Shadowing Practice: Unforgettable Calls Vol. 1 | Dave Ramsey's Greatest Hits - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey guys, I'm your host Rachel Cruz
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and welcome to Dave Ramsey's Greatest Hits where we're looking back
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at the best moments from the last 10 years of The Ramsey Show on video.
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So for this episode we've handpicked some of the wildest calls
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and rants from the last decade and honestly I still can't get over some of these situations.
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So check it out.
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Channing is with us in Washington, D.C.
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Hi, Channing.
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Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
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Hi, Dave.
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Thank you for having me.
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Sure.
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What's up?
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So I live in D.C.
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I just recently got married about three months ago.
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Congratulations.
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Thank you.
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And my husband and I have really decided we need to be really focused on the same page about our finances.
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We actually have our first class of financial peace this evening.
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But together, we have probably just under a million dollars in debt,
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and we want to know how to get debt-free without filing bankruptcy.
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Okay.
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How much of that is a mortgage?
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The mortgage, about $210,000.
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So you have $600,000 in what?
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$335,000 is about in student loans.
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We both have advanced degrees.
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And then a lot, the rest is really credit cards and personal loans.
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So you have $300,000 of credit cards and personal loans?
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We have about 335,000 student loans and about 136,000 in credit cards,
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44,000 personal loans, and 35,000 car loans.
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Okay.
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How old are you?
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I'm 29.
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Okay.
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So what in the world? So, yeah.
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I mean, are you both on this, or is this just one of you that's completely lost your mind?
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Well, I have the majority of the student loans, and he has the majority of the credit cards.
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My credit card debt is about, it's not great.
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Okay, so why does he, at 29 years old, run up 100 grand in credit card debt?
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Well, he's 32, but I think it's one of those things where just making really poor financial decisions, thinking, be able to pay it down as you go,
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and then it doesn't happen.
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Okay, so you both have advanced degrees.
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What are your degrees in?
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We do.
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So I have a degree, both of our advanced degrees, no, he has an MBA and I have an advanced degree in policy.
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I work in the government and we actually both do now at this point.
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Okay, so your household income is what?
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Our household income is about $230.
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Okay, all right.
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Is there recognition on both of your parts how absurd this situation is?
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Yes.
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Okay.
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Yes, there is.
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So I think we're both a bit scared and want to do anything we can to avoid.
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Okay, great.
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Then I'm on your team.
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I can skip that step.
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Okay, good.
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Okay, well, you're scared, and you should be.
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You're disgusted, and you should be.
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We are.
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you're early in the early stages of being sick and tired
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and being sick and tired and you should be so Here's the thing you you guys have been living at
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Across the board from your education choices to your car purchases to your whatever you've been living at about
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10x where you're gonna get to live for the next three years Okay, yep, that's true.
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So I'm getting ready to destroy your life as you know it Because your lifestyle is considerably above your extremely good income.
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And has been for a period of time.
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And so you've gotten used to spending like you're in Congress.
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Right.
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This is going to be very emotional for y'all.
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And you're going to have to look at it through
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that lens and through a spiritual lens or you're not going to make it.
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You're going to have to not care what anyone thinks,
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including each other, because you're not going to spend any money on anything ever for the next three years.
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Like you've been spending, let's pretend you're making $210, and I know you just got married, but let's pretend you've been doing this as a couple as you went along.
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You've been making $210, spending $310.
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I'm getting ready to put you on $30.
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Okay.
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You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless it's your extra job
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or you're waiting on some of the people you work with during the day.
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Okay.
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This is how humbling this is going to be.
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Quite.
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It's going to crush a lot of crap in your soul that caused you to do this.
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So the bad news is it's going to be really rough.
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The good news is it's going to be great for you guys, relationally, spiritually, and financially.
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But you're not going to make the financial unless you make the relational and the spiritual move.
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Because I know you guys because I was you guys.
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This is exactly what I did.
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It's exactly what I did in my 20s.
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I bought and purchased a lifestyle that was 5 to 10x what I had.
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Yeah.
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And it was all because of crap inside of me that caused me to do that.
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Right.
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And all of that has to be destroyed to fix it.
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Absolutely.
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Is this making any sense or is this too brutal?
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No. It's making a lot of sense and it's brutal.
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I'm warning you what's coming, okay?
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This is not a math problem.
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The math problem is the symptom.
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The problem is what's going on inside of you guys.
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So the great news is you're very smart people.
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And if you will apply that intellect to solving this problem as if it were a policy problem or a business problem, you can solve the problem.
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But the lens by which the problem will be solved is through spiritual contentment.
