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April 11, 2024 71 mins

Amy's guest, George Kamel, went from broke to millionaire in under 10 years! George is a personal finance expert, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour + The Ramsey Show, and author of the bestselling book Breaking Free From Broke. His mission is to "help people spend less, save more, and avoid money traps so they can live a life with more margin, options and freedom."

 

Main '4 Things' Amy & George chat about:

1) Boosting Your Financial IQ

2) The #1 Wealth Killer

3) Teaching Teens About Money (adults can learn from this too) 

4) Gratitude 

 

Questions answered:

- Is 'Rent the Runway' a good way to "shop"?

- What is the worst financial crime Amy ever committed?

- Should we invest in gold bars from Costco? (speaking of Costco, George shares the best frozen pizza to get) 

- Are designer purses a good investment?

- Should Amy have gotten a HELOC loan?

- Should we have credit cards?

- What are George's thoughts on rewards from credit cards?

- Is Amazon killing our bank account?

- Should we ever lease a car?

- What's the craziest call George has gotten on The Ramsey Show?

- How do we best talk to our kids about money? 

- What is something George refuses to spend money on?

- What are 4 things George is grateful for?

- & More!

 

Visit the Foundations in Personal Finance for High School Students website for even more info!

 

HOST: Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy

GUEST: George Kamel // georgekamel.com // @GeorgeKamel

 

Voicemail Line: 877-207-2077

Email: 4ThingsWithAmyBrown@gmail.com

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Okay, cast up things, little food for yourself life.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh it's pretty bad. Hey, it's pretty beautiful than beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
That for a little more than.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
It's exciting, of course, said he. Your kicking with four
Thing with Amy Brown.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Happy Thursday.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Four Things Amy Here, and my guest today is personal
finance expert George Campbell Kimmel with a K.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Thank you, Hey, George, so good to be here.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Air national bestselling author. You have a new book, ish
Maaking Free.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Twenty twenty four, Breaking Free from Broke, feels loose.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Feels news.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Still it's this year your co host of Smart Money,
Happy Hour and The Ramsey Show. Which fun fact about
you that you probably know very well but others may not,
As George went from negative net worth aka broke to
a millionaire in under ten years.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
That's right following the Ramsey Plant. And so I didn't
have a big inheritance, nothing crazy. I just followed a
proven plan and so I'm excited to share some of
that today.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Okay, I got a joke for you, and I'll actually
be sprinkling in money jokes throughout the entire episode. I
love this sort of just the intro joke though. Okay,
why are Irish bankers so successful?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Why because their capital is always dublin.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Wow, that has so many layers.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
It does.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, your mission correct me if I'm wrong. Here to
help people spend less, save more, and avoid money traps
so that they can live a life with more margin,
options and freedom.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
You nailed it. I mean, isn't that the goal for
all of us? We want to talk about money, so
we can stop talking about money. We have other things
to focus on. We got lives to live. Yeah, but
money's an icicle.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, you can get really bogged down by money and
then everything gets very stressful. So yeah, if you do
have financial freedom, you have more space, more bandwidth to
enjoy life. So the four things we're gonna get into
today are going to be boosting our financial IQ. The
number one wealth killer, which I saw, like this is
one of your most watched reels YouTube videos. Yeah, people

(02:13):
are into this.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Wealth Killer's feeling what we all need. So it's one
of those things, right.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, Okay, maybe we'll call out some people in this
room who knows.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, teaching teens about money, but I feel like from
that adults are still gonna learn.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
But I have two teenage kids, so I want to
know you. Yes, I am. And then we'll close out
with some gratitude.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Love it love gratitude, all.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Right, First thing, boosting our financial IQ, which you just
throw the joke in now for this one. It matches
the theme why are spiders so smart with money?

