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Dave Ramsey
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Caller
Two and a half years ago, I bought a car and it's a good car. It's a 2018 Corolla, but I have a 16.5% interest on it and over half of my payments go only to interest. I'm actually the co signer on the car and my mother is the main signer on the car and I have had job instability, housing instability over the years and I'm just not putting my life together. But currently I haven't even been able to make my February car payment. So I also rely on this car as a source of income. So what is your advice on the car?
Jade
I would look for a different, I would start looking for a different source of income that's not tied to this car. My guess is you're doing some of the. One of the delivery apps.
Caller
Yeah, I'm actually a Lyft driver. I had a dead end job. I quit that. But I got a new job. That is a really good job, but it just, it doesn't start for a couple more weeks.
Dave Ramsey
What is it? How much are you gonna be making at the new good job?
Caller
About three to 4,000 a year. It, you mean a month or month? I mean, sorry, months. I, I, I am a swim instructor and I'm contracting with a pool that pays very well for their lesson.
Jade
Okay, and then what's, what do you owe? What's the total amount owed on this car?
Caller
I owe 16,200 and I originally paid 18,500.
Jade
Have you looked to see what it's worth? If you looked on Kelly Blue Book. Have you looked to see what it's worth? Private sale.
Caller
Yes, it's worth 7,500.
Jade
Oh boy. What happened to it?
Dave Ramsey
She'd been driving Uber.
Jade
Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. Okay, well then your only choice here, you're, I mean, you're gonna have to pay it off because it's such a low value and you're gonna have to work quickly to do it. Is it your only debt?
Caller
Definitely not. I've got about $50,000 in student debt and I ended up dropping out of school due to mental health issues and I have about $25,000. 20 to 25,000 in personal loans and credit cards. And then I have an I don't even know how many thousands of dollars in medical debt. It, I don't even like know.
Jade
So you're going to be doing, you'll be doing swim lessons at this place. How long is it going to take you to build up your lesson pool to make 4,000amonth or is there a base pay?
Caller
Because I make. I'm going to be making about 30 to $40 an hour.
Dave Ramsey
Are they going to work you 40 hours? Hey, you got to take care of your vehicle if you want to keep it on the road. And the smartest move is regular maintenance. I recommend Christian Brothers Automotive, the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show. Your local Christian Brothers shop provides high quality maintenance and repair services you Can Trust. Visit cbac.comramsey to find a location near you and get an exclusive Ramsey discount of 10 doll. 10% off your visit.
Jade
10 off up to a 250 value.
Dave Ramsey
See store for details. Are they going to work you 40 hours?
Caller
That's the plan. But yeah, that's the problem is that it does depend on how many clients they get. They do get a lot of clients.
Jade
Yeah, I'd be looking really deeply into that. First off. And my homework for you leaving this call is I would have something else lined up that gives me the ability to work. Because you don't know how many clients they're going to send your way and you don't know how quickly your calendar is going to fill up. And you've got to get started on this debt asap. Because here's the thing, if you default on another payment, it's really going to mess with your mom. I'm sure it already has, right?
Caller
Yeah, I feel bad for my mom and I. My mom does try to help when she can, but she's already. She's a single mom raising my teen, teenage brother with special needs, so she's already strapped a lot.
Dave Ramsey
What we've got to start with, let's go back to basics. All right?
Caller
Okay.
Dave Ramsey
Before you do anything else with money, you take care of food, shelter, basic clothing, transportation, and utilities. Okay? Do you pay, do you pay rent?
Caller
I do. And I live in the smallest, cheapest apartment I could find here in Phoenix. And I.
Dave Ramsey
Perfect. So you pay the rent. So you pay the rent and you go to the grocery store. Stop. You pay rent, you go to the grocery store, you get the car current before you do anything. All the other debts can wait till you pay rent, get the car current, get. Get food on the table. Okay. Before you do anything, you got to build a basic foundation in your life and that's food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities. Okay? Now once you're current on the car, then you can decide. Let's reach out to the student loan people, let them know you need a hardship Deferral and send them some of the paperwork on some of the mental illness issues you've had and just let the bureaucrats have something to chew on for a little while while they wait around. You do nothing. You quit paying them for right now. And then you get this book of business at the swim lessons full as fast as you can. And Jade's right. In the meantime and even after, I want you to work all the time. Because what you need to fix your whole life right now is $16,000. Yeah, if you had $16,000 and this car payment was gone, we could really get after some of those other debts, couldn't we?
