George Kamel - I Asked People in Nashville How Much Debt They Have

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Apparently, 58% of people with consumer debt have had trouble paying their bills over the last three months. And that’s no bueno. In this video, I ask everyday people in Nashville exactly how much debtthey have. Pray for me.    Next Steps: • 📈 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

A new stat shows that 58% of people with consumer debt have had trouble paying their bills over the last three months. And that is no good. So I'm here on the streets of Nashville to ask people how much debt they have. Let's get to it. Can you tell us how much debt you currently have? None. Zero. No payments, no credit cards, no car loans, nothing.

No, nothing. I pay cash from my cars. I mean, I rent a condo in Clarksville, but I mean... Wow. Okay. So what's your game plan for the future? You're going to continue to live debt-free? Yeah.

The plan for the future is to keep investing. investing in the crypto, hoping some of these cryptocurrencies actually hits or I can then purchase a home here. I own a home in Michigan free and clear. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Okay, what's the, what's the hot crypto these days? What are you putting your money into that you're hoping is going to like 10x, a thousand X? Right now, I would tell you XRP, but it's kind of tanking right now today. I mean, right now with uranium, it was at 29. It's at 3,400 today. So if you got it's anyone different than the other. Like, how do you know XRP is going to be the one? You got to do your research and start reading about these different companies. XRP's more about cross-border payment

solutions at a fast-paced cheaper rate. So once we start shipping our monies from cross-border payments and XRP's U starts burning off the tokens, the price of the token starts going up. They just had like 20 for even more than Bitcoin. Wow, you might as well have spoken Mandarin just now. That was complicated. Okay, so tell us how much debt are you currently in? Not a whole lot, actually. Right now, I probably got about 5,000 left on my car. And I've been pretty, pretty on top of it lately. What was the original balance? So you've been trying to knock it down? Yeah, I think it was about 25 when I took the loan out. Yeah. So how much longer do you think before you're completely debt-free? How many more months or years? I think it's about one more year. One year. Yeah. So five grand in one year,

you're talking a little over 400 bucks a month. We'll get you there. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think you could go faster if you put some umph into it? You know, I've got enough in savings. If I wanted to pay it off, I could. I just, you know. Why don't you? That feels, wouldn't that be amazing? Just be debt free today, free up the payment and just stack savings back up?

I've got a great credit score. I can't keep building it. What is that? That's not going to affect your credit score? I don't know. I talked to my financial advisor. He said that it wouldn't hurt anything if I just, like, kept doing the minimum. Your financial advisor said, keep the debt.

It's fine. Yeah. Like, said that like in the long term, I paid so much on interest already. I'm not saving that much. got super screwed. So what's a little bit more? Basically, I mean, yeah, but you know, I was in a position there I had to get a new car. I was either get a new car or don't have a car. So you just went, you felt like you were kind of boxed into a corner and went, well, I need a $30,000 car. Yeah, because, well, I was at the point where it happened in 2021 when used car prices were so

inflated. Yeah. To get something brand new was only like $3,000, $4,000 more than getting something that was used that has 70,000 miles on it. And I'm thinking- That was a weird time. for the car market. Yeah, I'm thinking longevity, so... Do you plan on going into any more debt for anything? Maybe a house someday. That's kind of the goal. That's the goal. It's become a homeowner. Do you know how much you have in savings currently? I've got about a year's worth of income right now. Maybe you're... Wow, way to go. Yeah. So you can knock out the car debt and not even feel it.

I could. Just... But you don't feel like it. I don't feel like it, no. Okay. Well, I hope you feel like it one day. I want to see you debt free personally. I just think you're going to have a better life. Well, you'll be out soon enough. And maybe I'll put a bug in your head but that George guy, he's stuck in my head living rent free, I'm just going to pay off the car. Well, hey, good luck with the music, good luck with the debt payoff, man. We're rooting for you.

Hey, thank you. Tell us, how much debt do you currently have? Not much. I think I have about $6,000. Okay, what kind of debt is that? Just student loans for housing. Student loans, okay, and what school is this? University of Central Florida.

Okay. What are you studying? Civil engineering. That's a great field. All right, and how about you? How much debt do you have? Probably around the same as him, maybe a little bit less because I have bright futures. Oh, is that like a program in Florida where they, okay.

