People are shocked by the story of a couple who racked up $760,000 in debt and asked Dave Ramsey for help

• In a clip posted to TikTok this week, a 29-year-old woman explained her debts to Dave Ramsey.
• She said she's $760,000 in debt with mortgages, credit cards, student debt, and car loans.

TikTok viewers were shocked by a resurrected clip of woman calling in to Dave Ramsey's radio show for help with the $760,000 in debt that she and her husband had accrued.

In a clip Ramsey posted to TikTok this week, Channing, a 29-year-old woman from Washington, DC, laid out what she and her partner owed on their mortgage, students loans, and credit cards.

The exchange took place in 2018 but reached a massive new audience when Ramsey reposted it.

Channing explained she had gotten married three months before the call and told Ramsey they had "just under a million dollars in debt."

"We want to know how to get debt-free without filing for bankruptcy," she said.

The clip has amassed over 11 million views on TikTok.

Ramsey is an American radio host and evangelical Christian who is best known for his financial advice. He has faced controversy in the past, including accusations in 2021 that his company had a policy of firing employees for having premarital sex.

Some people are also skeptical of his legitimacy as a financial advisor, likening him to more of a preacher than an expert on money.

But the 2.6 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and his 464,000 TikTok followers indicate that many people trust Ramsey to help with their finances.

In the comments left on the TikTok video, people were aghast at how two people could accrue so much debt at such a young age, a reaction Ramsey shared.

Some commenters said they were having "panic attacks" over their own debts, which were a tiny fraction of what Channing owed.

"I owe 3,000 in credit card debt and I'm so upset about it," one person said in the comments. Another said, "And here I am losing sleeping over my 7k in debt!"

Some people couldn't believe that banks were lending out such huge amounts of money to people.

"How do people get 6 figures in credit card debt?" one person asked. "I owed like $200 one time and it was almost impossible getting another."

Channing explained that she and her 32-year-old husband had around $335,000 worth of student-loan debt and owed $210,000 on a mortgage, $136,000 on credit cards (which were mostly his), $44,000 in personal loans, and $35,000 in car loans — for a grand total of $760,000.

Both Channing and her husband worked in government, she said, and had a combined income of about $230,000 a year.

"What in the world?" Ramsey said. "Are you both on this, or is it just one of you who's completely lost your mind?"

Channing said they had both recognized the situation was dire and wanted to sort things out.

"You're scared and you should be, you're disgusted and you should be, you're in the early stages of being sick and tired, and you should be," Ramsey said. He said the couple had been living a lifestyle 10 times what they could afford.

"I'm getting ready to destroy your life as you know it, because your lifestyle is considerably above your extremely good income," he said. "You've gotten used to spending like you're in Congress. This is going to be very emotional for y'all."

Ramsey recommended the couple stop caring about what other people think, because they weren't going to spend "any money on anything ever" for three years. He said they'd have to start living as if they earned significantly less.

"You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless it's your extra job," he said. "This is how humbling this is going to be."

The biggest adjustment for the couple would be the lifestyle change, Ramsey said, because they were going to be living on "beans and rice."

At the end of the clip, Ramsey said Channing should sell her condo, which she was renting out, to put the $90,000 it was worth toward the debts.

"It's gone now. You need the 90 grand to get a jump start on the rest of this," he said. "So that just got rid of a third of your deal. So we're getting started."

It wasn't clear what happened to the couple in the years that followed or whether they managed to eliminate the debt as Ramsey advised.