- Your debt is lavish.
- It's not lavish. Listen, listen.
All I said was that I have expensive taste,
that doesn't mean I live a lap of luxury.
- [Narrator] If you had to rank yourself against others
based on a specific trait, what would it say
about how you see them and how they see you?
To find out, we brought together five strangers
and had them rank themselves based on their perceived debt.
Then, we rearrange them based on their actual debt.
This is "Ranking."
- My name is Dominic and I'm 29 years old.
And I'm a content creator.
- My name is Eric and I am in nursing school.
- I'm Della,
I'm gonna graduate school in two weeks.
- Oh wow.
- Congrats.
- Hi everyone, my name is A'tavia.
I'm a digital creator / social media manager /
whatever I feel like doing, honestly.
- I'm Lola,
and I work in mental healthcare.
- Okay, okay.
- What type of debt is there?
Are we gonna talk about, I assume credit card,
student loans, housing, car.
I'ma guess personal loans. - Personal loans.
- Yeah, I can start.
So pretty much, I found myself in debt.
I'm in nursing school.
I kind of just had to get student loans.
- What about you guys?
- Car, some student debt and then credit cards.
- I just got my first car, personal loan
and credit cards and stuff like that.
I was really worried that I was gonna have
the most debt because I have a lot of embarrassment
about my debt.
- I have more student loans and medical debt.
I have a decent amount.
- Definitely house, yeah, mostly house and student loans.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- So I'm the only one that has no student loan debt.
- And it's throwing me off.
This car is gonna be Rolls-Royce.
- No, no, no, no, it's not a...
I just have a, it's a Prius.
- Hybrid?
- Yeah, it's a hybrid.
- Oh, those are expensive.
- I don't have that much personal debt.
I was born with a cleft lip, cleft palate,
so I've had seven surgeries.
The two more recent ones
were a double-jaw surgery and a rhinoplasty
and the insurance didn't cover it that time, so.
- Geez.
- So it came out of?
Oh my God. - Yeah.
And it still isn't that great
'cause I still can't breathe that well,
so I actually have another surgery for my nose.
- [A'tavia] Damn. - Yeah.
It sucks that we have so much medial debt
and especially since I can't really help the way I was born.
It was hard talking about it a little bit,
but it kinda felt therapeutic in a way, yeah.
- Do you guys have any kind of expense
that was kind of excessive for you?
- I'm not really much of a splurger,
I always give a percentage to my debt.
- Good for you. What about you?
- I just have really expensive taste.
The things that I like are just higher-end.
It's really annoying.
I definitely have gotten so much better,
I'm no longer accumulating more debt.
- Have you been paying it all?
- I haven't.
I'm working on it.
- Most of my debt is not from...
Everything is a necessity.
I never had any unwanted purchases.
- But wants and necessities are different.
- Do you have a car that's paid off?
- I have a car that's paid off.
- Do you own a house?
- No, I don't own a house.
- How many homes do you own?
- Personally? I own one.
I own land, but I own one home, yeah.
- If you were already in a lot of debt,
why did you buy a house?
- I was gonna put that money in rent.
- So it was an investment,
you're not living in that house that you own?
- I bought that house cash.
- Oh, so you don't? Wait, what?
- I specifically bought the house in cash,
pulled out loans so I can invest in other property,
so that way I can actually make more money.
How is the loans
and all that kind of affected all of you mentally?
- For me, it's an everyday thing.
I'm already stressed out, I'm just like,
"Man, nursing school is hard."
I took out all this loan and if I fail,
I am gonna owe this money for nothing.
And that scares a living hell out of me.
I can feel my mental stability going down,
I am being more harsh on myself,
so I'm just stressed the (beep) out
all the time, 24/7.
- I feel like I found myself in a lot of debt
because I was not taking care of my mental health.
So I was really, really relying on retail therapy.
It made my mental health even worse.
- You hear debt, you think,
"Oh, they have a terrible spending habit or something."
I was just buying food for myself
and trying to pay for my rent and stuff,
it was just trying to live a normal life.
'Cause I'm just like, "Damn, I want to move on,
but I still have debt, so what can I do?"
- [Lola] It's hard to get out of relying on it.
- It is, it is.
I am also someone who has anxiety with a lot of jobs,
so people are like, "You have to work, work, work
and work your butt off and then you can spend that money."
But that's not realistic for everyone.
- My debt is...
So for school, I have bad anxiety,
I couldn't, at that time, drive far from my house,
I still can't really go in elevators.
So I had to pick the closest college to me
which happened to be an expensive college.
I think my anxiety was just so bad that I look at debt
or anything money-related, it's just such a non-issue.
Yeah, I definitely though have a thing
where my girlfriend's always upset, she's like,
"Oh, you're always working."
Because of my anxiety, I can't really work a normal job.
- I get that.
- Me too, actually.
I work as much overtime as I can.
I just keep having anxiety thinking I can't pay it off.
I don't know what to do 1/2 the time.
My family, we don't really come from money,
and so even now, they kinda have that mentality
where they get scared about not being able to pay something.
