George Kamel - I Asked Music City How Much Debt They Have

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

I just learned that half of U.S. adults worry about their personal finances daily. And it’s got me wondering if debt has anything to do with it. So, I’m hitting the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, to ask people everyone’s favorite dinner party question: “How much debt do you have?”     Next Steps: • 🎥 Watch my video Best Way to Pay Off Debt Fast (That Actually Works). • 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan. • 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!   Connect With Our Sponsors: • Get up to 20% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE. • Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. • Save money on your phone plan with Boost Mobile. • Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I just learned that half of U.S. adults worry about their personal finances daily. And it got me wondering, does debt have anything to do with it? So today I'm on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, to ask everyone's favorite dinner party question, how much debt do you have? Let's do this. How much debt do you currently have? 28,000. That's very specific. Okay, what kind of debt is the 28,000? Student loans.

All student loans. What was your degree? I double majored in political science in English. Okay. Are you working in those fields right now? No. Why is that? I have a passion for jewelry.

How long has this passion existed? My whole life. So you never had a passion for political science in English? Well, I did. I just, you know, I went away from it and then just ended up here. I don't know. Okay. So you're trying to pay off the student loan debt right now, or are you just kind of like letting it flow?

I'm kind of just letting it flow. Do you have a job? I do. Okay. Is it in jewelry? Yes. What are you doing when jewelry? I'm a luxury sales consultant and the head of a repair department.

Luxury, I mean, isn't all jewelry luxury in a sense? You would think so. But your stuff is like high, high end. Who's your clientele and what are they buying? Blue collar. They love engagement rings. I would say the fancy folk, too, when they just want like something aware for their dinner. Okay, like we got a fancy party coming up.

I want to get a new piece. Okay. How quickly will you pay off the 28,000 in student loans with your current plan? I'm kind of hoping I strike it rich. So no plan is what I'm hearing. No plan. Just. Are you making payments right now?

No. How are you getting away with that? Is it on like forbearance? I think so. So it's still accruing interest every day? It would seem so. It's like as we've been talking, the balance has gone up. Per chance.

You have no idea. Oh my gosh. That's kind of frightening. You seem very nonchalant about it. Why is that? I have faith that things will work out. In that you'll marry rich? Is that the faith? Per chance. Perfect. This is going really well.

What would it take for me to convince you to pay off your student loans more aggressively so that you have a better life? Scaring me into it, which you're kind of doing right now. Oh, good. Okay, what if I told you that you can't bankrupt on student loans and that even when you die, they'll probably come after your family? That would make me sad. It's working. It's working. It's working. How much debt do you currently have?

I have zero. Wow. Zero. That's amazing. And has this spread to the employees? How much debt do you have? About $200,000 worth of debt. Come on now.

Is that include a mortgage? Yes. Okay, take out the mortgage. Remove that from the equation. What's left? $15,000. Okay. $15,000.

And what does the $15,000? make up of? It's credit card bills, probably a medical bill, a lawnmower. Okay, what did the lawnmower cost? About two grand. Two thousand dollars. That's a nice lawnmower. It's a ride in lawnmower, zero turn. It's not, but... Did you get hosed on this deal? That's the interest on the lawnmower? I couldn't tell you. She doesn't know. Oh, boy. What's the interest on the credit card? 24.5 percent. Ouch. It hurts. So how much you having credit card debt? $1,500. Okay, and then you, because you said you had $15,000 in debt.

I got $2,000 on the mower, $1,500 on credit cards. Where's the rest? So I'm trying to figure out. This is a puzzle. We've got to help her figure out what evening. So you have no game plan to pay your debt off. I do not. Would you like a game plan?

Yeah, let's hear it. This is called every dollar. This is an app that's going to give you a plan and give you some hope that you're not going to die with this debt. You're going to get out. When's your next birthday? November. Perfect. What if by your next birthday you were debt-free?

It'd be a miracle. That would take what? A little over a thousand bucks a month at this point to get out of debt. Do you think you could find a thousand bucks a month to throw at your debt if you really work hard to cut your expenses down and get the income up? I'm scraping by, buddy. I don't know. This app's going to show you. All the recommendations you need based on your situation to get you out of that debt. And I wish you the best.

Thank you. Tip her well if you're ever in Laurel, Indiana at the Long Branch, Tavern. Long Branch Tavern. You want to be where everybody knows your name. How much debt do you currently have? None besides my student loans. Okay. How much is left on the student loans? About 32, give or take.

