Dave Ramsey has built a career on telling people to cut up their credit cards. So, the ranking he gave a caller named John in a Ramsey Show clip isn't what his audience typically expects. "I'd rather have $5,000 on a credit card than a mortgage you can't afford," Ramsey said.
John had laid out the problem in his own words. "We are living paycheck to paycheck and quite often the paycheck doesn't even cover for two weeks. So we are bleeding from our minimal savings and paying for the things with our credit card and only paying the minimum." Ramsey asked for the house payment. “It is $2,090 a month,” John said, although some outlets have mistakenly misquoted the monthly payment as $2,900. Ramsey then asked for John's take-home pay. "Take-home pay in a month is $4,200." The reply came before the caller had finished: "You have to sell the house, John." The couple bought in November 2022 and owed about $287,000 on it.
