Dave Ramsey Interview: Debt Free Scream

Today we were interviewed by Dave Ramsey on the Dave Ramsey Show (which is the second largest talk show in America. They said over 15 million people hear/see it LIVE each weekday). gah.

If you haven't already watched the video of our interview and Debt Free Scream, I'll link it below.

----> https://youtu.be/EugTZ4E4Wi8 For the timing, you'll want 1:18:00 which is almost halfway through the youtube video. Here's a picture of what we're wearing, so you can easily spot us!

That's us pre-interview, during headset check. I was a dry-mouthed, sweaty, excited box of nerves, and you can see it in my posture.

This is during the interview. Talking to Dave came easily once we began, and though there were a couple of things we meant to mention and didn't, God gave grace and clarity as we spoke, and the missing bits are easy enough to mention here:

1. Trash picking. Picking up things on the side of road, cleaning them (or fixing them) and reselling them, was a definite part of our story. We were able to do this as a family in the evenings after dark (Charlotte was asleep for alot of it). Also, we only had a sedan, so it's doable for anyone.
2. Cash flow. During this journey we also cash flowed Portia's birth and the start of a business (which includes buying a truck), so if you think 144k (how much we made in the 22 months) isn't tight enough to make 79k paid off impressive, throw in those numbers too. Psalm 81:10 says to look at what God has done, and ask Him to do more of the same, abundantly. That's what we did, and His Word never returned void!
3. Faith in starting the business. There was no promise of work. There was no guarantee that people would want Matt to come back month after month or that they would tell their friends. We blindly trusted God for that. It could have been a huge pay cut instead of a pay raise, but God loves to hand His children good gifts.

Being there in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions wasn't just like I had pictured it. Because I've watched the Dave Ramsey Show, I felt prepared, but a couple of things were different than I'd imagined. So here's my behind-the-scenes thoughts.

1. Dave is pretty far away when you're being interviewed. I had imagined you were separated by glass but pretty near to where he is sitting, but instead we were probably fifty or more feet away during the interview, the way the lobby is set up. In the picture above, we are the closest you can get to him, and that's the only angle you have of him when he's doing the show (I had always imagine you could see him from the front, not just the side), but that picture above was taken between the scream and the meet and greet during a waiting period. When we were doing our scream, he was in that same spot, and we were another thirty feet or so from that glass with our headphones on.

2. There were so many people there. When you watch the youtube channel, you see that there are often ten or twenty people there clapping at the end of someone's debt-free scream, but they had had a financial coaches training session in Richmond that had bused people over to Nashville, so there were easily one hundred people crammed into the lobby, which made us unexpectedly nervous.

All together, SO GLAD we went. It feels like we've come full circle on our debt-free journey, beginning with Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and ending with our debt-free scream in his lobby. I did say "yeah" 72,465 times, which is a lot, but no one was grading my speech, so no points deducted there. He signed the painting of our house that we commissioned, and I'm thankful to have that memento to carry with us no matter where God has us long-term.