Woman Working 3 Jobs Struggling With A Lifetime Of Overdrafts Receives An Unexpected Gift From Dave Ramsey, Bringing Her To Tears

During an episode of the personal finance help show, The Dave Ramsey Show, the show host and celebrated finance guru, Dave Ramsey, received a call from a woman who decided to change her finances. She called for advice and left with an unexpected gift from Ramsey. 

Don't Miss:

• Can you guess how many retire with a $5,000,000 nest egg? – How does it compare to the average?
• Miami is expected to take New York's place as the U.S. Financial Capital. Here's how you can invest in the city before that happens.

The episode started with caller Tasia, who revealed to Ramsey that she had found his page on the TikTok social media app, which gave her the push she needed to start working her way out of debt. Tasia told Ramsey that she started her emergency fund, which Ramsey and his team have been teaching people to do. According to Ramsey Solutions, a starter emergency fund should have at least $1,000 as a temporary buffer, while a fully-funded emergency fund should save at least 3-6 months of expenses.

In addition to creating an emergency fund, Tasia told Ramsey that his advice helped her avoid overdrafting any accounts. Tasia revealed that she had been overdrafting her bank accounts her whole life, so this was a significant achievement for her, and Ramsey agreed. He told her, "This is a breakthrough, isn't it, kid? Way to go." 

When it comes to overdraft, Tasia isn't alone. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey sent a news release in April this year slamming large corporate banks for profiting from excessive overdraft fees. In his statement, Casey wrote, "Roughly 23 million households pay overdraft fees each year" and that "26 percent of Americans reside in a household that faced an overdraft fee or non-sufficient fund fee in the last year." Casey revealed that American families are struggling to make ends meet, and more are going into overdraft. According to ABC News, Americans paid a whopping $9 billion in overdraft fees last year, with banks charging around $35 per transaction in overdraft. Currently, lawmakers are in the process of passing a rule to try and cut these overdraft fees. 

Trending: If there was a new fund backed by Jeff Bezos offering a 7-9% target yield with monthly dividends would you invest in it?

Now that Tasia has managed to get herself out of overdraft, she can focus on growing her savings account. She told Ramsey that with her three jobs combined, she earns $90,000 annually and has around $30,000 still in debt, with half that amount being student loans. Ramsey told her, "You're ready to go. You're ready to try new stuff because you're sick and tired of being sick and tired." Ramsey also told Tasia that he was proud of her and then revealed his gift to her: a paid 9-week Financial Peace University class and paid access to the EveryDollar budgeting app. Ramsey explained that he's gifting her this experience because she is the reason why he does the show. He explained, "People that are like you, that have for the first time in your whole adult life, you're not doing overdraft because we taught you something," and added, "Now, we're going to teach you how to get rid of this debt." Ramsey told Tasia he would teach her how to be a millionaire. 

When Ramsey had finished telling Tasia his gift to her, she was in tears at the unexpected gesture and told him, "This has been my dream to talk to you." Ramsey told Tasia that he would help her take control of her money instead of wondering where it went, giving her the tools to make sound financial decisions. With Ramsey Solutions, Tasia will learn how to use the snowball method of paying off her debts, from smallest to largest. Ramsey promised that if she follows this advice and stays out of restaurants with no vacations, she would be 100% debt-free by next year.                       

Read Next:

• No generation before Gen Z has had this investment opportunity – How successful Zoomers plan to retire in their 30's.
• This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, and you only need $100.