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Godliness with contentment is great gain.
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Translation, you're going to pull up at a stoplight driving a piece of crap car next to people
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that have an income a fourth of yours of the nicer car than yours.
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Right, right.
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And you're not going to care.
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That's going to be the cool part.
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Okay.
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You're going to reach the point you don't care what other people think.
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And that might be a fair journey for you or him.
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I don't know which one it is.
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But some of you guys have been purchasing a lot of stuff for a lot of reasons that are going to change.
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Yep.
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They have to.
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Yeah, they have to because you're on a suicide mission right now.
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Credit cards are actually bundled with one of those like debt
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relief programs where we put a pot of money with them and then they negotiate on your behalf.
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So we're not even paying on the bulk $124,000 of the credit cards right now.
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Yeah, you're going to probably have to pull out of that.
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I don't know how quickly, but the problem with those people is they don't follow through and they administratively are really, really, really pitiful.
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They're incompetent.
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And so you're going to find they don't, the concept of what they pitched you is not completely bad, but you're going to find their follow through is, it will make your bones chill.
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So you're probably going to pull back out of those.
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And then we're just going to list these debts, smallest to largest.
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What's the home worth?
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What's the home life you said?
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No, what is your home worth?
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Oh, my home worth.
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Oh, I think that, let's see, according to Cillow, the home is worth about $300,000.
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Okay, so you have a little bit of equity there, but not enough to save you.
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So I always sell the home as the last resort unless it's the problem, and it's not the problem here.
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Okay.
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Ratio-wise, it's nothing compared to this other stuff.
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I mean, you have $330,000 in a student loan debt, $200,000 on your house.
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Right.
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It's not the problem.
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And the credit cards are almost as much as a stinking house.
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So it's not the problem.
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So I don't think we've got to sell that.
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You probably may need to sell a car.
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I'm not going to rush to do that.
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The big thing is just this shock to the system of your all's lifestyle
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where you go from really living what we call in Tennessee high on the hog
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to you're going to be living beans and rice, rice and beans.
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your friends are going to think you've lost your mind, and your mother's going to think you need counseling.
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Yeah, and we actually live as my parents.
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After we got married, they offered us to stay with them to help us with transitioning to new life, which has definitely been helpful.
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Who's living in their house?
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So I put my condo up for rent when I got engaged
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because I knew I wanted to save money for the wedding before we got married.
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So I had a renter in there the last year, actually looking for another renter.
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Our lease ends in a month.
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Oh, well, just sell it then.
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I thought you lived in it.
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No, we don't live in it.
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Oh, just sell it and put the $90,000 on your debt snowball.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Yeah, you don't need it.
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You're not going to move in it.
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You don't need to own it.
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No, we're never going to live in it.
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It was one of those.
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Yeah, that was my first baby.
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That's okay.
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Yeah, it's gone.
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It's gone now.
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You need the $90,000 to get a jumpstart on the rest of this.
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So that just got rid of a third of your deal.
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Okay.
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Right.
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So we're getting started.
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Jake's with us.
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Hi, Jake.
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How are you?
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Hi, Dave.
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I'm doing great.
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How about you?
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Better than I deserve.
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What's up?
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So I am 16.
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I'm going on 17 in about two weeks now.
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And I live with my mother.
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She is a very traditional mother,
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as in the fact that she hasn't really adapted to how everything's going on the internet these days.
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Dave, you know, explain it.
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She's very old-fashioned.
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It doesn't kind of get a grasp on what's going on.
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Hey, I'm having trouble hearing you.
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You're not speaking directly into your phone.
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Can you hear me better, Dave?
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Yes, sir.
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Thank you.
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Your mother is a traditional mother, and what's your question?
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So I make around $50,000 to $70,000 to $80,000 a month doing e-commerce.
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Wait a minute.
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You're making $50,000 a month at 16 years old?
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Yes.
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Yes, sir.
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Are you telling me the truth?
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Yes, sir.
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I do e-commerce.
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So I run dropshipping websites through Shopify.
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I do Amazon to eBay arbitrage and just a bunch of various side hustles.
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And I usually go through the internet.
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And my question is, she has no idea I'm doing this.
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And I have all my profits stored in a PayPal account because she is going on my bank account.
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and I would love to tell her, but like I said, with her being so traditional, I already know that she will be very, very skeptical of what I'm doing.
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I'm fearing that she's going to make me put an end to it just because she's already told me.
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I've expressed my passion with wanting to be an entrepreneur.
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She's traditional in the way that- How much is in your PayPal account?
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I got a little bit over $300,000.
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So you've been doing this for four or five months, six months?