And sometimes, you do need to go into debt and it sucks,
but it's sometimes, that's just how it is.
(upbeat jazz music)
- I feel like you're in a lot of debt
just because medical expenses are really expensive.
- Actually, I have mainly student.
- Wow.
- That's just throw me off.
- But then also house stuff is really expensive as well.
So I feel like you too.
- No, I definitely think yeah. I'll move.
- I went to community college, it's not that bad.
- [Lola] I feel like you guys should switch.
- [A'tavia] I think you should be in the third.
- Yeah, I think so. - Nursing school
is pretty expensive. - Yeah.
- Why are you with the front?
- I don't know.
- But your debt is lavish.
- It's not lavish. Listen, listen.
All I said was that I have expensive taste,
that doesn't mean I live in a lap of luxury.
Where do you guys shop for groceries?
- Stater Bros.
- That's expensive.
- [Eric] Stater Bros? - Yes.
- Trader Joe's.
- Trader Joe's?
- Trader Joe's is more expensive than Stater Bros.
- No. - Nu-uh.
- I didn't say Whole Foods, guys.
- Vons or Ralphs?
- Vons or Ralphs.
I shop at Walmart for my clothes.
- I feel like you should be at the end.
- I think you should be at the end.
- And then...
- I agree.
- You seem pretty well-off, to be honest.
Not too well-off.
- I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that, guys.
Do we agree that he would be the most then?
'Cause he did go to nursing school.
- And keep in mind, this is just the second year.
- So you're gonna be in the most eventually?
- Catch me in four years, then I'll be here,
I'm just kidding.
- I thought yours would be more, but when you said that,
yeah, your medical isn't as expensive as your school.
'Cause school on the top-end, it's a lot.
But I don't think it'd be that much if medical's lower.
- [Lola] Right, right, right.
- Yeah.
- Do you feel like you should be where you are?
- I think you should be higher than I am.
I think actually this is good.
- Okay, okay. - Yeah.
- We're locking it in.
- Locking in the answer, guys.
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Now, let's get back into the video.
(quirky atmospheric music)
- [Speaker] So in fifth, we have A'tavia
with $23,065 in debt.
- Ooh, we got that right.
I was expecting the person at the bottom to be like 2K.
- We're here for a reason.
- They asked for debt.
- [Speaker] In fourth, we have Lola.
- Wait, hold on.
- [Speaker] With $24,622 in debt.
- Oh, we're pretty close.
- [Speaker] In third, we have Della with $37,000.
- Wow. - [A'tavia] It's correct.
Hold on.
- [Speaker] In second, we have Eric with $42,000 in debt.
(Eric muttering)
In first, we have Dominic with $2 million in debt.
- Oh (beep).
- I just got chills along my entire.
- Bro, I thought two mil. - Are you okay?
(people laughing)
(relaxing electronic music)
(fans cheering)
- But my student loans are more than all of yours.
My student loans was almost $400,000, I went to Chapman.
- Whoa, wait, wait, how did we get?
- He was sliding by.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I think I'm no longer stressed
after hearing $2 million, I'm good.
- I know it, I'm good.
- I know they felt better about their debt
after hearing mine,
but there's definitely different types of debt.
I pulled a loan out on my house.
That's the kind of good debt that I'm not worried about.
Medical debt you can run away from a lot easier.
Definitely have student loan debt,
you can kind of consider as a bad type of debt
because it's something that's not gonna make you
any money by itself.
Credit card debt I would say
is one of the worst debt to have,
the interest is just so high
that it can really catch up and destroy you.
- No, I still am stressed out about my debt.
Anytime I talk about it,
I just get really nervous and anxious and.
Because it's taboo to be poor.
Talking about how much you earn, that's taboo as well.
Automatically, people assign worth and value to that person
when it's not the same.
- For a while, I was very against debt
and I would miss everything my friends did
because they grew up with money.
Their parents bought them cars in high school.
I would have to stay home because I couldn't afford it,
and that's when my mindset changed, I'm like,
"I'm in my 20s, I have to do stuff."
So I'm like, "Let me start swiping
and live a little bit of my life."
- Yeah.
- So yeah, definitely, a lot of people see,
oh, you have debt, you're irresponsible.
And I'm just like, "Dude, everyone in med-school,
everyone at pharmacy, everyone that's in the healthcare
is owing money."
- I think everyone, there's a lot of debt.
I don't think debt really surprises me anymore,
knowing that a lot of millionaires and billionaires
use debt to their advantage and yet,
still lower-class people are made to feel
like it's a bad thing.
I've been using it just to live a normal life
and that would be my advantage.
It's no different, so I don't think I need
to feel bad about it anymore.
- I was so integrated into learning everything about money,
which is why I am where I am today.
It's not hard work or anything,
it really is just the privilege of learning.
- Be smart, know if you can pay it off,
but if you have a vision and if you have a plan to succeed,
taking debt is okay.
- Get credit cards.
No, I'm kidding, do not do that.
- Don't get a credit card, just don't.
- Go swipe your credit card, live your life.
- [Speaker] Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- [Speaker] Cut.