If you like get a certain score on the SAT, you get like a little bit of money from the state. So. I thought you were dogging him. I was like, well, a little bit less than him because I have a bright future. It's like, wow, roasted already. Okay, so you have less than $6,000? Because when I said how much debt do you have, your face was like, ugh. I have no clue. I'm going to be honest. What if it's $50,000? It could be, honestly. You know, there's a way to check to see how much debt you have.

You can pull your credit report. Oh, I don't have a credit card. But your credit report will show you how much debt you have. But that's probably for the best that she doesn't have a credit card. It doesn't seem to be she's keeping up with everything going on. For the most part. I'll stick to my debit card. Are you watching out for her?

Try my best. Okay. All right. What kind of debt do you know that you have or think that you have? Probably student debt right now. Student loans. And what are you studying? Event management.

Okay. And you want to be in that field, obviously? 100% yeah. What kind of events and what kind of management? I either want to go into entertainment or sports, maybe hotels too. Hospitality. Hospitality, yeah. That's a good one.

And no car payments, no credit card debt, nothing else. I'm about to take up a car payment, but not currently, no, I have a fully paid off car. We'll be right back. Wait, can I stop you? Stop me, can this be our moment? Yeah, what if this is serendipitous and I was sent here to stop? you from taking out a car loan. Well, that'd be biblical right there.

But I do need to build credit. That is my big thing right now. And why do you need to build credit? Because currently I'm sitting around 750-ish, and I want to get up to the 800 range so that future it's easier for me to pay for a house and get a mortgage. Well, good luck on paying off all the debt. Thank you, so much. Can I ask this question before we go?

It has nothing to do with money. How much would you pay me personally to scrub your personal info off the web? If I offered you the service, I don't know, like 50 bucks. Luckily, there are people out there who provide this service. They're called Delete Me. And get this, it comes out to about $9 a month with my special link. Nine bucks a month, and they continuously scour the internet. They'll send you a report showing you all the places your information was,

when they removed it, and how much time they saved you. The rest of you can go check it out. Join DeleteMe.com slash George. You'll get 20% off their annual plans. And to some people, it's well worth it. Can you tell us how much debt you guys currently have? I actually don't have debt right now. No debt?

I have probably, like, lower than like 10K. Okay, what kind of debt is that? It was like school debt. Student loans. What did you go to school for? I went to school for kinesiology. Still paying off the degree? Mm-hmm.

Yes. What's the game plan to pay it off right now? Because it's been how long? Like, how many years has this debt been sitting out there? I'm like a couple, not a long time. I think I left. I didn't finish college. I think it's been like, like three years.

Three years. Yeah, since COVID, 2021, 2021, 2022. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you making minimum payments? Like, what's your current strategy? I'm almost done with it. I think I need three more payments and I'm done.

Yeah, so I'm doing big payments. Huge payments. We love to see it. What kind of method are you using to pay it off? Are you doing like the debt snowball? Like smallest balance? How are you attacking it? I think there's no method.

It's like, I'll throw money. at it. Not sure. Okay. I highly recommend just knocking out the smallest one first with all the money minimum payments on the rest with that smallest balance chunk money at it. That's called the debt snowball. I haven't heard the death snowball. So that's interesting. Yeah. That's the way I got out of debt and it's the way we recommend and it works because your psychology is working. You get a win faster because you knock out the smallest one first. It frees up a payment so you can now move that payment to the next one. Apply it there and so you get more momentum. Okay. That's interesting. I've never heard that. Now I'm going to do my research.

Booyah. There's something new in Nashville. That's what I'm here for. Hey, real quick, how would you rate your relationship with your bank from one to ten? Like, 10 is I love this bank, and one is like I could switch banks tomorrow. I don't care. I've used my bank since I was little. I mean, my family uses it, so I would recommend it.

Sentimental value there? Yeah, it is. Like, you can see in my car, like, customers since 2003. And I was like, yeah. It makes you feel special. Yeah, it was very. It's like one of the big banks, like corporate banks, or is it a small town? No, it's a big bank.

