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I read about an issue that Paid Twice noticed with people understanding how the concept of snowflaking can be applied to many different situations.  I won’t go into the definition of snowflaking more, but I’d like to share a couple of analogies I made immediately upon hearing the term for the first time in the last few months to help shed some light on how the concept can be used and applied to something other than reducing debt.

Sometimes people need examples to fully understand things, so here’s a few analogies that I had made awhile ago:

1. Snowflaking is just like saving money the way Grandma used to do it.  At the end of every day/week, whatever was left went into the jar in the kitchen.  Over time, the jar would fill up full of money and the kids would all get to help count it so we could list all the things it could be used for.

2.  It also reminded me a lot of the concept of growing multiple income streams.  No matter how small the trickle is, if you gather up enough of them you won’t need to rely solely and entirely on the one river.  Just the thought of being able to replace an entire income with small streams reminded me of the comparison between snowballing and snowflaking.  Snowflaking the way I understood it is to be done in conjunction with a major debt-reduction effort such as snowballing.  You wouldn’t want to quit your job before you had enough coming in from the other streams now would you?  Same concept here.

3.  Dare I say, losing weight is a lot like debt snowflaking?  I know many of us would just love to lose that extra 30-40 pounds tomorrow night.  However it’s a bit more complicated than that.  And not everyone can dive right into a plan that takes full-time 80-hr/week training and dieting while still living everyday lives.  So if we just concentrate on losing what we can every single day…focus every little extra moment to burn a few calories here and there…over time it’ll add up to something significant!

See the pattern here yet?  It’s almost like a theme of persistence and dedication to even the smallest gains can make an overall significant difference.  That’s really what I got out of the term "snowflaking" the first time I heard it.  Hopefully those analogies have helped you understand that it’s not just a debt-reduction concept as well.  It’s a strategy for anything that requires time and dedication with just little bits and pieces at a time.