Dave Ramsey’s show clip of a young couple with $1 million in debt goes viral
A video showing a young woman calling financial adviser Dave Ramsey’s radio show asking for help as she tries to pay off her and her husband’s nearly $1 million debt went viral on Twitter this week.
The video, recently posted to Ramsey’s TikTok, captured the exchange between a 29-year-old woman and the adviser in 2018, in which she asked him how she could shed the couple’s huge debt “without filing for bankruptcy.”
The woman stated that the bulk of her massive debt came from personal credit card bills and student loans. She mentioned that both had advanced degrees, for which they owe more than a third of their total debt.
A version of the shocking video shared on Twitter was viewed over nine million times in two days.
The video began with the young woman Ramsey saying over the phone, “We probably owe close to $1 million in debt and we want to know how to get out of debt 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 will go toward payments on the couple’s home.
Ramsey looked a bit perplexed and then asked, “So you have $600,000 in what?” The guest said, “$335,000 is student loans — we both have advanced degrees — and the rest is really credit cards and student loans.”
Ramsey looked visibly concerned and then asked, “How old are you all?” After the woman mentioned that she was 29, he forcefully asked, “So what on earth?”
Further explaining how big that debt is, he added, “I mean, are you both in it, or is it just one of you who’s completely lost his mind?” The guest claimed that her husband, who is 32 years old, has the majority of credit card loans, and has the majority of student loan debt.
Elsewhere in the video, Ramsey asked what advanced degrees they both hold, to which she said, “He has an MBA and I have an advanced degree in politics.” She hinted that they both work for the government when the disgruntled adviser himself put his hand to his head and let out a deep sigh.
Ramsey then asked about her household income, which she described as “about $230,000.” He asked, “Do you both realize how absurd this situation is?” She confirmed that it did, which Ramsey called “good.”
In a second clip of the exchange, Ramsey delivered a hard truth to the pair. “Well you’re scared and you should be,” he said, adding, “You’re disgusted and you should be. You are sick and tired of being sick and tired in the early stages, and you should be.”
He continued, saying: “So I’m preparing to destroy your life as you know it, because your lifestyle is well above your extremely good income and has been for some time and you’ve gotten used to it, like that you’re in Congress.”
Then he advised, “You don’t have to care what anyone thinks, including the others, because you’re not going to spend money on anything for the next three years.”
Twitter users were stunned by the call. The user who shared the clip on Twitter, Ace Christian Javier, tweeted, “This is absolutely insane Holy Mother of God.”
Austen Allred, CEO of the Bloom Institute of Technology, tweeted: “If you read about Greek tragedies you will learn that one of the reasons was to spend some time feeling the weight of the whole world on your shoulders would, and then realizing how your life is actually pretty amazing. With that in mind, I present you this video.”
User Elsie claimed, “Um, I’d just leave the country and never come back.”
Liberal activist Kendall Brown observed, “Note that it is the *husband* who has racked up more than 100,000,000 in CREDIT CARD DEBT, but it is the *wife* who is handling the humiliating call for help to Dave Ramsey.”
Culture commentator Kimberly Nicole Foster tweeted: “Does this woman have a shopping addiction? I’m really asking.”
