Why we refuse to follow Dave Ramsey | Debt Payoff Journey

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:01]I have over $600,000 worth of debt and I refuse to do the debt snowball. Let's talk about why. Hi, I'm Wicked.

[00:00:11]I and my husband Wynn have over $600,000 worth of debt and we are trying to find financial stability for us and Wynn's three kids. Part of that is paying down this ridiculous amount of debt, currently somewhere in the vicinity of $643,000, which is more than most of the budgeters that I see on YouTube. Uh but this is not a race. This is not a number that you want, I promise.

[00:00:43]Uh unless you have a lot of money, which we do not. So, let's get this party started. Uh first we're going to talk about what all these debts are, then we're going to talk about the order that I chose, then we're going to talk about why it's not the snowball. Um actually, maybe we'll go through why it's not the snow No, no, no, no.

[00:01:05]First we're going to go through what I chose and then the snowball. That That's how we're going to do it. Okay. Party started officially now. So, first, Home Depot credit card. This is how Wynn and I financed our appliances when we bought this ridiculously expensive building.

[00:01:22]Uh currently, well, as of April 28th, because I really only update this per cheat once a month when I get uh the net worth update. When I do that is when I update these numbers. I I'm not on top of it that much, y'all. I promise. I promise. It's not that serious.

[00:01:43]Uh so, as of April 28th, the balance was $2,041.

[00:01:48]The rate is currently 0%. It will be 30% come July of 2027.

[00:01:56]Then it will not only charge the interest going forward, but also going backwards, all the interest that accrued up till that point, plus all the interest in the future. Currently, the minimum payment is 29 doll-hairs. Not bad, not bad.

[00:02:11]Number two is a plumbing loan.

[00:02:15]Uh we found out relatively recently that some of our pipes are made of iron. We found that out because some of the pipes clogged.

[00:02:26]And no clog remover fixed it. So, we called a plumber out, and the plumber tried to, you know, use the the Roto-Rooter or whatever the heck it's called. Uh that also didn't work.

[00:02:39]So, they opened up the walls. They opened up the walls to take a little look see see what was going on. Turns out, iron pipes were full of rust. The rust was blocking the water flow. So, we had to replace the pipes.

[00:02:56]And the wall.

[00:02:58]It was not fun. So, that was an obscene amount of money. It was over $7,000.

[00:03:02]Currently, it is $6,324 as of April 28th.

[00:03:08]Uh 0% interest currently, but it will hit 27% interest come May of 2027. And of course, this is not just starting to accrue interest on May of 2027. That is all the interest earned up until this point. So, we really want to pay that off. Minimum payment for that is 181 doll-hairs.

[00:03:31]Next is the city loan.

[00:03:34]Uh this is I guess kind of a misnomer. It was a loan on a credit card that we use pretty frequently.

[00:03:43]Uh however, uh because we used this card, we put some larger charges on it that would not have cleared if I didn't make an extra payment, so I did so.

[00:03:57]In which case that the timing got messed up, so now this is partially loan, partially regular spending.

[00:04:09]Still an effective lower interest rate than the first two we talked about. This one, current balance as of April 28th cuz I updating this. I'm not I'm not doing it again until the end of this month. Balance is $4,181.

[00:04:26]We're going with an effective interest rate of 25% because the loan is 16% and the credit card is 28%. We just we just want in between a little bit. Just want in between a little bit. It's okay.

[00:04:42]This is a rough estimate. It's fine.

[00:04:44]Minimum payment it's currently $303.25.

[00:04:49]Do I know where where that 25 cents came from? No, I do not. Moving on. Capital One.

[00:04:56]Oh, I didn't say what this loan was for.

[00:04:59]This was to pay some of Win's legal bills because he took his ex-wife back to court over an incident with the children. So, I charged a chunk of that on my credit card. Next, Capital One. This was also for some of Win's legal bills. Also for house maintenance, house repairs. So, the balance for this is $8,336 as of April 28th.

[00:05:31]Interest rate on this is 4%. This is a 4% interest credit card.

[00:05:38]Minimum payment is $113.