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Why are spiders so smart with money? Similar about webs.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
They can find everything on the web. Oh yeah, which
I know.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
One of your tips is to follow, you know, financial experts,
to watch their YouTube videos such as yours, to make
sure that they're popping up in your feed with little
tidbits of information and that all of that type of
stuff will boost our financial IQ. A quote from you
that I found and actually quite loved is most people
overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate

(03:14):
what they.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Can accomplish in a decade.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
And I think that that is huge, especially when it
comes to money and patience, because you're looking over a decade,
but you're like, oh am, I really going to be
able to do that. But then you have all these
lofty goals for the three hundred and sixty five days.
But then we don't want to set those long term
goals because we're just like is that really possible. But
in my experience, if you make the plan and you

(03:39):
stick to it, then five years go by and you're like,
oh wow, well here I am.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well, we live in this microwave culture and we have
to act more like a crockpot if we want to
see success over the long term. It's really hard to
do when everything is instant gratification, twenty four to seven,
access to everything all of the time, and the palm
of our hand. So when it comes to building wealth
or getting out of debt, a year or two or
three or five feels like forever. But that was my journey.

(04:04):
It was hard. You know, if I set a goal
for a year to do anything, I will fall off
the wagon and be like, gosh, this is classic you.
But when it comes to building wealth, it took me
ten years to crawl out of that hole. To create
the right habits, the right discipline, see the investment balance, grow,
get the house paid off. All of these things take time,
but you know what, you're gonna be thirty four or
forty four or fifty four one day, so you might

(04:26):
as well act like it and aim at something.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Something that's daunting to me is paying off the mortgage.
Also because fun fact about me, George is I took
out a heylock out at me.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Uh, I'm not mad at it just hurts. It hurts
my head every time, like a puppy stops wagging its tail.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
I honestly didn't really at the time feel like I
had a choice. I went through a divorce and I
wanted to stay in our house. So when we bought
our house in twenty twenty, it was before like everything exploded.
And then when it came time for discovery and what
we spend on this and that this is the divorce process,
fun stuff for sure. And they came and had the

(05:05):
house appraised and it went up.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like doubled in value.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Amount, Right, So I had to if I wanted to
stay here, he could have stayed here, but we opted.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I guess we could have sold it and split it.
That's probably what.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
I should have. And you called into the show, we
would say, there's only a few things you can do.
Want to sell it, split it. The other is a
cash out, refinance or like what you did, do you
have to somehow pull money out of the house or.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Whatever helped me get out of this, because what I
now know is that I did it at eight percent
and it's killing me. I'm able to do it, it's just
killing you when I really think about it. Sure, and
so I realized at the time I did what I
had to do. I made that decision, but my financial
IQ was not great. So I wish I could go back.
So we can talk offline if you haven't need to.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
We'll do about that one coaching.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
But what is the biggest mistake that we're making when
it comes to our finances and.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
What can we do to avoid that? Increase our IQ?
Just be smart about how we do things.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, there's really two buckets. As I take calls on
The Ramsey Show alongside you know, Dave Ramsey or Rachel Cruz.
The one bucket is people are doing too many things
at once, and they're good, healthy things. They're trying to
pay off debt, they're trying to save, they're trying to invest.
And when you try to do all of these things
at once, you end up doing all of them crappily
because you can only pay off a little bit of
debt if you're also trying to invest in also trying

(06:22):
to save. So the baby steps that we lay out
are very specific. They're in order for a reason. So
you get out of debt, that's the only thing you do.
Then you the only thing you do is save with
the emergency fund. Then you invest and you have the
margin to do that because you don't have any payments.
So you can see how you when you focus on
one thing, you're so much better at it. Yeah, are
you doing all these things?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Well, I just told you I took.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
The blood drave for your face, Like, oh no.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Just so you have a little bit of background if
I was calling in like hey George Amy here, Hey,
so my only debt right now is my mortgage great,
which I just added to because of a helock sure,
and that's my only debt by it.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I also just made an investment.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Ah okay, well this last week, Like you're investing in
the stock market or real estate, or.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
I invested in like a startup business. And then also
I'm doing some stock market stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
I just started very exciting about it.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
And there's an excitement when you invest. And I love
this because when people get out of debt and they
stop paying for the past and instead start building for
the future, it's like the world just opened up. And
that's what I love about this plan. Is you get
the debt out of your life and you free up
all those payments. I mean, if you just add it
up in your head what the mortgage and heelock was
or is, and you go, if I could invest that