Regional. Do you know what kind of savings rate you get in your savings account with these banks? Wait, what does that mean? Just how much, the APY. That's like the annual percentage yield. So, like, some banks are like 0.04% on your savings is what we'll give you. Some banks, like 2%. Do you know the percentage you're making?

No, I don't know mine. I don't know either. Yeah. But you have some savings in the bank. Oh, yeah, yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to have your savings working for you, like making more money while you sleep versus just sitting there stagnant. That would be very nice.

I'm going to turn you guys on to a high yield savings account. High yield meaning much higher yield than the traditional brick and mortar banks that you guys are using. And it's called Fair Winds Credit Union and they're fantastic and they have a high yield savings account and a no fee checking account along with a really fun debit card that says, dead as normal be weird, which I think you would really like. I would love that. I'm a little weird, so.

Anybody can sign up. although you guys are special. Check them out fairwinds.org slash Ramsey. If you want more information, you can get the smart bundle today. Okay, tell me how much debt do you have? Me personally, about 30,000. Okay, what kind of debt is that? 20,000 card, 10,000 credit cards, zero percent, though. Wow, what's the plan to pay it off? I kind of, if I can pay it off, I just pay it off. If not, I just roll it on another 0%. That costs you three to five percent for the balance transfer every time, right? But it's minusical, though. Like, you got, if I transfer like,

2000 or something. It's not very big to me. It's worth putting the money in. Like I say, what'd you go into debt for on the credit cards? What'd you buy? Impulse buying. I'm sure you're not going to be proud of me about that. I don't need to be proud. I'm not your mom. You don't need me to be proud of you. I just want to see you live your best life because are you guys married. Yes, we are. But we have an interesting finances. We have separate finances. We didn't merge our finances. Oh, completely separate. How long have you been married now? Four years. Four years. Okay. And do you have any debt? About 15,000. Okay, what kind of debt is that? Car, maybe 5,000 on credit cards. That's about it. If you combine finances, do you think that you could tackle the debt faster

using both of your incomes and just knocking out whatever debt is next in line? On paper, we would, yeah. So how does, like, I'm curious, how does it work with, you know, your rent or mortgage and all the bills and, like, going out to eat? Like, doesn't that get awkward? No. I pay most of the things. contributes sometimes, just depends. What is your current plan to actually pay this off? Because right now it sounds like you're like, well, I'll just keep rolling it over to another card to another card. Is there a game plan to just knock it out completely?

So the car I have for like the 20,000, which is the biggest bulk. I'm not underwater, which is the biggest thing. Value of the car is more than what I owe. Credit cards, it depends. I mean, the market is doing crazy, doing crazy stuff now, going way up. What would it take for you guys to decide, all right, we're going to combine. We're going to try this thing out. We're going to try to combine finances, knock out the debts with some intentionality.

Like, what would that take for you? If the overhead gets crazy and we are really, we can't really get out of it on our own or something. Or I think within we are going to need to combine, but for now we are able to manage. If I need help, she's there for me. If she needs help, I'm there for her. We bail each other out. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Well, can I give you an every dollar subscription to attempt to combine? combine and like here's all of our income, here's all of our expenses, how much is left over that we could create to throw with the debt. Would you try it out? Sure. Nothing to lose. Here you go, my friends. This is the latest and greatest every dollar. I don't know if you've used it before, but the new one, you go through this onboarding process, you answer some questions, and within 15 minutes, it will show you how much margin you could create based on all the recommendations for your situation.

That's awesome. It really is motivating to see all the things you could do, gets the wheels turning. It starts to become addictive, I found. Because then you go, where else can we find some money? Where else can we find some money? I think you work too hard to be riding this thin. You know what I mean? Well, I hope I put a bug in your ear.