Okay. What was your degree in? Music. Okay. And you're actually using it. You're doing music. Sort of. Do you feel like you could have just not gone to college and been as successful or even more successful? 100%. Because of music. You're like, well, I already knew how to play. What did you learn at school that you couldn't have just learned through experience?

I mean, just literally the scholastic side of it. The actual playing stuff, you would just get from playing. But theory and stuff, you kind of have to pursue that. You have to want to learn that. Or like I did, go to school for it. Do you have a plan to pay it off early? No, not right now. So you're on like a 10-year plan or something?

Pretty much, yeah. Whatever my minimum payment is. I mean, everything's still because of the whole, like, poor case that's going on with the government. Like all of them are on deferment basically through I think like 2028. So I don't even have to technically start paying until 2028. And you're not you don't have no plans on paying until that. I am paying now. I'm basically paying what my minimum monthly would be to kind of outrun the interest, but I'm not really like actively. Do you know the interest rates on these things? It's like 5.7 or something. Is it broken up into a bunch of little loans? It's in one big one.

Oh boy. Did you consolidate or something? Yeah, I did. I had a bunch of the small ones. were all like $600. The interest rate on those was like 3%. But then I had some for like 12 grand that the interest rate was like 14% on. So I'm like, this doesn't make any sense to me. So now it's one big one to tackle through. I don't know. I haven't really been paying into them that long, to be honest. So how old are you today? 33. 33. So a 10-year plan by 43, maybe hopefully we'll have these paid off? Yeah, it's kind of the game plan. We'll see where we get. And that's why it's plan B. Plan A is much safer. Shannon, how much total debt do you have? Currently none. Zero. Yeah. No debt payments at all. Not at all.

How'd you accomplish that? I didn't go to college and I pay off my credit card. So you have a credit card, but you've never carried a balance, not once? I just pay it off every month. Okay. And what about a car? What are you driving? I have a car.

It was passed down to me from my parents, which I am very lucky for. So you got to hand me down car. What year is it? That's 2015. Okay, that's still a great vehicle. Exactly. And what about this guitar? This bass, yeah, I bought this probably six or seven years ago when I started playing,

and it's been all over the country, and it's my workhorse. And I do music full-time, so it's a write-off too. It's a right-off. There we go. And you're a full-time bass player? Yep. How's that going in Nashville? It's fantastic.

I've been here about a year and a half and moved here. No gigs, no job, and just started coming down here, meeting people, and now I do this for a living. like show up and find a gig. Yeah, pretty much. That's impressive. So what would you tell people who are maybe musicians, artists, not a consistent income? What would you tell them about finances and debt? I mean, it's a constant thing. I think the biggest thing for me is just be ready to not be making money. Like, for example, now it's slow season down here. So I'm not gigging as much as I am in the summer. So it's just kind of being prepared to not have as much income. So have a savings.

if you can. And I'm just fairly smart as far as like just not spending my money on dumb things that I don't need. You don't have money, don't buy it. Exactly. How much do you currently have in savings? Savings, I'm at probably about 20 grand right now, which again, very lucky because I didn't go to college,

so I don't have a ton of expenses in that realm and whatnot. So yeah. Well, I'm proud of you. Way to go. You're a beacon of hope in a world of broke musicians. So thank you. Thank you, man. Playing the bass, right, is,

to my life. All right, tell us your first name? Oliver. Oliver, where you're from? United Kingdom. Would you consider yourself a bloke? I would consider myself a bloke, yeah. I don't know who gets that term.

Yeah, no, most blokes. But I think you have to be a bloke to call someone else a bloke. Yeah, a lady probably wouldn't go around saying it, but yeah, yeah. We'll take that off the record. All right, tell me, Oliver, how much debt do you currently have? Zero. No payments in the world? Nothing.

Nothing. thing or is it debt not as big a deal there? I went to I did it in the UK what's called a degree apprenticeship which is basically like five years of university but your company pays for it so it's all funded it's like company pays for it what kind of company what kind of work do you do construction construction construction of music I forgot they have construction over there they got to construct things still we invented it we invented it beautiful architecture over there okay so do you plan on going into debt or you like I avoid debt at all costs no avoid debt at all Where did that mentality come from?