(07:38):
every month instead, how much wealth could I give? What
kind of legacy could I leave? How much more free
could I be? That gets really exciting, So you would
tell me what I say. Like, usually, what what you
would say is if the heelock is more than half
of your annual income, it can go into baby step six,
which is you're investing and you're working off paying off

(07:58):
the house. Okay, But if it's less less than half
the annual income, we would put it in babystep two,
which is your kind of consumer debt. So we would say, pause,
you're investing, attack that then continue.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, all right, I feel either way.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
You're doing great. I want to just assure you, especially
people who have been through some stuff, like they call
into the show, there's different levels of empathy I have.
You know, some people are as a knucklehead eighteen year
old kid who thinks he knows everything and wants to argue,
and then there's people who they're going through like really
extenuating life circumstances. There's a divorce, there's a health issue,

(08:30):
and so we talk about gazelle intensity on the show
a lot. Some people just need to just get up
and crawl the next day, and that's okay if you're
in survival mode. It's okay to have that season where
you're doing your best.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, at the time of my divorce, I didn't even
know how to log into my bank account because he
handled all the finances. So talk about baby steps and
trying not to be a microwave, be more of a
crock pot.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's like, yeah, I'm one bite at a time.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
You've got like a degree now, probably in the last year,
just learning all of this, not for yourself.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, I'm open to learning, and I want to learn more,
but like it was so foreign to me, and so
I just wanted him to handle everything. That when I
would have to discuss it in the legal meetings or
when I had to start taking it over, like I
would feel it in my throat, like I would start
to just itch and then my throat would feel like
I was going to cry, and then I would start
to cry.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
But it was just so.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Overwhelming, and so that's why I have grace for certain
decisions that I made last year when I didn't know
what I didn't know. So that would be my encouragement
to anybody else that's going through anything like no fin
actual at the moment is just if you didn't know
where you didn't know, but then face it head on.
And now I'm open to like, Okay, maybe I need
to pivot away from this and figure out a new plan,
but we'll figure out that later. Because what I really

(09:43):
want to ask you is should I be investing in
gold from Costco?

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Ooh, okay, if you know me, you know I love Costco.
They call me the Kirkland Cowboy. Okay, no one actually
calls me that, but I feel like the more I
say it, maybe I can.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Like manifest probably with a K.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Obviously, there we go. And so I saw the goal
at Costco and I thought it was really funny, and
I've seen some people buy it, and then I saw
that the price they were buying it at was not
even worth what gold is worth right now. And so
we always tell people, you know, number one investing things.
You understand now, gold has been around forever, but the
return on gold as an investment is not there. If

(10:17):
you look at the stock market, like you mentioned, well,
the average return of the S and P five hundred,
just the five hundred largest companies in the US, it's
been about ten to twelve percent over the last multiple decades.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Whereas gold, it's not your opinion, by the way, that's data.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
That's just data. I wish I could just have an
opinion about these numbers. That's just what the market has
done in the past.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
I saw you post about that. Yes, she really quoting you.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
That's amazing, thank you. And that's why I did a
video about gold and looking in the returns and it
was like five percent. That's not bad. But I get
five percent right now in my in my savings account,
and I can actually use that money to go buy stuff.
So one of the problems with gold is that you
have to go turn around and turn that gold into
money in order to use it. So what some people

(11:01):
say is that, well, yourge does not investment, it's a
hedge against inflation. But I'm like, yeah, but you still
need to then go turn that into money at some point.
I can't trade gold for fuel and AMMO in the apocalypse.
You know, people want fuel and AMMO in the apocalypse,
not gold, and so there's really no utility for it.
And it's one of the reasons why I say, if
you want to buy it just to buy it for fun,

