A video depicting a young woman calling into financial adviser Dave Ramsey’s radio show asking for help trying to pay off her and her husband’s near $1 million in debt went viral on Twitter this week.
The video, recently posted to Ramsey’s TikTok, captured the 2018 exchange between a 29-year-old woman and the adviser, during which she asked him how to get rid of the couple’s huge debt “without filing bankruptcy.”
The woman indicated that the majority of their massive debt was from personal credit card bills and student loans. She mentioned that both of them had advanced degrees, for which they owe more than a third of their total debt.
A version of the shocking video shared to Twitter was viewed over nine million times in two days.
The video began with the young woman over the phone telling Ramsey, “We have probably just under $1 million in debt and we wanna know how to get debt free without filing bankruptcy.”
Ramsey’s first question was “How much of that is a mortgage?” to which she replied that only $210,000 of that goes to payments on the couple’s house.
Appearing slightly perplexed, Ramsey followed up by inquiring, “So you have $600,000 in what?” The guest said, “$335,000 is in student loans — we both have advanced degrees — and then the rest is really credit cards and student loans.”
Ramsey, looking visibly concerned, then asked, “How old are you all?” After the woman mentioned she was 29, he flat out asked, “So, what in the world?”
Further, conveying how large this amount of debt is, he added, “I mean, are you both on this, or is this just one of you that has completely lost your mind?” The guest claimed that her husband, who is 32 years old, has the majority of credit card loans and that she has the majority of student loan debt.
Elsewhere in the video, Ramsey asked what kind of advanced degrees they both have, to which she said, “He has an MBA and I have an advanced degree in policy.” She indicated that both of them work for the government, as the exasperated adviser held his hand to his head and let out a massive sigh.
Ramsey then asked their household income, which she disclosed was “about $230,000.” He asked, “Is there recognition on both your parts how absurd this situation is?” She affirmed that to be the case, which Ramsey claimed was “good.”
In a second clip of the exchange, Ramsey provided the couple some tough truth. “Well, you’re scared, and you should be,” he said, adding, “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.”
He continued, saying, “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.”
He then advised, “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.”
Twitter users were stunned by the call. The user who shared the clip to Twitter, Ace Christian Javier, tweeted, “This is absolutely INSANE holy mother of god.”
Bloom Institute of Technology CEO Austen Allred tweeted, “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.”
User Elsie claimed, “Umm I’d just leave the country and never come back.”
Liberal activist Kendall Brown observed, “Notice that it’s the *husband* who racked up 100,000k+ in CREDIT CARD DEBT, but it’s the *wife* who is handling the humiliating call for help to Dave Ramsey.”
Cultural commentator Kimberly Nicole Foster tweeted, “Does this woman have a shopping addiction? I’m genuinely asking.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