Parents, I suppose, yeah. They weren't university educated either. So to be fair, university in the UK is a lot cheaper than what it is here. And the companies are paying for it? Yeah, so it's like government schemes, it's called a degree apprenticeship, so it's like four or five years. So you go into the trades. Well, I'm not actually in a trade. I do something called Quantity Surveying, which over here I think might be called...

You have survey. Yeah, we have that. Chartered surveyors and stuff. The guys with the little tripod. in the side of the road. I always go, what is that job? They might be land surveyors. I'm a quantity surveyor. So like quantity so building new belts and stuff. What's a quantity? Quantity. Quantity. Oh, quantity surveyor. The accent. I was like a quantity. I was like, is that a different word?

No, no. Okay. Do you have friends that have debt or is it kind of like a, just not as big of a thing over there? Yeah, they do, but it's very low interest from the government on the university payments. People that obviously don't have medical debt. No one has medical debt. Some people might obviously have that on the houses. What about like a car payment? Yeah, what? Average car payment in the UK is probably about £400, 500, so about $6,700. That feels like a lot, but you don't have a car payment. No, my car's, I have a company car. Wow. And then what about credit card debt? Do a lot of people go into credit card debt? Probably not as much as in America. I personally don't, but maybe there are people that are

a bit foreverless at times. A British gentleman. How much debt do you currently have? None. Zero. Not a penny. Is this just the thing? Like, anytime I talk to someone who's from across the pond, they're like, no, we don't, debt is weird over there. Well, yeah, I, obviously, I'm still young, but like, I don't, I don't pay anything monthly. I try and pay it all off, you know, then I don't know anyone, anything, you know, it's just.

No car payment. No credit card debt. No, no, I didn't go to university. What are you doing? I'm a mechanic, but I box as well. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, that's why we're here. We're celebrating a thing I've just been doing.

So. And you went into the trades. What would you say to people who maybe like, they're trying to figure out what they want to do with their life? How would you say, hey, this is why you should go into the trades? Well, I don't know what it's like over here, but where we are, you know, these people go to university and college and they come out with these high-end degrees, but they've got no jobs. They, you know, nothing, no experience, yeah? So they're good on paper, but they're not good on in real life. What does a mechanic make over there at your age?

20 grand the year. Okay. But yeah. But you live a simple life. Oh, yeah, very. It's enough to travel to Nashville and not going to debt for it. I don't drive a flash car. I don't like, I don't need to impress anyone, yeah. I feel like mechanics know better.

Yeah, we have to. You have to, yeah. And whatever you drive, you know how to fix. I don't know. It's getting difficult now. What kind of mechanic are you? Just a car mechanic, yeah, all vehicles. But it's getting difficult now because obviously the software and stuff like that.

The garage that I'm in is we're not. Now it's like tech support for these cars. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, we get electric cars, vehicle. electric vehicles in that we can't touch. Wow. Okay. The world's going crazy.

Well, congratulations on living debt free, man. Keep it up. Thank you very much. Spread the word here in America while you're here. Yeah, why? Is debt big here? Oh, it's the biggest. Yeah?

Yeah, we love debt around here. So me and the guy that we traveled with realized that there's so many nice cars here and we wondered how like you guys are paid, we thought you were paying him off. Like, we can't, we couldn't find a car that was under like, you know, 50 grand in one place. Sounds about right. And just know at least half of them, if not more, are financed at, you know, $6, $700 a month? Yeah, that's wild. It's wild. It's wild. Well, thank you. Well, thank you. It's the cowboy that makes the half.

So tell us how much debt do you have currently? Go ahead. You looked at her like it's her debt. It's her battle to fight. How much debt do we have? You're asking me a tough question. Personal debt. Let's do personal debt. Our home. And that's about it, right? Our home. Just a mortgage? Anything you want to tell him today? Any news you want to drop? That's why we're here.

Like 800,000, something like that, that we have in debt. You got the mortgage, but no consumer debt, no credit cards, no car loans, nothing. We have credit cards, but we pay them off every month. Okay, okay, all right. It's hard, I know, but we... Where are you guys from? Miami. Oh, that's big living in Miami.

Are a lot of people in Miami in crippling debt to, like, keep up a lifestyle? Most probably. They all just super rich and they can afford it. No, most probably. They're in debt. Just like everywhere else, they're in debt. Yeah. But Miami especially feels like you're trying to keep up.

