Cassie, 29, and Andre, 33, from Oklahoma earn about $4,600 a month after taxes and bring in an extra $900 from a roommate. But despite making just over $5,500 a month, they spend almost double that, and now sit on more than $168,000 in debt.
A Couple In Denial
Their financial situation was featured on a recent episode of Caleb Hammer‘s “Financial Audit” YouTube series. Hammer gave them the hard truth. “This is some of the most ridiculous spending I have seen on this show,” he told the couple.
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Incredibly, Andre has racked up over $92,000 on in-game skins. These digital purchases are cosmetic items that change the appearance of characters or items in video games, but don’t affect gameplay and mostly don’t offer any real-world value.
He also spent heavily on electronics, gaming consoles, and accessories. Among them: a Steam Deck, multiple Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, a California king mattress, phones, watches and even a $1,200 gaming laptop to design maps for a tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. “This is absolutely insane,” Hammer said. “This is every debt that has ever existed.”
When Hammer asked them why they are living paycheck to paycheck, Andre answered it’s ‘Because she spends a lot of money,” adding that he also spends a lot of money on her.
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Cassie admitted to a long history of poor money management and outright addiction to spending. “I like to go big or go home,” she said. Before meeting Andre, she frequently turned to payday loans to fund her lifestyle, often “recycling payday loans,” in other words, she was constantly getting new loans just to pay off old ones.
The couple only recently opened a joint bank account, and Cassie now receives a spending “allowance” to try and curb her impulses. But that hasn’t solved the problem. Their combined monthly debt payments, including $1,300 in car loans at 12% interest, plus overdue student loans, collections accounts, and dozens of buy-now-pay-later balances, now outpace their income.
Cassie has several collections accounts, including one for $3,000 from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and others from Capital One (NYSE:COF), GameStop (NYSE:GME) and JCPenney. Hammer pointed out that their spending has outpaced their earnings by thousands each month.
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Andre’s health habits aren’t helping either. He smokes, drinks multiple energy drinks and diet sodas daily, and has been smoking since age 13. Hammer warned him: “You’re about to be the father of three now. Don’t you want to stick around? You’re in your 30s. You’re obese. Morbidly potentially.”
Even with a baby due, Cassie showed little motivation to change. “I don’t really want to put in the effort,” she said.
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