Caller
Yeah, it feels like that that car loan is a big wall between me and basically the rest of my life.
Dave Ramsey
Agreed. Agreed. So we need to go find an extra $2,000 a month for eight months and smack this thing in the head. Okay, but that means, like, all you do is work, girl. You just work all. And it's not uber. Freaking Uber is making the car worse. Okay? You're putting so many miles on, you've destroyed the value of the car. So. Yeah, but if they. If you could. If you can work 80 hours a week with swim lessons, just put your fins on and go, right?
Caller
Yeah.
Dave Ramsey
I mean, if you can't get. If you can't get a bunch of hours down there, then let's find something else that you can do. That's the thing where you make the most possible money. That's moral and legal. Okay? And I want you to go cray cray for a while because the way you bust this is you throw dynamite in the middle of it and the dynamite is dollar bills.
Caller
Okay? I like that.
Dave Ramsey
And you just say food, shelter, lights and water and pay off the stinking car. And that's all I am breathing to do right now. I breathe in and out every morning. I'm tired because I work all the time, but by God, I'm making progress for the first time in five years. Yes, you can do this. You can do it. What was the nature of your mental illness stuff?
Caller
I have a level 1 high functioning autism and that has made it hard for me to hold a regular full time job. And then I also have because of that stem. So like some anxiety and depression. I have over the last few months gotten on the right meds, got into the stable housing, and finally I'm starting to get my finances stable. I'm trying to do baby step one right now.
Dave Ramsey
Here's the thing. Here's what. I've worked with them in 35 years of doing this. I've worked with a whole bunch of people that both had high level functioning autism and I've worked with a whole bunch of people that had depression. And the thing I know is the depression is made worse when you feel trapped and when you're not in action mode. When you get in action mode and get in warrior mode and get in attack mode, it helps because it releases the dopamine and other things and it helps to melt away the depression and the autism. Can the high functioning autism can actually work in your favor in those situations because you have the ability to do extreme amounts of focus, don't you?
Caller
Yeah, I am really good at teaching people to swim. And actually the gym I'm working at is called ability360 and it's actually an adaptive gym and most of their employees have some kind of disability.
Dave Ramsey
Okay. And anything you can do to help people work out. If you could do a personal trainer thing going, like I was going to
Jade
say, you need to go to the gym.
Dave Ramsey
What we're going to do is use all of this situation to your advantage. The thing that has been a blocker for you because as you start melting away these debts, first and foremost you get this car off your back, off your mother's back, your brain is going to clear up the fog that you've been walking in. The stress related anxiety of feeling trapped in 16% and feeling honestly shame about signing up for 16% too. That was dumb. So you're not dumb, but that was dumb. So you know what you do is you get an attack mode warrior girl, you put on your warrior stuff and you get after it, complete focus. I don't want you to pay anybody else, just let them all go bad. I don't really give a crap about your credit. You already don't have credit. We know that because you had a 16.8% car payment. We know your credit's trash already. So I'm not worried about that at all. I'm worried about you. I want you to be free. So you hang on and we'll get you signed up for every dollar and that'll help you walk through this stuff as well. Create your free everydollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.
The Ramsey Show Highlights — March 27, 2026
Host: Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw | Guest: Anonymous Caller
This episode of The Ramsey Show Highlights dives into the real-world struggles of a caller overwhelmed by debt, job instability, and a crushing car payment. Hosts Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw walk the caller through practical steps to regain control, emphasizing hope, accountability, and the need for immediate action. The episode focuses on prioritizing basic needs while tackling high-interest debt, the emotional burden of financial stress, and leveraging strengths to move forward.
On Car Use for Lyft:
On Taking Control:
Caller’s Realization:
On Mental Health and Debt:
The episode serves as an urgent roadmap for anyone stuck in the financial quicksand of high-interest car debt. Dave and Jade empower the caller to focus on survival basics, maximize legal and moral income opportunities, and consider her unique strengths—even those tied to neurodiversity—as essential tools for emancipation from debt. The advice is clear: extreme focus, relentless effort, and unflinching prioritization can transform even the bleakest situation.