[00:05:41]Actually, I think it went down to 111.

[00:05:44]Let me change that real quick.

[00:05:48]111.

[00:05:50]Let's let's be Let's be honest here.

[00:05:54]Have a little integrity. Okay.

[00:05:56]Pain, this is one of Wynn's higher interest student loans. He named his student loans with Disney villain names.

[00:06:08]I Sure, why not?

[00:06:10]They were all very boring names. They had numbers.

[00:06:15]Uh in the actual website. So, you know, whatever. Let's let's be fun. So, Pain balance is $10,587.

[00:06:25]Interest rate is 6.25%.

[00:06:28]Minimum payment for that is $8.50.

[00:06:32]Panic which is one of his other student loans.

[00:06:36]Uh current balance is $22,246.

[00:06:41]Interest rate again is 6.25%.

[00:06:44]Technically, Pain and Panic are the same student loan. This is a consolidated loan. Uh part of it is subsidized Oh my goodness.

[00:06:59]Part of it is subsidized student loans and part of it is unsubsidized student loans. So, Pain and Panic have to be paid together because they are technically the same loan. Uh but they're separated on the website because part of it is subsidized and part of it is unsubsidized. Do I know why that is a thing? No. I'm just I'm just a normal person, y'all.

[00:07:24]Uh minimum payment for this one is $14.23.

[00:07:29]These These minimum payments for the student loans are tiny because Wynn is on income-based repayment. And if you have watched our channels, you know his income is not incoming. So, mortgage is next.

[00:07:43]And yes, I'm interrupting student loans with the mortgage. Don't judge me. I'll explain later.

[00:07:47]Mortgage current balance as of April 28th is $577,573.

[00:07:57]Ouch.

[00:07:59]Interest rate for that is 5.49%.

[00:08:04]And the minimum payment is $3,832.15.

[00:08:10]Next, SCAR, another student loan.

[00:08:14]Current balance $6,129.

[00:08:18]Interest rate 4.25%.

[00:08:21]Minimum payment $3.78.

[00:08:25]Fro Lo another student loan, the last student loan, the final.

[00:08:32]Balance is $5,641.

[00:08:35]Interest rate is 3.15%.

[00:08:38]Minimum payment is $3.58.

[00:08:41]Then we have S&N Collections, bottom-of-the-barrel because collections, y'all.

[00:08:46]And I'm not prioritizing them. Balance is $650.

[00:08:51]We can absolutely pay this in one go.

[00:08:53]Will we? No, because there's no interest. Interest rate is zero forever.

[00:08:59]Minimum payment $50. So, they're going to get $50 until it's done. And that's just what's going to happen.

[00:09:05]So, all of these minimum payments add up to $4,536.49.

[00:09:12]All the debts add up to $643,708.

[00:09:18]Ouch. Ouch. It's a lot. It's a lot.

[00:09:22]So, if we go down here you can see monthly payment, what we're actually paying is $5,020.49.

[00:09:30]Initial snowball $484.

[00:09:34]Um now if we stick with this order, if we stick with this order, I put this strategy order entered in table, right?

[00:09:45]I don't know, did I say that this this is from Vertex42 absolutely for free, they're not giving me money?

[00:09:52]You don't have to give them money.

[00:09:54]You should try it.

[00:09:56]Um if I use this order that I entered it in the table for these creditors, um the Home Depot card will be paid off before interest kicks in. So, you see interest kicks in July 2027, month paid off August 2026.

[00:10:14]That's good, right? Fantastic Plumbing.

[00:10:18]You see interest kicks in May 2027.

[00:10:22]This will be paid off May 2027.

[00:10:25]I love it.

[00:10:26]I love it. It's it's all all paid off in time, right?

[00:10:30]Then we have City Loan paid off June 2027. Fantastic. Capital One paid off December 2027.

[00:10:43]I love that even more. If you go down to here to the bottom, S&M Collections paid off May 2027 just by paying the $50 a month. That's fantastic, right?

[00:10:53]Um I take you down to all the way to the end here. If we go all the way down to the end, you'll see I will be we will be according to this, debt-free May of 2042.

