- 50-year-old Clark appeared on Caleb Hammer's "Financial Audit" show, seeking help with his finances.
- He said he was earning $12,000 as a shop assistant, and also brought in money as his mom's carer.
A man appeared on YouTuber Caleb Hammer's budgeting podcast for help with his finances, providing a clear example of how poor financial literacy is harming many in the US.
Clark, who is 50 and from San Antonio, Texas, told host of "Financial Audit" Caleb Hammer that he was a stocker at a convenience store, and earned $12,000 a year at $9 per hour.
"How are you surviving on $12,000?" Hammer asked him. Clark said he was living with his 83-year-old mom, and was also bringing in some money as her caregiver, which brought his total income to $22,000 per year.
Overall, he owed around $9,800 on cards he hadn't been making payments towards for over a year, and so many had been passed onto debt collection agencies.
Hammer didn't go through them all in detail in the episode, but the ones he did bring up were all maxed out.
- $959 on a First Direct bank card, which was $259 over the credit limit.
- $585 on Credit One card, including overdue payments.
- $457 on another unspecified card.
- Around $2,000 on an Aspire card.
- $5,209 on another Capital One card, was $209 over the limit.
Those figures total around $9,200.
Hammer didn't give interest rates for any of the cards, and later said that Clark hadn't kept great records, making it hard to pin down the specifics of his debt.
The minimum monthly payment Clark owed was in excess of $2,100, more than he was bringing in. Hammer said the total he owed could easily be over $10,000 now because of the interest and late fees accruing.
Clark said he started getting into credit-card debt in 2021, and considered it "money to burn."
Hammer asked Clark what his "mindset on money" was, and Clark said he was initially paying the cards off, but he stopped.
"Just not enough funds, not enough money in the bank," he said.
Hammer asked him why he didn't have a job with more hours or a higher salary to pay it off.
"I just haven't planned that far ahead yet," he said.
"That's not a plan if you have no plan," Hammer responded. "Do you just not care?"
Clark said "I do care and I don't care," explaining that he didn't see the point in having a better credit history. Hammer asked him if he cared about the morality of paying back money he owed.
"That's a conundrum right there," Clark said. "To tell you the truth, I don't have any faces to look at and say, I'm sorry."
"Are you an excuse maker?" Hammer asked.
"Yeah, pretty much," Clark said.
Hammer told him if he didn't want to be working for the rest of his life, the "excuses need to stop."
Clark said he had been living with his mom basically his whole life, who owned the home, and to whom he paid $400 per month in rent. Hammer asked whether he would be left the house when she died, and Clark said he probably would be, though he had siblings.
He said he had nothing saved for retirement (joking that he had $25), and only $13 in his checking account.
Hammer asked Clark what got him to this place, to which he replied that he lost some jobs because of his Type 1 diabetes. He said in one position as a cashier, he blacked out due to low blood sugar, and was then fired.
But he did say he had been auditioning for acting parts, and had a job offer as a cook in a restaurant, which would bring his salary to $19 per hour.
On Hammer's subreddit, where fans of the show discuss recent episodes, many people expressed frustration at Clark, saying he reminded them of family members they considered "a failure to launch."
"A string of minimum wage jobs, quitting when they get annoyed and just no fire to do anything different because they live with mom and rent is covered," one person wrote, describing a sibling who was likely going to be left their parent's house. "It's really really hard to not feel resentful of that decision."
Hammer also responded to one comment which asked why he hadn't recommended that Clark negotiate a settlement with his debtors.
"The hard part is we just don't know what's exactly in collections right now. It's a mess," Hammer said, explaining Clark couldn't even download any credit tracking apps because a lot of his debts were in his mom's name.
"His document tracking is veryyyy bad," he said. "I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole until I knew it would be beneficial."
Hammer, who uploads two interviews a week to his channel with over 600,000 subscribers with people who need help with their finances, previously told Insider financial literacy is one of the biggest problems affecting Americans right now.
There's "a complete lack of understanding" of what people can really afford, Hammer told Insider. He blamed that partly on schools not teaching finances, partly on parents, and partly because of the widespread normalization in the US of large, long-term debts.
"The average American holds holds a few thousand in credit card debt and the average monthly payment for cars is getting close to a thousand dollars a month," Hammer told Insider. "So relying on that to be taught in the home, which Americans are obsessed with, is hard because they're being taught by people who aren't financially educated themselves."
"We do kind of feel like we deserve everything as well," he said. "It's like, I worked a hard, seven-hour day, I deserve to go have a $20 meal at a restaurant. Well, if you're doing that every day and you're already in debt, I mean OK, I want you to have that, but let's make sure we're in a good spot first."