(11:22):
that's fine, but don't count on that for investing or
a retirement plan.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Okay, so high financial IQ.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
I would buy it as a flex if I were
you like to be like, oh, look at my goal. Yeah,
I would like put it on display at the house
and be like, it's my little bar with my one
ounce of gold from Costco.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, because they're also selling silver coins. Yes, And that
was a whole big thing. And then I saw an
article literally this morning is about handbags and that investing
in like a Birken bag.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Oh no, don't tell my wife, she's listening, going see
I told you that, Louis, it would be an investment.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Everything was like, you know, from Chanel to you know,
Urmes or whatever, that when you buy the bag, it
actually is something that goes up in value after you've
bought it instead of down like a lot of other things.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
But then you like to keep it in a closet
and never use it or look at it. That's kind
of the problem, right, must be untouched that's the goal used. Okay,
nobody wants your bag that's got stains and rips and
tears on it. Okay, so that's another problem. The other
thing is you then have to go sell that bag
to a retailer who's going to then sell for a profit.
It's kind of like reselling a car to the dealer. Well,

(12:29):
they're not going to give you top dollar because they
have to make money off of it too. So the
chances that you're going to make money by investing in
handbags is slim to none.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
What about impulse buying? What's your rule on that? Say
I want something, how long do I need to wait
till I purchase it?

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, the bigger the item, the more zero is on
the end, the longer you should wait. That's just common sense.
But I think even waiting twenty four hours does something
de psychologically. If you can just leave it in the
cart and just wake up the next day, usually they're like,
I don't need that. The problem is most of these
things happen. It's like eleven o'clock and you're in bed,
kind of like doom scrolling, and you just it's the

(13:05):
emotional therapy of just clicking adding to cart buying. Then
you end up getting it and you tell yourself, well,
I'll probably return it. It's fine. Then you missed the
return window and they're like, well, I guess I'll just
keep it or good will it, you know, and you
go through these cycles in life, and so generally the
impulse buys are never fulfilling because for the same reasons
that it was impulsive, it was a fleeting moment, and
as soon as you get it, it sits in the

(13:26):
closet with tag still on it. Do you have any
clothes with a tag still on it?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I kind of like to wear things right when I
get on.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
You you actually use them. That's good.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
I get excited. I'm like, ooh, why can't wait to
worry it's a new toy? Yeah, sure that I got
which this year.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
I haven't been buying any new Was that a goal?

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:43):
It was my goal. Do you know Gracy Muggler, Steve
and Gracie. Ye you would know them.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah. I'm not like friends with them. They don't call
me to hang out, but I'm I'm a big fan.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
So it's a dinner with Thurn and we were talking
about just making it through the month of January without
buying any new clothes, and I was.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Like, you know what, I think I'm gonna go the
whole year.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
But what I'll do with myself is because I'm sure
there's gonna be something that I want, is all sell
things on Poshmark and if I have you know, a
dollar amount that comes in, then I can start purchasing
new things.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
But I mean, it's.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Safer all and I feel really, I feel like I've
probably saved so much money even though we're only four
months into the year, just because I haven't been doing
this frivolous like oh maybe this will make me feel better.
I'll buy this quick dopamine hit for this shirt that
I probably will end up regretting and like why did
I buy this? It's helped me simplify my closet too,
because I've been pulling out things to sell and then

(14:33):
not necessarily replacing it. That's huge and so it's I
can see more.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, and my wife did that. She uses a cy
called thread up. I don't know if you've heard of it,
where you pack up a bunch of old clothes in
a box. They send you the box, the shipping label,
and then they send you the check after they later
sell it.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Sow an online consignment pretty much.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
You just send everything to them and they'll this is
not an ad, although hit me up and then you too,
so like she'll sign in like, oh my gosh, I
have two hundred thre forty dollars from all that stuff
I sent back. Okay, and it's probably thousands of dollars
of clothes, you know, like from the retail purchase that
she made. But it still makes her feel better versus
good willing it. And they if they don't use it,
they'll end up good willing it anyways, and you know