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No, it's been about eight months.
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The first few months were slow, and then it picked up rather fast.
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Where's your father?
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He's divorced.
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He's in a different state.
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Not in your life?
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um i mean we talk
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but i wouldn't say these you know father figure he's more
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kind of like are you in a good church a friend
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i guess are you in a good church yes sir how
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do you feel about your pastor um very very close have
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you talked to him about this i have not no i
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i honestly i haven't told anybody i haven't even told any of my friends well i wouldn't tell your friends
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That would be very unwise. Of course.
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That would be very unwise.
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Okay.
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Absolutely nobody knows.
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How large is the church that you go to?
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Probably about 30 people.
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Okay.
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Very small.
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Okay.
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Yes, yes, sir.
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All right.
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Well, here's kind of what's going on in my head.
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If you have the ability to make $50,000 a month, you know, as soon as you're 18 years old, you can go do whatever you want to do, right?
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Right.
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And that's just about a year away.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So if you were my son and you were doing this
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and you told me you don't want to go to college and you want to move out and be an entrepreneur, I would say have at it, dude.
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You're making $50,000 a month.
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My God.
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I'm not saying, I don't know if you can do that for the rest of your life.
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You may have just caught a wave right here and as you know, things on the internet change rapidly.
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Yes.
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And you could, I don't know what all you're doing here.
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I've never heard of anybody doing the volume you're doing, doing the things you described.
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So I run three different websites and they sell different merchandise.
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I know what you're doing.
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I just never heard anybody pull this off at the volume you're pulling it off.
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So I'm not questioning your integrity.
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I'm believing you, but I'm just saying, and you're doing something pretty unusual, so I don't know how sustainable it is long term.
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And so I would tell you, number one, I would pull out at 18 and go start
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and keep doing this and just build your own thing out
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and have a blast and go make some money while you can.
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I would not say you're gonna do this 20 years because you're not, it's not gonna exist in 20 years.
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There's too much change on the way business is done on the internet.
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You might have a two-year window, you might have a five-year window, I don't know.
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And so I would commit to myself, if I were you, that when the thing does turn down,
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I might want to seek out an education at that point to give me knowledge to do other things.
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And it'd be great to have some business acumen from a business degree if you're sitting on a couple million dollars.
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You know?
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So knowledge is valuable.
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Going to college is valuable.
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Do you have to do that to make a living?
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Well, crud, no, dude.
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I mean, you're killing it you know, so go pile up as much money as you can.
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So that's part of our thing.
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I'm really uncomfortable participating in you deceiving your mother.
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And my fear is we have such a close relationship.
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Yeah, and I just, I think deception is never a good rule.
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I don't want to hide it from her.
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I just can't find it.
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No, that's not true.
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You have hidden it from her, so you wanted to.
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Okay.
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So you feel bad about it, but you've got your reasons for hiding it are bigger than your reasons for disclosure right now.
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And so what I'm thinking, what I'm trying to get in my head is I would love for you to search out someone
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that is trusted by you,
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spiritually and with business acumen and that is trusted by her that could mediate this discussion with the two of you.
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Okay.
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Could participate with you sitting down and going, okay, mom, our friend George is here.
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He understands business and the internet and he understands spiritual things
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and values and he cares about both you and me
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and I wanted him to be present because I'm going to tell you some things that have been going on.
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I have $400,000, $300,000.
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This is the stuff I've been doing on the Internet.
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I'm very good at it.
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I'm a child prodigy.
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You know, you are.
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But I think you just sitting down with your mom is not going to go well.
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Okay.
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And so I'm trying to pull in that right person that could kind of be a mentor to you
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and give you a little buffer but it's got to be someone she trusts
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because if you bring in some character
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that she thinks is a character she's going to think they influenced you
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and so yeah i i'm not i i want you to develop some kind of a strategy
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or a plan like that that allows you to not deceive your mom anymore okay
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it may take you a month yeah it may take you a month to put it together
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and that's okay um and
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And I'm okay with you leaving your money in your PayPal account and do whatever you want to do.
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That's all fine.
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There's no danger with any of that.
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And I'm okay with you continuing to do all of this.
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And I'm okay with you coming straight out of high school and making 600 grand a year.
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Dadgum.
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Life's rough, you know.
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But again, I don't think that's sustainable because the current methodologies that you're using will not be there five years from today.
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And an education will give you the ability to do things that are sustainable.
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and maybe step into the next thing with a little more zest.
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I also don't want you to have this unusual success at a young age
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and it's the only time you have success
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because you don't do foundational things that lead you into success when you're 32 as well as 22.
