We all make dumb decisions when we’re in our teens and 20s. Thankfully, for a lot of us, the mature people in our lives offer the kind of guidance and advice necessary to ensure that we don’t completely ruin our futures with those bad decisions. Unfortunately for some, when that doesn’t happen, you end up with people in situations like Hannah, a 20-year-old licensed practical nurse in Oklahoma who recently went on the Caleb Hammer show to get advice on dealing with her mountain of debt, so much of which is car-related, it’s going to give you an aneurism.
Right out of the gate, it’s clear that Hannah makes plenty of money. She lives in southwestern Oklahoma, which isn’t exactly known for its high cost of living, and last year, she earned more than $70,000. You’d think that any 20-year-old would be able to survive on that kind of income in Oklahoma. Heck, there are plenty of people who are older than 20 making it work on less than that in New York City. Hannah, however, was created in a lab to make people very angry online, and a bunch of bad decisions began to add up fast.
First, let’s talk about the Kia K5 that she bought when she was 18. Not only did she not put anything down on the loan, but she also got some kind of incredibly sketchy loan to cover registration fees. A $2,000 loan that she admitted she could have paid cash to cover but took out anyway with an interest rate of 63.22 percent. No, you did not read that incorrectly. Her interest rate isn’t 6.322 percent. Sixty. Three. Point. Two. Two. Percent. Will it shock you to learn that her payments so far have only barely covered the interest?
Still, that’s only $2,000. She made a monumentally stupid decision on the advice of a friend who told her it would help build her credit, but when she’s bringing in more than $70,000 a year, paying that off would be easy. Unfortunately for Hannah, she also has a thing for luxury cars. Specifically, Jaguar, a brand known worldwide for its incredible reliability and low cost of ownership. After hitting a deer and totaling her Kia, Hanna decided to replace it with a Jaguar F-Pace. A diesel F-Pace. At the very least, you’ve got to respect the decision to go diesel.
Unfortunately for Hannah, she hydroplaned and totaled the F-Pace before she could register it. No worries, though, that was just her work car. She was still able to get to work just fine because, wouldn’t you know it, she also bought a second Jaguar as her personal car. That Jaguar probably isn’t long for this world, though, since she’s had five insurance claims in the last two years. The total number of wrecks could technically be higher than that since she very specifically said “insurance claims.” Oh, and she still wanted to buy a work car to replace the F-Pace so she didn’t put too many miles on her XE.
We would like to think that getting a reality check would help her start turning things around, but when called out about how stupid it is to own even one Jaguar while you’re more than $60,000 in debt, her response was, “I will have a Jaguar until the day I die.” Which, considering how often she crashes, may come sooner than she thinks. When the host pointed out that five crashes and two totaled cars in two years is way, way more than normal, her response is basically that she’s a good driver. Plus one of the last things she said is that she still wants to upgrade her current Jaguar next year.
So yeah, things aren’t looking great for our friend Hannah here. Still, you never know. In two years, she could be the one laughing at us with her debt paid off, a seven-year-old Camry and enough savings to buy a house. It probably won’t happen, but it could. Maybe. Possibly.