I Stole From My Employer And Got Arrested

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I am about $70,000 in debt and I just don't know how to get out of it. What kind of debt is it? What kind of debt? Credit card debt and medical debt. How much is credit card? I have it broken down. Amex is $4,300 and Capital One is $6,800. And then I owe on my car $25,000. I have some of the debt enrolled in a debt consolidation program. It's been enrolled for about a year and a half, but I'm just not seeing anything go away. And I've got stuff that's on hold that's not anywhere. What's the medical debt? How much? I don't have the whole total, but I have $1,800, $3,700, $500, $600, $4,000, $2,200, and $3,600. How much do you make a year? Hardly anything. I make about $2,200 a month. I found myself in this situation because I lost my job January 2024 because of my own stupidity. I stole from my employer. So I was fired, I was arrested, and everything's just gone downhill since then. What were you doing? I was working for a furniture store. Doing what? Inventory management. I was making about $53,000 a month then. And then everything was fine. All my bills were paid. I had no debt. What's the nature of your medical? I had to go under anesthesia twice within a year just because I was choking. I don't even know what the condition's called. It's something I can't pronounce. But I had to go under anesthesia in order to not be choking anymore. And they did a surgery, obviously, while you were under. But you're saying the bill was mostly the anesthesia. Okay. I gotcha. What are you doing now for work? I work for a grocery store. Okay. And how many hours a week are you working? 40 hours. Okay. Full time. Were you convicted of a felony? Summer gets busy fast. Between vacations, camps, and travel plans, the last thing you need is another thing to manage. That is why I love Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker sites that can leave you vulnerable to spammers and scammers. And they keep monitoring it all year long. And honestly, it feels good knowing that someone is handling it for me. And you can get 20% off an annual plan at joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. That's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Were you convicted of a felony? It was dismissed. It was dismissed? Because I did a pre-trial intervention program. Okay. So it's expunged. Okay. Expunged. So that's not holding you back? Because it's not on your record anymore? It's not holding me back at all. No, correct. That's not on my record anything. That took about an entire year. So you're six months kind of out of all of that fog, really? Yeah. And I have a license to sell real estate. And I'm with a brokerage, but it's hard. I'm a new agent. And so it's just hard. I can't make any money in it. So that's why I'm still at the grocery store. And I've got only $300 in savings. So I've got nothing. When all this happened, I drained my 401k and any bit of savings. I was putting everything in a credit card. What is your car worth? The car worth? It's a Toyota. It's probably worth $37 or $38. And you owe $25? I owe $25 on it. How are you paying that bill with all this other stuff going on? I make it work. Yeah. That car needs to be sold. Yeah. Sell that car. Sell the car. And buy a car for cash with the difference. For sure. You buy an $8,000 car? Yeah. Because how much is your payment a month? $400? $543. Yeah. So that frees that up. It was $7,000 something because it was a lease. And then the lease came due to an end, I think, just this past April. Okay. Matthew, you make $20,000 a year, $30,000 a year. You don't need a $25,000 car debt. It's killing you. So you need to sell it and get an $8,000 car that you pay cash for. And then the rest of your situation is all career oriented. And so it's a matter of lining yourself up with some kind of a career, whether it's real estate or whether it's something else, I don't care where your income goes up because you're worth twice what you're being paid in the marketplace. You have proven that in the past and you made a mistake. You paid for it. You went through all the hell associated with it. You lost your job and now you get a restart. And you start with, that's going to be part of your story in the past, but it doesn't, as a pastor friend of mine says, you're not defined by the worst thing you ever did. You're not defined by the worst thing you ever did. Thank goodness. None of us are. It's a part of my story. I have a scar. I have a mark. It hurt. I feel guilt. I feel some shame from it, but it's not who I am. You see the difference? I do. Yeah. And so that that's, you've got to get that part emotionally, spiritually in your rear view mirror and then go, okay, I'm 18 years old again. And the world says I can be anything I want to be. So now what do I want to be Lord? And what's my next step? And yeah, and that could be real estate. I don't care. But there's no, you don't have to live in the prison of working for half of what you're worth in the marketplace because of a past mistake. That's a self-made prison. And I was working seven days a week. I was, I've always valeting cars. I'm making some good money with that, but I mean, I was just, no, you weren't, you were valeting cars. It's not a career. That was the second, that was a side job I had. Yeah. It was making some, some money to keep the wolf away from money, but, but it's not, that's not your, you don't want to be that 10 years from today. So 10 years from today, who do you want to be now? Let's start taking the steps to be that, and we'll work the side hustles or whatever to get there. But if the, if we work side hustle valet in cars, while we're trying to get the real estate thing going, cause real estate things, the thing fine. But the real estate thing was just a thing and it's not the thing. What is it you want to be when you grow up? You know, kind of thing, right? So we're going to send you a copy of finding the work you're wired to do. It's got a, it's got an assessment and I want you to take that. I want you to sit and do some time in prayer about what you're supposed to be 10 years from now and get the car sold. Great first step. Seriously, selling the car. I'm like, that's from a financial perspective is going to relieve you so much, but also, yeah, for sure. But, um, and I think, you know, there, there is a freshness still 18 months after all of this for you, Steven, that's very, very real and very honest. But I do think the more confidence and the more wins you have out in the marketplace, the more that you're going to find this level of dignity back to who you are. And, and yeah, and if you can find that intersection with your work of what you're passionate about, what you're naturally good at and gifted at, like all of that combined, this could be seen as a, as a completely fresh start, which is beautiful. That's the beautiful part about redemption is in grace is that you get that, you get that second chance. So we, um, yeah, we're cheering for you for that. Yeah. I got a friend of mine who was in the bottle for about 15 years and he just got his 15 year coin the other day. If you don't know what that is, if you're in 12 step alcoholics anonymous or any kind of a program, you get a coin for so many days, so many months, whatever. And he just got his 50 he's been dry for 15 years. And, um, you know, he's extremely successful today, but he was truly at the bottom and just virtually homeless, virtually lost his family, everything completely turned this all around and changed everything, changed everything. And, uh, now he's again, but, but you know, he is not defined by what he used to do or used to be is defined, not defined by it. You're not defined by that unless you choose to be different. I'm not defined by the fact that I was stupid, went deeply into debt and filed bankruptcy when I was 28 years old. I learned from it. It hurt. I don't want to do it again. I don't recommend it to anybody, but it's not who I am. It's just part of my story. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.