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So, wow, pretty incredible conversation.
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Thanks for calling in.
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I don't think I've had that one before.
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I've had a lot of different calls in 30 years on the show, but I don't think I've had that one.
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Chris is with us.
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Chris is in Dallas, Texas.
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Hi, Chris.
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How are you?
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Hello, Dave.
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Thank you for taking my call.
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Sure.
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What's up?
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So I want to talk to you.
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I want to see if I can get some advice
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and what would be the best thing for me to do at this point.
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So my car got repossessed last week.
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Oh, I'm sorry.
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And I've been behind on a couple of payments.
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So by the time I made up the payment, they still came and got it.
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Yeah, so how much was your car payment?
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I'm sorry?
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How much was your car payment?
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$1,100 a month.
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Oh!
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What kind of car was this?
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It's a luxury SUV Cadillac.
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You know, I got it.
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So how much did you owe on said car?
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I still owe about $27,000.
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so your interest rate was ridiculous no it's just an expensive
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car my interest rate was uh i think it was 5.9
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which you know i guess it's kind of bad for a car yeah
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and what's your household income right now i make about 175
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a year okay making 175 a year why did you not keep your car payment paid?
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Because, man, I have other debt that I'm paying on as well.
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How much other debt do you have?
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Well, I have another work truck that I use for my company, through my business, which I pay $600 a month on that one.
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What kind of truck is that?
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It's just a pickup.
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It's a work truck pickup.
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For $600 a month?
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Uh-huh.
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For a work truck? For a pickup truck?
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Okay.
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What do you do for a living?
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I'm in the vending business.
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Okay.
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All right.
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And what is that pickup worth?
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The pickup is really upside down.
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I don't really know how much it's worth.
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What do you owe on it?
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What do you owe on it?
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On the pickup truck, I still owe about $20,000.
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Almost as much as on the other car.
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Okay.
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Yeah, I just got it about a year ago.
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Yeah, all right.
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And what other debts have you got, sir?
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Well, I have my house.
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How much is your house payment?
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House payment is $1,500 a month.
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Okay.
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It's actually $1,700.
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Gotcha.
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And what else?
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And I have my wife's vehicle as well, which that one is still all about $13,000.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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So your work truck is nicer than your wife's car.
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Okay.
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well my work truck you know it's really beat up now
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i think yeah it's nicer than you're more on it than
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your wife's car i got you go ahead yes how much other day and
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so total debt you know i don't know now you got
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any other debt other than these three cars in your house
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no that's it a couple credit cards i think i have
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about six thousand dollars worth credit cards there's still no reason and making $175,000 a year.
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You're talking about $175,000 profit?
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No, that's before taxes and before expenses.
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So, you know, overall, I'll probably make after taxes and everything in my $120,000.
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Not after taxes, after your business expenses.
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Right.
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Because you understand the difference in gross revenues and net profits?
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Correct.
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What is your net profits of your business before taxes are paid?
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Yeah, about $175.
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Okay, so that's just before taxes is off.
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So how old are you, 28?
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No, sir, I'm 39.
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Okay, because you're out of freaking control, dude.
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I mean, you know that, right?
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Yes, I know that.
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And this just happened within the last couple years.
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You know, by the the time I got these vehicles, I was doing pretty well.
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Okay, so here's what I would do.
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Here's what I would do.
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The car that was $1,100 was insanity.
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It's gone.
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What was that car worth?
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It's worth about maybe $37,000 because I kept up with it.
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Okay, and you only owed $27,000 on it.
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Correct.
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Have you talked to them about what it takes to get it back?
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yes uh
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so yes in fact i just talked to him a few
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um what's the deal they want thirty five hundred dollars that's all that's all that's it okay so
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if you put thirty five hundred dollars in you turn around sell the truck you make ten thousand of your
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and you get your thirty five hundred back plus sixty five
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hundred right yeah somewhere around there about nine thousand yeah yeah okay
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so put the thirty five hundred out there get the truck back and turn around sell it
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immediately that's what I thought about doing yeah that's what you need to do that's what you need to do
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because this truck is stupid anything that anything
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that sounds like an $1,100 car payment is straight-up stupid mm-hmm okay man I'm it's just nuts
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and what's even crazier is making all this money you didn't
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even bother to pay the bill yes I know that's just crazy land okay
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so that tells me you're out of control you don't have any kind of a money management system going inside your house.
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I'm picking on you, but for your own good, because, dude, you're just so freaking smart.
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You have the ability to make so much money.
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Let me tell you what I was doing when I was your age, okay?
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Or not when I was your age, when I was 10 years younger than you.
