I'm 58 And Drowning In Debt

0:00brought to you by the every dollar app start budgeting for free today i am uh... fifty eight years old i have sixty thousand dollars worth of state tax debt i have sixty thousand dollars worth of credit card debt and my single mom to college kids and i am trying to figure out if i should file for bankruptcy i have another uh... ten thousand dollars that i owe the irs i came to a settlement with them so um... i guess it's about now seventy thousand total tax debt how did that happen uh... well i um... i'm a single mom and when i got divorced i didn't make smart decisions with my almonie uh... i tried to keep my kids like in the same um... you know like i didn't i didn't make any changes i wanted that i didn't want them to feel like the the divorce okay so i live way beyond my means uh... i also uh... went into recovery so i was you know kind of white knuckling raising them and i did a lot of spending out of like parental guilt trying to like make up for time that i'd lost okay

1:00okay okay understood so what what's the what's the case now what are you doing for work what are you earning i have i have a great job uh... i make about a hundred and five thousand dollars as an administrative assistant i'd have a side like i have i also work for the same uh... family at a farm in the weekends so i have a little opportunity to make extra income but i'm drowning because i can't you know like my you know i just just got the the dollar's app to figure out what's going wrong when i'm spending more than i can afford you know in rent and even basic things uh... it's thirty five hundred dollars and you're bringing home like six or seven what's the take-home pay my take-home is sixty six thousand six thousand six hundred and then another uh... thousand approximately when i do my other job okay okay okay so yeah this is the problem uh... the rent is have you looked into things that i mean you're in heartford that's an expensive area have you looked into

2:03other options i mean what are you living in right now what is the nature of your house is too better than what i know i am in a two-bedroom apartment i moved out of like the town i raised my kids and i moved into a less expensive area but it's still very expensive i'm i'm currently looking like i was trying to keep you know what my one of my kids has graduated one of my kids still comes home and i still have that need to like have a good hold on yeah you gotta stop at your mattress in the living room yeah you got to stop this mess because that that feeling of having to make everything all right for them is what got you in uh... hundred thirty thousand dollars of debt so you got to stop today they're grown they love you you don't have to prove it it's it's it's inherent because here's the proof you being a burden because they have to cover mom's expenses for the rest of her life because she's broke is so much worse come on George and then sleeping on an air mattress because mom can't afford thirty five hundred dollars in rent yeah which is totally reasonable what's your commute right now and how how how far can we get you out of town to get this yes and the right was great like i'm i'm ten minutes for my job but this is

3:06the problem yeah we gotta get you know into the country where where rent is a thousand dollars a month for one bedroom yes okay and i'm laughing but i'm being serious uh no rent is going to keep you from freedom here hey guys George here listen when you can save big money on your phone bill do it boost mobile's low rates mean you can unlock up to six hundred bucks in savings over the so-called big guys you can bring your phone keep your number and pay just twenty five bucks a month forever on their unlimited plan because you've got better things to do with your cash than feed the big carriers so go to boost mobile dot com slash Ramsey to make the switch today based on average annual payment of AT&T for rise and anti mobile customers compared to twelve months on the boost mobile unlimited plan as of January 2026 see website for full details no rent is going to keep you from freedom here so your first order of business while everybody else is going out for valentine's day you're going to be on the computer searching for a new place when's your lease up um it's up in June

4:06okay perfect perfect yeah perfect that gives you time to find the spot it gives you time to tell your kids hey we're moving and that's wonderful think about it you went down to fifteen hundred instead of thirty five hundred that's two grand a month you could be throwing at your debt that's that's i've been looking for an apartment i have been looking at downsize my look to one bedroom apartment good and it there's i think i think they're right i think i've to expand my commute distance because i'm still hitting them while yes you have to think about it's a must if it's this or bankruptcy i'll take a twenty-minute commute a twenty five-minute commute because that bankruptcy will destroy your financial life at least for the next seven years yeah which puts you into your mid-60s by the time you can even recover now what what about your car do you have a car payment i have i have i have i own my car i'm making my son's car payment no no Lisa what is he doing on it i know he just graduated is your name on it

5:08yes what why why why why okay well this is fun then you get to say hey son i got to sell this car yes hope you enjoyed driving it yes tell him it was basically a rental hope you enjoyed driving the rental George has never been more right but you have to do it right how much is the car worth i it's seventeen thousand maybe and how much do you own it it's least so the car the car that he has is oh no that's even worse because you can't get out of this thing unless you have the lump sum to do a full buyout right once the lease up he could take the payments over he could when is it up i have to look i'm not sure i think it's another year is he working he just started a job he just started an internship so yes okay so i would have that conversation i'd say son i made a mistake and i'm really sorry i because it's going to affect both of us i agreed to pay this lease i can't afford it i'm over here struggling um this lease is good for one more year

6:09we either need to you either need to take this on completely if you can't afford it i'll pay whatever little bitty portion that you can't afford to pay but this is going to and put it in George's words if i don't fix myself now i will end up being a burden to you later on in a greater way and i don't want that and hopefully he can understand that uh but yeah the tables the way we've been doing life with money and kids has to change today um and i'm glad that you called in because i think that you're starting to understand that but i can't stress that these are not going to be they're easy to understand not easy to do right you know yeah so here's the math on this if you set you said you said you make about seven five hundred a month if you keep the side job right yeah are you doing any investing right now yeah well a little bit to my phone k but i i stopped that good let's pause all investing to clean this mess up so that we can actually retire one day that's the goal and right now investing is not helping us get rid of the mess so let's say you could

7:11you know you make seventy five hundred and you lived on four thousand that's fair right if you move this if you switch your renting situation that frees up thirty five hundred bucks a month to throw a debt right with a hundred thirty grand in debt you're done in about thirty seven months three years right and that's if you do no other changes if you can just cut your rent down and throw that amount of the debt we're done in three years i think you can do even better with this with your your very talented you have a lot of high skilled um you know you have a lot of high skills i would use that to your advantage live on as little as you can for two years let's say your sixtieth birthday let's celebrate you becoming debt free how cool would that be that would be amazing really amazing it's possible i mean you can crunch the numbers and go all right this is the margin i need i need four thousand dollars a month come heller high water to be throwing at this debt and then do the debt snowball knock out the smallest balance first for you the IRS debt goes to the top because they can really screw up your life and garnish your wages so i would attack that first but once you're done with that just debt snowball it whatever the smallest card balances attack that first minimum payments on the rest okay you can do this making my minimum

8:17keeping my minimum payments yes don't get behind on anything if you can help it yeah i'm already a little bit behind on a lot of the payments is anything in collections credit card was no not one credit card is actually yes okay so go ahead and settle that one just try to get current on everything and then attack the IRS debt then debt snowball the rest that's your goals we're gonna cover four walls basic food utilities housing transportation insurance and then beyond that we are living like broke college kids because right now your kids are living more lavishly than you are yeah that's pretty wild like i think college kids should be broke that's the stage of life not a 58 year old woman who's trying to provide for them so you have done more than enough you don't need to earn your kids love by going deeper and deeper into debt right okay you got this Lisa we're cheering you on i'm gonna give to you every dollar our premium version to connect your bank accounts have all the transactions come through because you make great money it's time to put every dollar to work cleaning up this mess create your free every dollar

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