brought to you by the every dollar app start budgeting for free today comes in Austin, Texas. Hi Sam, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? Better than I deserve, how can we help?
Well, you know, Colin, because, you know, over the years, we, over the last couple years, we bought a house, things seem to be going okay, and then we ended up getting kind of taxed on the actual build of the house, and that just kind of started slippery slope where we started having to pay more than what our majority was, and we had to rely on a lot of credit cards, and it got really bad. And right now, we're in, I'm the specialty in collections for a lot of cards, so I like that the few, he was sued, I've got a case coming as well, and I just don't really know where to turn or how to turn this around, it almost seems kind of hopeless. Sorry Sam, how much credit card debt is there total? Probably around probably $15,000 to $16,000.
And how much income do you guys bring in every month? Every month, about $6,000. How much is your house payment? $2,100.
How much are your car payment? And we only have one car payment and it's $250,000, and as far as like the mortgage, it's when we were being taxed on improvement after about a year of having a lower payment, it was about $2,700, and now we're down to, I finally paid off the overage on the escrow, and now we're the $2,100, it's about normal. Okay, all right. And what do you guys do for a living?
I'm in technical support, and she works in a dental office. Okay, your mortgage is high, your car payment, all car payments are bad, this one's not super bad. The credit cards are, the way you're talking about that, you're going to tell me you had a $100,000 credit card debt. The weight that you're emotionally carrying, listening to your voice.
I'm pleasantly surprised it's only $15,000. Me too. I think the mortgage being a third of your take-home is really what's- And it was higher than that for a while, but even that, where else are you guys just disorganized and you were living in panic and money just flying out of there, and you had no idea where it's going? Definitely, that's a pretty way for you.
Okay, because I mean, your numbers aren't as bad as the, they don't indicate you should even be behind. Yeah, and I agree with you there, because when I sit there and kind of out of numbers, and look at it that way, I look at it, I'm like, okay, there's many kids if you've got- We have five total. And how old are they? They range from teenagers down to seven.
Okay. How many are in daycare? None. They're all in school.
Well, you can- Well, all of this, she works, but you know, she just graduated high school. Yeah. But the main thing is that, you know, I think what- Okay, how many credits are you behind on? Probably, I would say, it's a pretty good number.
I'd probably about eight to ten. So there's a whole bunch of little ones. Yeah, yeah. And you're behind on almost all of them.
I've got four of myself that I- You said two have gone to collections? No, they're pretty much all in collections. But I have four that I've made up payment rates with, but two of them have five lawsuits. Yeah, you said you're right.
That's sued on one of them, right? Five of lawsuits. Yeah. Oh, that's cute.
On how much? Her is a little bit over three thousand. Yeah. Same for my man.
Okay. Let me just tell you. You live in Texas. Am I got that right?
Is that the truth? That's right. Okay. Well, they're lawsuits useless.
They can't garnish your wages or take a lean on a house in Texas. Right. So they're also hanging out there in the ether. It's just dangling out there in the nothingness.
It has there's nothing they can do about it. With hers, we hired a lawyer. And they're working on the kids. Yeah.
Why? Because it was a fear thing at the time. Oh, no. That's the thing, Sam.
Like looking at the numbers that you've given us, maybe there's more debt out there that you haven't mentioned. But I think that your way more, what you're feeling is way more emotional than it is financial. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got 12 credit cards. They're suing us.
You know, the kids are like, all these things going on. And if you just stop for a moment, if we really look at the numbers and look at the math, there's no reason that we can't list these from smallest to largest. Because like Dave said, most of them are probably lower balances, because there's tons of them. And they're only equaling up to 15 to 16,000.
So my guess is that if you can just kind of pull all of this out of space, get it down on paper. Like I said, list of smallest to largest, figure out what it looks like for you guys to get an extra $1 to $2,000 in every month. And you're knocking them out like dominoes. You're going to feel so much better.
How many cars do you want to? We have two that we use. We're getting kids around. Our oldest son has his own buddy, he's a circle.
And you bought it for him? It was either. That's something that they gave it to me. Okay.
All right. It's just a little truck. Okay. I'm just trying to find out what's going on here.
All right. So what did this lawyer tell you he could do? That the law is not going to be in Texas? Yeah, they said that.
No, no. They just basically said that they could either get the case dismissed or work out some type of lower stillness. That's all they offered. Okay.
Well, the case is not going to get dismissed. You owe the money. You lost. Right.
You owe the money. You didn't pay it. You lose. Dang.
Okay. Now then can we settle it for less? Well, sure. It's $3,000.
They can't collect it in Texas. So of course you can settle it for less. Um, and you can do that with all of these by the way. Next time, don't use a lawyer.
What did you pay the lawyer? That's $7.50. Okay. I sure hope he gets $7.50 off the balance.
At least I don't just keep. I don't know how you took your money in good conscience. But, um, all right. Now, the main thing I worry about is like, uh, because I've heard that, you know, I understand again, aren't my wages, but they could, like, take it from my bank account.
Not unless you give them the, not unless you give them access to your bank account. Well, I mean, I can take a lean on it in Texas. That's true. Well, don't keep, well, if you got about your money in your bank account, I guess we pay the bills, huh?
Yeah. I mean, I really don't at the time, but at the current moment, but, you know, working on this here and building up, you know, that. No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying that if there's $10,000 in your bank account, you wouldn't have called me. Yeah.
So you don't have any money in your bank account. So it's not a big fear. Yeah. Okay.
So anyway, what we've got to do is A, get organized and get a very detailed plan. And B, let's prioritize. First thing is, house is paid food, then house, then lights and water, then car. Are you behind on the car?
No. No. Good. Stay current on the car.
Go to work. And we're going to get you on in every dollar budget with Jade and put you in one of her webinars. When's your next webinar? Oh, gosh.
It's not so November. I know that we have a exact email. All right. We'll get you.
We'll get you plugged into an every dollar webinar, so you can learn how to do a budget with your wife. And we'll put you in a financial peace university. Because basically what we're going to do is we're going to take care of food, shelter, clothing, transportation, utilities first. You've got the money to do that.
And then we're going to force rank these things and work them through and lump sum settlement, all of them, each, smallest to largest. I'm not paying payments on them anymore. I'm going to lump sum settlement. You're behind.
The lawsuit is got no teeth where you live. Okay. So just argue with them and say, I'm broke. I owe you $3,000.
You say it's $5,000 after you added a bunch of fees. I have $2,000 if you'll take that and give me that in writing, that that's a settlement in full. Remember that phrase? And no electronic access to your checking account.
As Jade said, they will never know where your checking account is. But settlement in full in writing. And then I'll send you $2,000. Oh, you won't do that.
Did you know there's nine other credit cards that will? One, I'm just going to take the money. I got you on the phone last chance going once, going twice. I'm going to the next card.
Okay. Second card. Here's what we're going to do. I just talked up on the other guy because he's an idiot.
Let's see if you are. All right. And we're going to settle this going once and going twice. And you're going to work their way through this.
And then you cycle back through after you finally get one, take the money, then you pile up a little more money, and you start the whole process again. Remember last time I called you when you didn't take the deal? You sure you don't want to take it? Because I'm here with another deal.
And I'm getting ready to go on to the second one. Going once. Going twice. And this is how you deal with these people.
Because credit card collectors are scum. You can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving. So beat the snot out of them and get this cleaned up. That's what you do.
This is the Ramsey Chef.