‘The Real Reason You’re Broke’: Ramsey Show’s Jade Warshaw on Budgeting, Student Loan Debt

As a debt elimination expert and financial coach on The Ramsey Show, Jade Warshaw sprinkles her financial advice with wit and spunk.

“Folks call in all the time and they’re saying the same thing. They’re saying, ‘Jade I know I’m supposed to budget. Jade, I know I’m supposed to live on less than I make but I just can’t do it,'” Warshaw said in an interview with CBN News.

The advice she doles out was something she once needed in her own life. 

Thirteen years ago, Warshaw and her husband Sam, who are devout Christians, shifted their mindset, beliefs, and actions around money. Those changes enabled them to pay off nearly half a million dollars of debt in under eight years.

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“You don’t just have $460,000 of debt and go, ‘Ok let’s start paying it off,'” she said. “When you realize the mess you’ve made, you have to start asking yourself real questions. Cause at that point it’s beyond the money. I did not like accountability. I felt like I deserved to be able to spend.”

In her new book, Money is Not a Math Problem: The Real Reason You’re Broke and What to Do About It, Warshaw candidly shares about her past financial struggles and points out the lies people believe about money, including the need for a budget.

“A lot of people feel that budgets are only for people who are poor, for people who are bad with money, who don’t make enough money. It’s just all this stigma attached to it,” she explained. 

She added that budgets are like toothbrushes in that everybody needs one. 

Warshaw also disagrees with those student loan borrowers who don’t feel obligated to pay them back, calling it a moral obligation to pay what’s owed.

“I want you to look at it and go, ‘Ok I did that. It was a mistake,'” she said. “If you took out student loans, if you signed your name on the dotted line, it’s up to you to pay for your debts.” 

The financial coach also believes that for many, money problems are symptomatic of bigger issues.

“It’s about what’s going on in your mind,” said Warshaw. “And at the end of the day beliefs drive behavior. And so that’s what this book is about. It’s getting down to the depth of what do you believe about money? What do you believe about yourself as it relates to money? And if you can understand that then you can actually do the behaviors to make progress with your money.”

Meanwhile, Warshaw is grateful to share what she has learned from her journey in order to help others find the path to financial freedom.

“When you’re in debt there’s this stress, there’s this angst, this constant guilt. The other side of that is complete freedom.”

“I like to say that your bad break becomes your big break, and if you made mistakes, if you’re willing to let God use that, there’s no telling how you’re going to be able to help the people around you,” Warshaw said.