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I thought I could out-earn my stupidity.
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I thought I could make enough to be stupid.
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Yeah.
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And that's kind of what you've been doing, isn't it?
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Yes.
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Because you know how to make money.
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Yes.
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You're good at making money.
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You're just not good at managing it once you get it.
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Am I wrong?
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That's correct.
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No, you're exactly right.
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Because stupid people don't make $175,000.
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You're not stupid.
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You're just doing some stupid stuff on the spending side of this equation.
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So you've got to turn this around.
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You've got so much potential, man.
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There's so much you're going to be right.
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So get that car back and get it sold.
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Drive your work truck.
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Let Mama drive her truck.
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Now you've got $33,000 in debt if I added this up right, not counting your house.
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Did I do that right?
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That's correct.
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But you're going to get $9,000 out of this transaction. and when you get
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that you throw it at mama's car i want mama's car
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paid off in two months i want mama's car paid off
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by christmas correct the money you make on the repo that you buy back and flip
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plus any other money you squeeze out of your 175 income mama's car is debt free by christmas does
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that sound cool then we're gonna pay
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that work truck off in just the next few months
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and then you're gonna start piling up some cash
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and whatever you whatever you buy as a car in the future you pay cash for it
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or you don't buy it
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and uh hold on i'm going to send you a copy of a book
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if you promise kelly you'll read the book i'll give it to you it's called the total money makeover
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and you need one this is the dave ramsey show mike's in philadelphia welcome to the dave ramsey show mike
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hey dave what's up um so a co-worker introduced me to your show recently
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and um they're really intrigued
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and i gotta say i need a lot of help i'm
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um 451 000 in total debt uh 252 000 of
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that is student loans um and i have 185 in a home loan
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and i only bring in um 70 000 a year after pension
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and all that stuff taken out it's more like 40 000 um i just don't even know where to start
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What do you do for a living?
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Law enforcement.
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Okay.
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And how do you get $252,000 in student loan debt to be a policeman?
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I went to a private institution because my mother wanted me to go there, to be honest with you.
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And I went there originally for finance, and I didn't do good at finance, so I switched my major.
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criminal justice and then i eventually went on for a master's for it as well
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which didn't really help my employment eligibility as much as i thought it would okay is um your mother wealthy
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no no my mother nor my father i'm the first in my family to go to college okay Okay.
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Well, what we always look at mathematically, and you were in finance, so you know what to do with this,
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is I'm always looking at the ratio of what we call shovel to hole.
502
The amount of hole that you're in versus the shovel that you have, your income.
503
The debt you have to your income.
504
Are you married?
505
No, I do have a girlfriend who lives with me and her daughter as well.
506
And what is this house worth?
507
The house is worth, I actually just purchased it.
508
I'm not even going to, you know, I purchased it in September.
509
Kind of off of a whim, my father passed away in July, and it was the last conversation we had.
510
It was actually across the street from his house, and he really wanted me to get it.
511
So I kind of, you know, jumped in both feet, I guess, to honor him.
512
yeah and um so you didn't put anything down so the house is worth 185.
513
uh yeah yeah okay all right and you're how old i'm 31 okay so
514
when are you planning on marrying this girl um she's currently uh in school to finish up for nurse practitioner school
515
um so i would say maybe sometime after that
516
that should be done hopefully after january
517
and um does she have student loan debt she does how much i'm not sure
518
because she's not really on board with all this she can't i've tried to bring this up to her
519
when listening to your show recently
520
and um she's her thing is i'm too busy with school and don't want to worry about that right now.
521
Yeah.
522
Well, I think you're the voice of experience that says it's a good idea to worry about it, otherwise you end up up a creek, which is where you are right now, and your paddle is real small.
523
Right.
524
Okay.
525
Well, let's look at this a couple ways.
526
How old are you, 28?
527
I'm 31.
528
31, okay.
529
Yes.
530
You and I haven't been friends long enough for me to be as blunt as I'm about to be, but I'm going to tell you anyway, okay?
531
I'm going to risk our friendship and just tell you the truth, okay?
532
You told me in a five-minute conversation of two really stupid
533
financial decisions you made from the influence of your mother and your father.
534
Right.
535
You bought things you couldn't afford with money you didn't have, both because of influence of those two.
536
At 31 years old, you were going to have to decide to love your parents
537
but no longer be influenced to do financial decisions based on their opinions.
538
Obviously, your father, God rest his soul, has passed, but even your perceived opinion of what he would have thought.
539
You cannot please these people anymore.
540
They are breaking your butt.
541
You make $70,000 a year, and you're so far in debt you can't breathe, dude.