[00:11:13]That's 16 years and 1 month to be completely debt-free including the mortgage.

[00:11:20]That includes the mortgage.

[00:11:22]Uh so, that is how that would go. Now, now that we see what my choices brought us to, let us take a look at the snowball and you will see why I did not choose the snowball. So, we're going to go right here to the strategy.

[00:11:39]Strategy, I love it. Let's change to snowball.

[00:11:45]Snowball. Let's see what happens, right?

[00:11:48]Let's scroll down here. Let's scroll down here. Cuz nothing else is changing.

[00:11:52]Minimum payment isn't changing. Uh initial snowball isn't changing. We're We're sticking with the same numbers.

[00:11:58]Now, S&M Collections will be paid off June 2026.

[00:12:04]Home Depot card will be paid off September 2026. That's fantastic. But then, oh, no. Let's look down. Let's look down.

[00:12:14]Plumbing.

[00:12:16]Plumbing will be paid off in May 2028, which means I need to change this here.

[00:12:22]Let's scroll back up because the interest will kick in in May of 2027 and this will take me an additional year.

[00:12:30]So, scroll back up. Scroll back up.

[00:12:33]We're going to change this to 27% because it will be 27% by the time that kicks in. Now, let's take a little gander. Let's take a little gander.

[00:12:49]Okay. Now, total interest paid.

[00:12:55]You see this here?

[00:12:57]You see that? Plumbing.

[00:13:00]That will cost me $3,344.19.

[00:13:09]And that's That's not counting the additional interest from the origination of the loan. That's just saying that it's accruing as of April 28th. That's it.

[00:13:22]Just that partial.

[00:13:24]The partial interest is over $3,000 that it will cost me. So, we ain't doing that. We ain't doing that.

[00:13:31]Um also, you see that we still have everything paid off by by 2042, but let's look at this again. Let's look at this again. Sorry if I'm scrolling a lot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's go back to order entered in table.

[00:13:54]Mortgage paid off February of 2042.

[00:13:59]You see the difference here?

[00:14:02]Uh completely completely interest uh everything paid off even if even if I keep that if I say I'm going to pay the interest on the plumbing loan cuz I didn't remove that.

[00:14:16]I didn't remove that.

[00:14:18]It still says that I'll be completely debt-free before snowball.

[00:14:26]You see? Hello.

[00:14:28]Oh, hold on.

[00:14:30]Okay, sorry about that. Uh so, the point is if I use the order that I chose, we'll be completely debt-free June 2042.

[00:14:43]If I use the snowball, and and this is if I say I'm paying the interest on the plumbing loan, which I'm not.

[00:14:51]Which I'm not.

[00:14:52]But I don't want to keep scrolling up and down. I don't I don't want to make that difficult for y'all. Okay, so June 2042, worst-case scenario, everything paid off.

[00:15:04]Go back to snowball.

[00:15:09]August 2042.

[00:15:13]And you see the difference in the interest. So, total interest paid with the snowball, $336,174.93.

[00:15:23]c.

[00:15:24]If I stick with the order that I chose, 326,611.62 c, which you can actually take 1,350 out of that because if I take the the order that I chose, I won't be paying this. I won't be paying any interest because it'll be paid off before the interest kicks in.

[00:15:48]Actually, I'm going to scroll back up.

[00:15:54]So, actually faster.

[00:15:58]May of 2042, everything will be paid off and 323,000 in interest.

[00:16:06]Significantly better, right?

[00:16:08]Now, if I went with the avalanche, which is what most people go with if they want to pay less money.

[00:16:20]If I go with the avalanche, then this messes up the numbers again because then the interest will kick in for both the Home Depot card and plumbing.

[00:16:31]I don't want to do that.

[00:16:34]I don't want to do that.

[00:16:35]And actually, it would end up Let Let me show you.

[00:16:40]I apologize for the scroll. I apologize for the scroll.

[00:16:43]We're going to do 30% on the Home Depot card and 27 for plumbing. And we're going to scroll back down so you can see what the avalanche does.

[00:17:00]So, I'd actually be Everything will be paid off June of 2042.

