Recently, a 2018 clip of a 29-year-old woman speaking to financial adviser Dave Ramsey on his radio show went viral. In the clip, the woman is asking for him on advice on how to get out of nearly $1 million dollars in credit card, mortgage, and student loan debt without filing for bankruptcy.
The video, begins with the young woman telling Ramsey “We have probably just under $1 million in debt and we wanna know how to get debt free without filing bankruptcy.”
He then asks, reasonably enough, “How much of that is a mortgage?” Replying, she said that only $210,000 of that is mortgage debt. Shocked, he replies by saying “So you have $600,000 in what?”
The woman, responding, says, “$335,000 is in student loans — we both have advanced degrees — and then the rest is really credit cards and student loans.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, which is avoidable, and student loan debt, which can’t even be escaped with bankruptcy!
Ramsey, at that point, looks visibly concerned. Pressing for more details, he asks, “How old are you all?” That’s when she said that she is only 29 years old, to which he replied by asking, “So, what in the world?” Continuing, he then said, “I mean, are you both on this, or is this just one of you that has completely lost your mind?”
She told him that her husband has most of the credit card debt and she has most of the student loan debt. And what did they spend those hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting? “He has an MBA and I have an advanced degree in policy,” the woman said. Oh, and they both work in government, which is hardly lucrative enough to pay off those massive bills: together, they make about $230,000 a year.
Ramsey exasperated, said “Well, you’re scared, and you should be. You’re disgusted and you should be. You’re in the early stages of being sick and tired of being sick and tired and you should be.” Continuing, he then added, “So I’m getting ready to destroy your life as you know it, because your lifestyle is considerably above your extremely good income and has been for a period of time, and so you’ve gotten used to spending like you’re in Congress.”
Advising them on how to get out of the massive debt load, he said, “You’re gonna have to not care what anyone thinks, including each other, because you’re not gonna spend any money on anything ever for the next three years.” Hopefully they like eating rice and beans every day.
Watch the video here:
This is absolutely INSANE holy mother of god pic.twitter.com/HskGvE3qex
— ACE CRISTIAN JAVIER 🇵🇷 (@sportynory) April 11, 2023
Commenting on that video in a quote tweet, Austen Allred said, “When you read about Greek tragedies you learn that one of the purposes was that you could spend some time feeling what the weight of the entire world on your shoulders would feel like, then realize your life is actually pretty amazing. In that vein, I present to you this video.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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