan will quietly fail later.

This first list usually feels worse than the reality. Seeing “£14,300” written down is grim for an evening, but it is the last time the number is a mystery. From here it only goes down.

The distinction that matters most

Here is the idea that changes everything, and the one most people have never been told. UK debts split into two groups, and they are not ranked by size or by interest rate. They are ranked by what happens if you do not pay.

Priority debts are the ones that can take something serious away from you: your home, your energy supply, your liberty. Citizens Advice defines them by consequence, not by amount. They include rent and mortgage arrears, council tax, gas and electricity arrears, court fines, child maintenance, TV licence, and money owed to HMRC.

Non-priority debts are everything else: credit cards, overdrafts, personal loans, catalogue and store cards, payday loans, and that £200 from your brother. They matter, and ignoring them has real costs, but the enforcement powers behind them are weaker.

A £9,000 credit card is non-priority. An £800 council tax bill is priority. If you only remember one thing from this article, remember that the £800 comes first.

Why priority debts come first

The reason is the enforcement power sitting behind each debt. Fall far enough behind on rent or a mortgage and you can be evicted or have your home repossessed. Ignore council tax and the council can, in the worst cases, send bailiffs, take money straight from your wages, or in rare instances pursue committal to prison. Energy suppliers can move you onto a prepayment meter or, eventually, disconnect.

A credit card company cannot do any of that. At worst it can take you to the county court for a CCJ, which damages your credit file and can lead to an attachment of earnings. Unpleasant, but slower and far less severe than losing the roof over your head.

So the order writes itself. Cover your essential living costs first (food, housing, energy, travel to work). Then your priority debts. Then, with whatever is genuinely left, your non-priority debts. Paying a credit card while council tax slides into arrears is the single most expensive mistake in personal finance, and millions of people make it every year.

Deal with priority arrears first

If you have priority arrears, contact those creditors before you build any repayment plan for the rest. Councils, energy firms and landlords deal with arrears constantly and almost all have hardship processes, payment arrangements, or trust funds. Phone them, explain the position, and ask what arrangement they can offer. Silence is what triggers enforcement, not the debt itself.

For energy specifically, ask your supplier about their arrears schemes and check whether you qualify for any support grants. For council tax, ask to spread the remaining year over twelve months rather than ten, and ask about any reduction you might be entitled to.

Only once your priority debts are on a stable footing should you turn to the credit cards and loans. That pile is where the two well-known methods come in.

Snowball versus avalanche

For your non-priority debts, you keep paying the minimum on all of them, then throw every spare pound at one target debt until it is gone. The question is which target you pick first.

The avalanche method targets the debt with the highest interest rate first. Mathematically this is the cheapest route: you kill the most expensive debt before it can grow, so you pay less interest overall and, usually, finish slightly faster. If you are motivated by numbers, choose this.

The snowball method targets the smallest balance first, regardless of interest. You clear whole debts quickly, which feels good and keeps you going. The independent evidence on this is honest: avalanche typically saves a modest amount of interest, but snowball wins more often on follow-through, because people stick with a plan that gives them visible wins. A method you abandon saves you nothing.

Pick the one you will actually keep doing. If in doubt, snowball for the momentum, then switch to avalanche once the habit is set.

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Breathing Space: a legal pause

If creditors are contacting you constantly and interest is piling on faster than you can pay, you can access the government’s Breathing Space scheme (the Debt Respite Scheme). Through a debt adviser, it gives you up to 60 days during which most enforcement action stops, most creditor contact stops, and most interest and fees are frozen. It runs in England and Wales only; in Scotland the equivalent routes are the Debt Arrangement Scheme and a statutory moratorium.

There is also a separate mental health crisis version, which lasts for the duration of crisis treatment plus 30 days. You apply for Breathing Space through a debt adviser, not directly, which is one more reason to make that free phone call early rather than late.

When repayment alone will not work

Sometimes the sums simply do not add up, and no amount of ordering fixes that. This is not failure, it is information, and there are formal routes designed for exactly this.

A Debt Management Plan (DMP) is an informal arrangement where you make one affordable monthly payment to a provider who splits it between your creditors. StepChange runs these with no set-up or monthly fees, so every pound goes to your debts. Avoid any firm that charges for something the charities do for free.

A Debt Relief Order (DRO) may suit you if you have relatively low debts, very little spare income, and no home. As at 2026 the qualifying thresholds are debts of £50,000 or less and spare income of around £75 a month or less, with limits on your assets. There is no longer a fee to apply. Bankruptcy and Individual Voluntary Arrangements exist for larger or more complex situations.

You do not choose between these alone, and you should not. A regulated adviser looks at your whole picture and tells you which door fits. That is their actual job, and it is free.

Where to get free UK help

Never pay a company for debt help. Everything a fee-charging firm offers, a regulated charity or public service offers for nothing, often better.

Start with one of these. StepChange (stepchange.org) for a full assessment and free DMPs. Citizens Advice for face-to-face and phone help, including priority-debt negotiation. National Debtline for straightforward telephone advice and self-help letters. MoneyHelper, the government-backed service, for guidance and a debt-advice locator. If you are self-employed, Business Debtline is built for you.

Make the call before the next payday, not after the next missed payment. The order works, but it works far better with someone regulated in your corner.