(15:13):
donating it. Yeah, but I love the mentality. We have
so much stuff in the closet that just sits there,
and it's not an inspiring closet, especially for the women
out there and for the guys who are more fashionable.
I see you, Tray Kennedy.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
So you know, we love Trey.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
It helps.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
So how is Amazon impacting our wallets? And Amazon poor
thing kind of gets the bad rap, but they're kind
of that they've given us that instant gratification, not four thing.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Jeff Besis is doing just fine.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
But we want it, we order it. It arrives. So
when it comes to the thinking period. Like you said,
it's like, well, if they have this buy now button,
it's like I wish you could install some app that
would you know, overlay on your Amazon orders and be
like buy now and then to be like you're broke
or amy, you know, you know you have to wait

(16:11):
twenty four hours if you want to buy this. Like
it's almost like on Instagram you can set boundaries.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yes, like time limits and all kinds of things.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah, like we should be able to go in and
filter limits. It'd be like the George button, like by now.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
I pop up and I'm like hold on. People would
hate me so much, but that would be fun. If
I could make a little plugin that could slow you down.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Should Well I just didn't know how much of stuff
like that killing our wallets.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, I do that forcefully by adding friction back in,
because the problem is these companies have removed all the friction.
I mean, Apple's tagline for their buy now pay later
is you know, cashless, made effortless with Apple pay, and
so they want it to be so effortless that you
can just click and it's there, don't make me enter
payment information. So what I've done is I take my
debit card info out, so I have to enter it manually.

(16:57):
If I really want that thing, I got to go
enter this and you know, sixteen digits in the security code.
And that's one way that I can stop myself from
making an impulsive purchase. I've created a smart spender framework
that's really just five questions to ask yourself before making
any purchase, big or small, and I found that it's
really helped me to slow down, kind of like therapy.
They give you these tools and questions to ask. This

(17:18):
really helps with spending. If you want me to lay it.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Out, So what are they tell me the question?

Speaker 1 (17:21):
It spells out smart because I love a good acrostic.
So the S is for self awareness. So this is
what you just ask. Is this going to add value
to my life? Really gonna add value? What's the utility
for this? And if you say the salid chopper, yes, yeah,
see that's a good one. So let's go. Let's use
that as the analogy. So S is for self awareness?
Will this add value to my life? You say yes?

(17:42):
For the salad chopper, the M is for motive. Am
I buying this for the right reason?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes, good salad.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
It's a good seat. I'm going to get meal prep more.
It'll save me money in the long run. I'll eat
more salads, I'll eat healthier.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Heys At chopped.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
The salad's nineteen dollars unbelievable and you're like, wait, I
saw them. Do I could do that at home if
I had the chopper.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
I actually haven't gone there in quite a bit because
last time I checked out, You're exactly right, it was
eighteen dollars and like seventy six cents, and I thought,
what this is robbery?

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Exactly, But keep going. Anyways, I've sold motive. Salad chopper
is a great one. Sometimes the motive may be, you know,
boundary issues, or you were pressured from friends and oh
my gosh, Amy just come out with us, and you
know it's going to be one hundred dollars night, and
you're trying to stay on a budget, get out of debt,
whatever the goal is. So sometimes the motive is not right.
It's retail therapy. It's emotion. We're sad, whatever we want

(18:32):
to celebrate, and so once we say yes to that,
buying it for the right reason, you move on to
the A for affordability. This is the big one is
this in the budget? Can I pay cash right now
in full for this item? If we answered that correctly,
America would be zero dollars in debt. That's crazy. So
if you can say yes, it's in the budget, I
can afford this in full today, and you're gonna pay

(18:54):
cash for it or pay with a debit card, then
you can move on to the R for research. Is
this the best option retailer and price? This is the
one most people skip over out of impulse because when
you just search salad chopper on Amazon, you're probably finding
the first one, or you're going to Target or wherever
and just buying the first one you see. Well, I
think it's wise to take a few minutes and just
do some research and go, hey, is this cheaper at