I hope I planted a seed where you're going, all right, let's try it. That's all I'm saying. Let's try it. If you hate it, you can always get more debt. Good for you guys. Thanks for talking with me. You're an awesome couple. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, tell us how much debt you currently have. Our only debt is just our mortgage currently. Yeah. Amazing. Nice. Okay. How do you feel about that? that? It's amazing. The financially like astute one in the relationship. I would say well we both

are but my dad is like very big into he's a financial he is like it does that yeah he's in financial so I grew up doing that learning about that how to not have debt graduated college with no debt. So yeah it was like kind of part of my life and then when we got married it was something we took pretty serious too. So yeah. So when you guys got married did you have debt? Yes I had some student loans and then we had what else like some car payment stuff and then yeah like a personal loan you know back to like family member kind of thing so yeah we definitely had some debt but have been how much was it originally and then how long did it take to pay off it's a great question it was probably upwards of like 30,000 to 35,000 all in I would say um how long it take to pay off all that once you guys got married

yeah we were blessed and we had a blessing of his dad paying off his student loan. So that was a huge blessing. Huge blessing. A wedding gift or was just before you even got married? It was after, actually. Yeah, we were saving towards it and, you know, paying it off slowly, but also like prioritizing it because we knew like, hey, we want to make steps towards being debt free.

I've been inspired by Dave Ramsey for years, like, since I was like in middle school, high school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we love to see it. And anyways, this was like, I think it was right at the beginning of the summer, actually, that we finally paid off all the debt.

So it took five, five years. Five year, four and a half years, basically, until we paid it off. So, yeah. Way to go. And that's cool. Like, dad saw you guys hustling, and he's like, you know what? Yeah. I see, I see you guys putting in the work.

Let me expedite this process. Absolutely. We were so grateful and never were, like, expecting something like that. But, you know, definitely not taking it for granted. We were grateful for something like that. Are you going to try to pass on these principles? You got a little baby here now. Like, is that a value for your family at this point?

Oh, my God. My dad always instilling us from like a very young age. You tied 10, save 20%, and then you can spend the rest. So that's a principle that I grew up learning, and we've already talked about different things that we will do for saving counts, even as she's little and starting to build that up. Well, most people flip it. They go, let me spend everything I have.

And if there's any leftover, maybe I'll save and maybe I'll give. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But I mean, just from like a pressure standpoint, like there's so much less pressure once you step into a place where you're starting to feel financially free. And it does feel like that, you know, for the first time in the last like six months where we're like, okay, wait a second.

We're finding like more of a rhythm now that we're not thinking about what debt do we have to pay back. And, you know, we're actually starting to build towards the future like tithing, having that built in from the beginning. But then having. Yes, because that's the goal, right? It's like we want to be able to be generous, you know, as we get older and older. But even now, like, building those principles in is really important to us.

So I just talked to a guy who is all about. like leverage, not trying to pay off his debt, totally separate finances from his wife. Sure. If you are going to sit down with them and be like, hey, listen, here's the upside of doing it a different way. Gotcha. What would you tell him? I would just say, like, being in unity on finances is the most important thing when

you're married. And it's not like that comes easy. You know, it takes a lot of, like, re-uping of conversation and just consistent in the way that you're making decisions. So I would say that's a pretty important thing. If you get on the same page as your wife and not having separate accounts or whatever it may be and leverage, yeah, that can be important. But I think even more so being in agreement on whatever your strategy is, you know, to be financially free and to be in a good, you know, position in investing. But yeah, being united is really key.

Doesn't mean you can invest in things that each of you like with a unified bank account. You know what I mean? You can still have investments that he wants to do, things that I think are smart for investing. but we can do it together, which is kind of fun. There's a compromise. That's marriage in general. So my question would be like, yeah, if you're not unified in your finances, there might be other areas.

Maybe that would be that anyone can sneak in and disunify you as well. So I think it's a big part of it for sure. You guys are an inspiration. Thanks for talking with us and hanging out in the cold in Nashville. Enjoy your time here. Appreciate it. Yeah, glad to be here. Congrats on the baby.

Thanks. Listen, if you're one of the 77% of Americans with debt, you don't have to be there. You don't have to stay in that stat. You don't have to stay stuck, making payments, staying stressed. You can free up that margin to do the things you really want to do, like build wealth and give and spend money where it really matters. And if you want the exact plan I used to get out of debt,

check out my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I lay it all out to get you more money and less stress. I'll drop a link in the description to the book. You can also get it on audiobook, which is a real treat for the ears. And if you think this was crazy, you got to watch the video I made in Disney asking people how much debt they have. next so watch it here or to use the link in the description if you enjoyed this video hit the like button subscribe to the channel and share it with a friend thanks for

watching we'll see you next time