Because rents are very high, mortgages are very, you know, the value of properties, even though they're going down now, they were very, very inflated. So it's very hard to, for young people or for people just graduating to buy a property, it's very difficult. You'd rather rent. It makes more sense mathematically right now. Did you guys have debt and you paid it off or have you always avoided debt? I mean, we've been married for like 20 years. So early on we had debt, but we kind of became very disciplined about trying to live within your means. And that's tough.

I know. Believe me, I know. So what advice would you give to someone in their 20s who's starting out in their careers? You got to, if you're starting and you should start before your 20s. If you're, if you have a job or if you're making any type of income, just put away as much as you can, invest. as much as much money on K, mutual fund, something. Just keep putting money in there, but don't forget about it. Forget about it.

Okay, what's the worst financial mistake you guys have made? We got scammed once. We did get scammed ones. And it was your fault. I should have saw it coming? That was my fault for not betting them properly and not doing it right. It's got a little exciting one. Let's just do it.

Let's do it. It was going to be quick and I needed it to be clear. Were you married at the time? Yes. Okay, because you're looking, you're going, yep, I remember that. I still resent her a little bit for that. But you know, two grand in the scheme of things, it's not good when you get scant because you feel like an idiot, but it's not, it's not the end of the world.

It wasn't the end of the world. So you've been scammed before. What steps have you put in place to make sure that you don't get scammed again? Before we started doing our own business, I was in sales. So I go by feeling and by how people are. So now I vet, you know. What if you could do more than just vet and go off of vibes? What if there was a service that could go

in and remove your personal info from all these data broker sites. Yeah, that'd be great. It's called Delete Me. So here's what they do. There's privacy experts. They scour the internet for your personal info on these data broker websites that sell it to spammers and scammers. And they remove your info and send you a report every few months. You can get 20% off at join deleteme.com slash George on their annual plans or click the link in the description.

Tell us how much debt do you currently? I have no debt currently. Wow. How'd you accomplish that? I just don't have a credit card. I don't really buy anything that I don't need. And yeah, pretty much. And how weird that is in America today?

Yes, yes. I watch it. How do you just not buy things you don't need? What's the point of living? When you're a struggling artist, a starving artist who's trying to make ends meet, then you really kind of, it puts things into perspective for you. So being a musician has helped you live on less than you make and avoid debt because you're like, this is survival out here.

Exactly. Yeah, you realize how much it means to be surviving out here. And so having like. to live by playing a gig and making money off of people's generosity and their tips mostly. Yeah, it's really uncertain. And so with all that uncertainty, you figure you might as well try to balance one thing, and it might as well be your finances. And so that's where we're at.

That's wise. Okay. How much do you have in savings right now? In savings, I've got about $5,000 or $6,000. Way to go. I mean, I'd rather have more. Are you working on building that up? Building that up, yeah.

I'm 28 years old, so I've been building it for a while. And there was a time in my life when I wasn't doing well financially. And so I had to kind of figure that out. And so that's why I'm trying to build it still. And we're on a good path, I'd say. Okay, so you've got some savings built up. A little bit, yeah. Do you know the savings rate?

Like, what is the APY you're making on your savings currently with your bank? Oh, no, I don't know. I have no idea. Do you know what bank it is? Yeah, it's fifth third. I could tell you if I could check. I dare you to check right now. Maybe a half a percent if you're lucky.

Yeah, that would back, you know, that would kind of make sense. What if I told you there's a better place to store your money that could actually make you more money? Like a better way to save? Like a better savings area? Okay. A better place to store your money like Fairwin's Credit Union, which you can open online, and they have an incredible high-yield savings account and a no-feet checking account. They want to see people get out of debt, stay out of debt, and help them win financially, whereas most banks are trying to lure you into the next debt product, you know? Makes sense.

So you can go check them out, fairwind.org slash Ramsey. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much more you'd be making if you stored your savings over there. Okay, fairwinds.org. Slash Ramsey. Slash Ramsey. Copy that. Good memory. Well, if there's one thing to take away from these interviews is that debt doesn't have to be normal.

I talked to lots of people today who said, no, I don't have any debt. I just live on less than I make. I live below my means. That's the way to live if you want margin, flexibility, and options. And I also talked to people who felt like they were never going to get out of debt, and they had no game plan to do it. So if you want to know the best way to get out of debt, once and for all. It's called The Debt Snowball, and I break it down in this next video. So watch it up

next or to use the link in the description. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and share this video with someone who might need to see it. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.