542
Buying a house you can't afford and going to school you shouldn't have gone to
543
and paid twice or three times as much for an education, most of which you didn't even need to do the job you do.
544
Am I wrong?
545
Correct.
546
No. Okay.
547
Not at all.
548
All right.
549
And so, number one, that influence has to stop.
550
Number two, you can't afford this house as a single guy making $70,000 a year.
551
You cannot afford a $185,000 house making $70,000 a year as a single guy.
552
Well, my girlfriend's bringing in about $89,000.
553
Yeah.
554
Well, that doesn't count.
555
You're not married.
556
And if you're going to get married, you guys are going to have to get on the same page financially
557
because the number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights and money problems, and she's not even willing to talk about money.
558
So we're not willing to talk about marriage until we're willing to talk about money.
559
Because you're going to get divorced as soon as you get married.
560
That's what happens to most people.
561
It is the number one cause of divorce.
562
How long have you been on the force?
563
Four years okay when you go on a domestic call what are they fighting about money usually money yeah okay
564
tell me i'm wrong all right this is what's happening
565
and it's a dangerous call for you too because people are crazy
566
but but oh lord so yeah you guys have got to sit down
567
and go we can't keep this house unless we're getting married
568
and we're not getting married unless we're gonna get on the the same page about the money, and we can't combine our incomes with people we're not married to.
569
You can't go paying her debt.
570
She can't go paying your debt, and this house isn't hers.
571
It's yours.
572
It's not in her name.
573
It's in your name.
574
So either we're, let's just go ahead and get married
575
and combine everything and attack these two student loan debts and try to keep the house, or let's just call it a day and get rid of the house,
576
and then you guys figure out what you're going to do with your relationship and stuff later.
577
Go rent something or whatever you're going to do, whatever you're doing before.
578
But, you know, so several big issues I've already hit on real hard.
579
Number one, we can't afford a house.
580
Number two, you guys, you need to be real careful about pursuing a long-term relationship until you can get on the same page about money.
581
Number three, unless you're married, you can't afford this house that I mentioned you can't afford this house.
582
And then And lastly, we've got to do everything we can to get your income up with side hustle, side gigs.
583
And you can get all kinds of OT in the department, right?
584
My department, not so much.
585
I'd have to actually go outside of my department.
586
Okay.
587
They allowed you to do side work, though.
588
Yeah.
589
Yeah, and it's good money.
590
Right.
591
Now, security is, what, $40, $50 an hour, right?
592
Particularly private security.
593
Yeah.
594
and you need that money because you're broke.
595
So income up, out, go down, get real focused and real narrowed in your decision making so that you can clean this mess up.
596
Because what you've got in front of you, this $252,000 student loan debt with a $70,000 income is a mathematical nightmare.
597
So we've got to get your income up over $100,000.
598
I'm going to guess and say you guys get married, and we're probably dealing with almost a $200,000 income at that point when the two of you are going, right?
599
But I'm also going to guess she's got a big pile of student loans, too.
600
So I'm probably dealing with $400,000 of student loan debt at that point.
601
So probably you still can't afford the house.
602
you're probably still going to rent something cheap, and you're not going to have any life for a while because you both have made a big hole that you're in, and you can't get out of a hole while you're digging at the bottom.
603
So this is going to be very tough for you, Mike.
604
You've got a lot of influences in your life that have all brought bad decisions.
605
Those influences have to stop, and then you've got to undo some of these bad decisions or course correct because five years from today, if you keep doing what you're doing,
606
well, it's a lot sooner than five years from today.
607
You're going to be bankrupt.
608
You're heading straight at the wall with the accelerator on the floor.
609
I'm not against somebody having a history degree.
610
I'm not.
611
I'm not against somebody having a history degree.
612
We need to know history.
613
History is important.
614
I like history.
615
I would not say I'm a history buff, but there are sections of history I get really interested in and dive down into.
616
And I think it's very valuable.
617
to know history.
618
But if you're a father out there
619
and you have an 18-year-old daughter right now and she's about to go $60,000 into debt to get a history degree, you need to replay that last call.
620
You need to listen to what just unfolded.
621
A lady came out of college with a history degree and $60,000 in student loan debt.
622
she and her soon-to-be ex-husband ran up $50,000 in credit card debt, borrowed $10,000 on the car, and daddy tried to help her and loaned her another $20,000.
623
She's got $136,000 in debt and a $20,000 income.
624
Did you hear that call, America?
625
And you and I, as the taxpayers, guaranteed the loan that led her down this primrose path, and we call that a student loan,
626
and we call that a help to our culture.