[00:17:09]So, this actually still takes longer.

[00:17:13]This actually still takes longer.

[00:17:18]But that's because uh the interest would Well, I guess I guess the interest won't Uh this is this is iffy because um if I just paid a little extra on plumbing, then this would still be paid off before the interest kicks in, but you get what I'm saying, right? Um the reason why we went with the method we did was to save money and save this interest.

[00:17:57]So, at the very least at the very least, if we go with avalanche we go with avalanche based on what interest rate it would have when the interest kicks in um plumbing would would be funky because I wouldn't make it in time for the interest to not kick in.

[00:18:21]Um but it's it's more interest.

[00:18:25]The total interest paid is more.

[00:18:27]So, there's a method to the madness, y'all. I promise there's a method to the madness.

[00:18:33]Um I decided to go with the order I did.

[00:18:40]And let me go back up and zero out this interest.

[00:18:46]Because it will be paid off in time if I stick with this plan.

[00:18:52]Um I went with this method because I wanted to save time and save money and not pay interest on anything with an introductory period.

[00:19:06]So, this is the plan. This is what we're going with.

[00:19:10]Um the snowball method may work for some people, uh people specifically who uh find a lot of dopamine in like having a debt like picked off and having that like extra minimum payment go towards the next thing real fast.

[00:19:34]Um but the way my brain works, I want to save time and money.

[00:19:41]I want things to move as fast as possible, as cheaply as possible, because I don't make a lot of money. The snowball the snowball costs more money if you're poor, and we, Wynn and I, are currently house poor.

[00:19:59]So, we don't want to spend that extra money to have things paid off slower.

[00:20:05]It's just It's just not It's not worth it. It's not worth it to us. Uh so, what we do, and I'm going to show you the next tab. The next tab here is my favorite.

[00:20:19]So, in this next one, this is the They still call it a snowball, whatever.

[00:20:25]It's debt reduction payment schedule in the order that I chose.

[00:20:31]So, it's got all the breakdown here of what everything is, what the interest rates, how many how many months to pay it off, what month, um and then like total interest paid, yada yada yada. But then you go down here, it tells you it tells you how much to pay.

[00:20:48]It tells you how much to pay. So, May of 2026, we get Home Depot card getting $513.

[00:21:01]I was planning for 511 because last I checked, the the One minimum payment was 113. I Well, last I checked in April. I I have checked since then um just recently and I saw that the minimum payment was 111.

[00:21:16]Uh so, I think I'm going to change that plan. Uh so, next month I will be paying uh Capital One 111 dollars and Home Depot card 513.

[00:21:27]Um but this month it Well, I guess technically I No, cuz I already paid already paid Capital One 113 dollars. That's right.

[00:21:36]So, next month will be 513. This isn't going to $2 isn't going to significantly change things. That's fine. But, the point is this this little tab here with the monthly payments tells you for each month for each month what your payment is going to be to each of these things.

[00:21:58]So, as you can see August is when the Home Depot card gets paid off.

[00:22:03]And then, that will be $502 to the Home Depot card or 504 technically because I'm I messed that up. But, whatever. I'm going to update this at the end of the month. It's fine. It's fine. I promise.

[00:22:20]Um so, uh the rest of the minimum payment's going to go to plumbing. And then, we're going to knock this out. Uh this makes me very happy >> [laughter] >> to know that I'm going to save time and money. It makes me very pleased.

[00:22:38]Because these interest-free periods, these initial interest-free periods that all of these businesses offer you, it's a trap.

[00:22:48]It's a trap, y'all.

[00:22:50]They're trying to get you to miss the window so that you end up paying all that interest. Because if you don't pay this off in time, you pay all the interest you would have paid if it was 30% the whole time. And And I'm not about that life, and I really hope you're not either.

[00:23:09]Because, never forget that you too deserve financial stability. And you know what? Part of financial stability is not paying these people for services that you're not getting.

[00:23:20]I'm not getting an extra service for paying that extra interest, so I don't want to pay it.

[00:23:26]I'll be having a great day on purpose.

[00:23:27]Bye.