A financial guru offered some sobering advice to an 86-year-old woman with leukemia who was struggling to pay off $30,000 in credit card debt.
Dialing into The Ramsey Show for some sorely needed guidance, a caller identifying herself as Joan explained that she had amassed the enormous debt to make ends meet.
‘I’m 86 years old. I have only Social Security. I own my own home. I own my car, but I have almost $30,000 in credit card debt,’ Joan, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida, said.
Despite voicing his initial reservations, host George Kamel told her that she would have to sell her home; it was the only option.
Earlier in the show, Joan revealed that she had been a single mother since the age of 19 and that she had no form of savings and never received a cent of child support.
Joan said that she had worked until she was almost 80, at which point it became hard to continue because of her leukemia, which she has had for 21 years.
Since she stopped working, the 86 year old has tried to survive on just $1,200 a month from her Social Security check.
Unable to live on such a small sum, Joan said she began borrowing money, which then compounded her difficulties.
‘The reason I’m in credit card debt is I always need about $200 more (per month),’ she complained to the hosts of The Ramsey Show, a financial-themed radio show and podcast.
This past month, Joan itemized each expense, saying: ‘I wrote down every penny I spent this past month.’
After accounting for fixed expense, she discovered that she had no more than $100 to $200 left to cover necessities like food and gas, both of which have suffered increases from inflation.
Her limited income has also forced her to depend on her credit card debt to cover unpredicted expenses like $3,000 in car repairs, $700 for the dentist and $181 for her dog.
It’s created an insidious feedback loop, with Joan relying more and more on debt to pay her bills, which causes her card balance, in turn, to skyrocket.
Commiserating with the caller, co-host Jade Warshaw said: ‘You have no cushion.’
After the 86-year-old woman completed the minimum payments, the interest started to balloon until the debt became impossible to control.
According to the federal reserve, in 2022, the average debt for people between 65 to 74 years old was $134,950. For those ages 75 and over, the average debt was $94,620.
Joan floated some of her proposed solutions, which included selling her 17-year-old Crown Victoria car- a move that would leave her without transportation.
The other solution was to sell her home and move into an apartment. Joan said moving in with her daughter was not an option.
The 86-year-old estimated the value of her house as being somewhere between $195,000 and $250,000. Unfortunately, she explained that the other houses in the neighborhood are worth far more than that, as they are newer homes.
Host Kamel argued against selling the car, observing that it would fail to make a ‘dent’ in her debt.
Struggling to find a solution, Kamel asked if Joan could get a part-time job to help chip away at the debt.
She said that she has leukemia, which limits her energy and makes working harder.
Initially Kamel had expressed concern about selling the house: ‘You have a fixed expense with this paid for house. If you sold it to pay off your credit card debt, that leaves you with an expense that’s ongoing and increasing.’
By the end, though, the financial guru was out of options and resigned himself to the idea of Joan selling the house.
‘Look at downgrading in house and going to an apartment you pay cash for, getting rid of the credit card debt.’
He ended by recommending that she re-home her beloved pet.
‘I’d rather you eat before the dog.’