627
I missed where the lady got helped.
628
Oh, by the way, it's not bankruptable.
629
It never goes away.
630
It's a single mom trying to feed three kids, and half of her debt is for a history degree.
631
And her answer to make more money and get a career is go back to school again.
632
Somebody please smack me.
633
Unbelievable.
634
Do you hear the messaging in this?
635
There's something broken and I'll tell you what it is.
636
It's called the student loan program.
637
And it's called you parents.
638
Here's an idea of parents, parent.
639
Look at your 18 year old child and don't look at them like they have any sense.
640
They walk around in adult bodies, they don't have any sense.
641
They don't have any sense.
642
They're gonna go 60 and 80 and 120 and 40, $140,000 in debt to get a history degree.
643
And I'm not against history degrees.
644
But for goodness sakes, if you're going to do that, pay for it in cash.
645
So you don't have this hanging around your neck for the rest of your life.
646
So what's she going to do?
647
She's going to have to retool and enter a different field in order to get her income up.
648
have the backbone dads, moms, to look at your child and say, no. That course that you're on,
649
that career path that you are tracking and the amount of debt you're going into, I'm not gonna participate in that.
650
I'm gonna look at you and say, you are stupid.
651
No, no, no, no.
652
Love your child enough when they're 17 and 18 years old
653
to assist them in choosing a reasonable career path with no debt.
654
No, you can't go out of state.
655
You don't borrow money to cross the state line.
656
That's known as stupid.
657
Stupid!
658
You go to the University of Tennessee if you live in Tennessee.
659
If you live in Alabama, you go to Auburn or you go to Alabama.
660
If you graduate from one of those three schools, you got a good degree in whatever field you're in.
661
To cross the state line and quadruple the cost of doing it
662
and not have the money to pay cash for it is stupid.
663
Stupid.
664
What'd you pay?
665
Well, I went deeply in debt.
666
To do what?
667
So I could go out of state.
668
What?
669
What?
670
You went into debt to go out of state?
671
you didn't go into debt for your education you went into debt
672
so you could live in a one-bedroom apartment with a jacuzzi
673
and a skylight and a racquetball court
674
and you called this your college experience somebody ought to smack you in the next week
675
and it should have been your parents who loved you enough to stop you from doing it
676
and not participate in this this stuff drives me bananas
677
because now i got this little sweet little lady bless her
678
little heart she's just broken she's trying to raise three kids
679
on her own she's got twenty thousand dollars a year you understand that's below the poverty level
680
and she's got a history degree with sixty thousand dollars in credit card debt
681
or student loan debt and fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt to go with it
682
and i'm gonna go off for two hours on that one too
683
but parents parents parents please parent
684
because your government is stupid it is we the people the taxpayers were
685
so stupid we're so enamored with the acquisition of degrees
686
that we have agreed to guarantee loans for 18 year olds who have no job history
687
and no assets any banker that made this loan would be fired for incompetence.
688
But you and I, the taxpayers are guaranteeing this, all in the name of the acquisition of sheepskins.
689
Because if you don't get a degree, you can't win.
690
No, honey, if you're stupid, you can't win.
691
Get a degree, I'm all about education, but do it in such a way that you pay for it and that you pay only for the education.
692
You do not finance the experience on student loan debts that last forever.
693
They last when your child is sick.
694
They last when you go through a divorce.
695
They last when your husband dies early or your wife dies early.
696
They last when your father gets cancer and you want to go home and spend time with him.
697
They last forever as your life happens.
698
Do not sign up for this stuff.
699
It's going on and on and on and on.
700
We now have a trillion dollars of this stuff.
701
Oh, and by the way, The government agency that's supposed to love on you
702
and take care of you while you were so noble
703
that you pursued your education and we the people guaranteed your education loans?
704
Well, this from Huffington Post.
705
Federal consumer regulators take an aim at the Department of Education's preferred companies for servicing the agency's $1 trillion in student loan debts,
706
highlighting potentially poor customer service.
707
Really?
708
You just found that out, huh?
709
And raising the specter of increased government scrutiny.
710
The move relied on the Education Department surveys
711
which grade the four preferred companies that service these loans
712
and determine how many new loans each will receive in the
713
coming year to service as a new crop of students enter college and graduate.
714
right Sally May ranks the worst in borrower school and federal personnel satisfaction
715
the CFPB official noted citing the surveys referring to the Education
716
Department documents said Sally May will receive the fewest new loans
717
to service in the upcoming school year borrower stuck with Sally May
718
or any other servicer who wish to switch to another have little ability to do
719
so the apparent public shaming comes to Sally May contends with numerous probes including investigations by federal banking regulators
720
and the Department of Justice over its handling of student loans and treatment of the borrowers.
