Sometimes a phone call to a financial advice show starts bad and just keeps getting worse. That's what happened when Ashton dialed into "The Ramsey Show" to explain the financial pickle she and her partner landed themselves in last year.

The Math That Made Dave Ramsey Say "Holy Jesus"

Here's the setup: Ashton and her partner were 24 years old when they decided to buy a fifth-wheel camper for $115,000. The logic seemed reasonable at the time—camper payments would be cheaper than apartment rent, right? When Dave Ramsey heard that number, his reaction was immediate: "Holy Jesus!" But the surprises didn't stop there. The couple also financed a truck to the tune of $50,000.

Then Ramsey asked the obvious question: Are you still living in the camper? The answer made everything worse. "No, we do not," Ashton admitted. Her mom had a rental house that opened up, so they moved into that instead. "Now we're stuck with a camper and truck," she said.

The couple was working through Ramsey's debt payoff system and trying to figure out whether to keep making payments until they weren't underwater anymore, or sell now and deal with the negative equity. Spoiler alert: the numbers were ugly.

Underwater and Sinking

They owe $115,000 on the camper, but it's only worth about $90,000 on the private market now. Worse yet, Camping World—the same place that sold it to them—offered just $63,000. That's not a typo. We're talking about a massive fifth-wheel with a washer, dryer, and king-size bed. It's not some tiny trailer.

The truck situation wasn't much better. They owe $50,000 on it, but trade-in value hovers around $42,000. When co-host John Delony heard all this, he burst out laughing. "I'm laughing with you, not at you, Ashton," he clarified. Her response? "No, no, I'm laughing at myself too."

Ramsey couldn't wrap his head around how they got approved for this much financing at 24 years old. "And they loaned you $115,000 on a camper," he said in disbelief. For context, the couple earns about $145,000 combined annually, which is solid income—but not nearly enough to justify this kind of recreational vehicle debt.

The Depreciation Death Spiral

Ramsey laid out the brutal reality: campers depreciate faster than loan balances shrink. "The longer you wait to sell the camper, every day that you wait, the spread between what you owe and its value gets wider," he explained. It's a ticking clock situation where doing nothing actually makes things worse.

His advice was straightforward: sell both the camper and truck as soon as possible, but don't accept lowball offers like the one from Camping World. "We're gonna sell this truck as soon as we can get close to what is owed on it," he said. "And that way the hole's not too big on either one of them that you got to pay back."

Despite the rough situation, Ramsey offered some hope. With their income level and if they buckle down, they could be completely debt-free within 18 months. That's actually a pretty optimistic timeline for digging out of a $165,000 hole, but it shows what's possible when you have decent earnings and get serious about cutting losses.

The takeaway here isn't subtle: recreational vehicle debt can spiral fast, especially when you stop using the thing you're paying for. And unlike real estate, RVs don't appreciate—they lose value the moment you drive them off the lot, much like cars but often worse. This couple learned that lesson the expensive way.