Exercise 1: Why the Credit Card Comes Before the Student Loan — Possible Solution
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The real reasoning comes from combining Chapter 4's avalanche method
with Chapter 9's own real finding about UK student loans, not from
comparing which balance is larger overall. Avalanche logic (Chapter 4)
says to tackle the highest-interest debt first - Sam's credit card, at
22% APR, carries a real, guaranteed cost far higher than the student
loan's own effective terms, since the student loan is income-contingent
rather than accruing in the same conventional way.

Chapter 9's own real point goes further: for a middle earner like Sam,
voluntarily overpaying the Plan 2 student loan often isn't efficient
at all, since a real portion of the balance may be written off after
30 years regardless of extra payments made along the way. Extra money
put toward the student loan could genuinely be money spent on a debt
that would have partly disappeared anyway - while the credit card's
22% APR is a real, certain, ongoing cost that only grows the longer
it's carried. The larger headline balance on the student loan doesn't
change either of these two real facts.

ANSWER: The credit card comes first because of two combined real
findings - Chapter 4's avalanche method (tackle the highest real
interest rate first, and 22% APR is genuinely higher than the student
loan's effective cost) and Chapter 9's own point that overpaying a
Plan 2 loan is often inefficient for a middle earner, since part of it
may be written off regardless. The student loan's larger overall
balance doesn't outweigh either of these real, chapter-specific
reasons.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This correctly combines the two specific real chapters' own findings
that jointly justify the plan's ordering, rather than treating balance
size alone as the deciding factor.