721
Despite Sallie Mae's track record, which Elizabeth Warren describes as a pattern of breaking the rules and ignoring its contractual obligations,
722
the education and treasury departments appear to have given little more than a slap on the wrist to the company.
723
So we found out by doing a survey, the federal government discovered that Sallie Mae's incompetent.
724
Where are the flip of you people been?
725
We've known that for decades.
726
But she's servicing all these loans that never go away.
727
Student loan lasts forever.
728
No matter what bad things happen in your life, until you make enough money to pay it off.
729
It's not bankruptable, it survives disability, it survives divorce, it won't survive disability, but it'll take you four years to get it off.
730
So just go ahead and get ready to deal with Sallie Mae and their incompetent people on that.
731
So we're encouraging people to do stupid things to get an education.
732
We the people.
733
I had a student loan.
734
I did it too.
735
Almost everybody listening had a student loan.
736
And so what am I saying?
737
I'm saying this is a bad philosophy.
738
And the only way to preempt it is to educate the moms and dads and encourage them to be good parents
739
and educate the 18s and 17 and 16-year-olds and encourage them to only pay for education, not for crossing state lines, unless you've got the cash to pay for it.
740
And don't go somewhere to school and run up $200,000 in debt to get a history degree.
741
You'll be what's known as screwed.
742
This is the Dave Ramsey Show.
743
Okay, you guys, if you liked what you heard today, there's a lot more to come.
744
So make sure to watch our next episode all about wealth building.
745
The advice in these videos has helped millions of people change their lives.
746
You don't want to miss it.
747
In the meantime, make sure to share this video with a friend who loves a little drama.
748
Thanks for watching.
749
I'll see you next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Unforgettable Calls Vol. 1”. This video has 749 sentences and 7153 words to shadow. The speech runs for 43:34. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| incompetent adjective | /ɪnˈkɒmpətənt/ | Lacking the degree of ability and responsibility necessary to do a task successfully. |
| taxpayer noun | /ˈtakspeɪə/ | A person who is subject to, liable for, or pays tax. |
| lens noun | /lɛnz/ | An object, usually made of glass, that focuses or defocuses the light that passes through it. |
| sustainable adjective | /səˈsteɪnəbəl/ | Able to be sustained. |
| acumen noun | /ˈækjəmən/ | Quickness of perception or discernment; penetration of mind; the faculty of nice discrimination; acuity of mind. |
| borrower noun | /ˈbɑɹoʊɚ/ | One who borrows. |
| contentment noun | /kənˈtɛntmənt/ | The state or degree of being contented or satisfied. |
| renter noun | One who rents property or other goods from another. | |
| shovel noun | /ˈʃʌv.əl/ | A hand tool with a handle, used for moving portions of material such as earth, snow, and grain from one place to another, with some forms also used for… |
| spiritually adverb | In a manner affecting, relating or pertaining to the spirit or the soul. | |
| unwise adjective | /ʌnˈwaɪz/ | Not wise; lacking wisdom |
| regulator noun | /ˈɹɛɡ.ju.leɪ.tɚ/ | A device that controls or limits something. |
| smack verb | /smæk/ | To slap or hit someone. |
| educate verb | /ˈɛd͡ʒ.əˌkeɪt/ | To instruct or train. |
| sixty noun | /ˈsɪksti/ | A commercial lasting 60 seconds. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| follow through verb | To execute or complete a commitment. | |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. | |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| pile up verb | To form a pile, stack, or heap. | |
| turn around verb | To physically rotate (usually around a vertical axis) for a half turn (180 degrees), a whole turn (360 degrees), or an indefinite amount. | |
| beat up verb | To give a severe beating to; to assault violently with repeated blows. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What are your degrees in?
- What's the home life you said?
- No, what is your home worth?
- Your mother is a traditional mother, and what's your question?
- Are you telling me the truth?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been living · you've been living · you've been spending |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've handpicked · have really decided · have advanced |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be destroyed · will be solved · are actually bundled |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | life, which has · creek, which is · friend who loves |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 284 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shovel /ˈʃʌv.əl/, negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, disclosure /dɪsˈkləʊʒə(ɹ)/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/, obligation /ˌɑ.blɪˈɡeɪ.ʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: incompetent /ɪnˈkɒmpətənt/, sustainable /səˈsteɪnəbəl/, regulator /ˈɹɛɡ.ju.leɪ.tɚ/, entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like incompetent, taxpayer, lens.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.