(19:15):
another retailer. You can use Google shopping for this. You
can just find generic versions of that same product and
check reviews and vet it and then make your purchase.
And usually you end up saving money and doing it
with more intentionality and less impulse. And then finally, the
tea is for time timing. Is now the time to
buy it? Well? For you, probably yes, it's time for

(19:36):
the salad chopper because I'm done wasting money. But for
some people, if it's a bigger purchase, they may want
to pause. Maybe it's six months down the line, maybe
there's priorities that need to come first before they make
that purchase. And when you can say yes to all
five of those, it is a heck yes. But when
it's a no, all it means is it's not now.
We got to adjust our time, our patients, our budget,

(19:57):
our motive until we can say yes to all five.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
So since we're talking about Amazon and you mentioned debit
card and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
I have a credit card. I'm not a no judgment, okay,
so if you want to cut one.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Up in front of me, I'm not gonna be mad either.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, I have the uh I get Amazon Prime Points
or something the prime. So when I'm checking out on Amazon,
it says you want to use your points, and I
use my points, but I pay my credit card off
every month. Well so then it's like I'm getting stuff
for free.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
So what that is?

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Some girl math right there, But it's true.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
It's fact. I could see how it could open.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
It's maybe it's a gate to trouble if I don't
pay it off because of the interest.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
However, if I'm paying it off.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
My girl math is very correct in that there is
multiple times where I'm buying something from Amazon and I
don't pay anything.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
And you're deeming the points to get it. Yes, yes,
that part is true. The crazy part is as I
dug into credit cards for my book, Breaking Free from Broke,
I did a whole chapter on credit card cards because
I really wanted to unpack what's going on behind the scenes,
like what are these companies doing, what are all the
objections that I've heard? What's behind it? And there was
eight different reasons. So one of them, you would be

(21:12):
what we call the perfect spender. I pay my card
off in full every month and I never pay a
diamond interest. And then the rewards redeemer that would probably
be your second, your tertiar, your I'm a double, You're
a double. I would say number two is rewards redeemer.
You're like, well, I get my rewards and I feel
like I'm winning, So like, why wouldn't I Why would
I stop playing this game? And so what I found
was that there's a really cool study from MIT. They

(21:34):
used fMRI technology. They studied the brain when people swipe
that credit card. They found that not only does it
sort of hit the brakes on your brain, stopping you
from spending, but also hits the accelerator on spending. So
it's sort of like both coming at you once, and
it causes you to spend so much more than if
it was your own hard earned money from your bank account,

(21:55):
and especially with hard cold cash. And so what they
found was that people just tend to spend more on
the credit card. And what they find is the rewards.
It's like putting cheese for the little rat at the
end of the maze and they get to the cheese
and they think I'm winning. And what you don't realize
is that you're part of this system. You're part of
the maize, and that you spend, you know, five thousand
dollars to get two hundred dollars in redeemable points. And

(22:19):
so that's the part where it's like the girl math
comes into play, like, well, you didn't get it for free.
You've spent five thousand dollars on Amazon and eventually they
gave you a little bone. You know. That's kind of
the idea behind it.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Be fair. I'm sure there's some men that have thought
this as well.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Oh this is man math too, and they just do
it different items, and you know, they justify it in
their own man ways. You know, trucks, tools, Amazon, who knows.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
But yeah, I mean, girl math, that worked for me
a lot.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Girl math is more entertaining to me in my marriage.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
I agree. It's just what it's called.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
But it's like, you're not going to buy something, but
because it's fifty percent off, you buy it.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
And you're like, well, I just saved.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
My wife does this girl math. She had to buy
all these throw pillows because you don't know which throw
pillow is going to be the one. So she'll buy
like five hundred dollars worth of throw pillows and I'm like,
this is it's not in the budget. And she goes, well,
I'm going to return it most of it, And so
she ends up returning it and then she comes home
and says, I made us four hundred dollars today. I'm
like how, She's like, oh, I returned all that that
target stuff. I'm like, you didn't make four hundred, you

(23:13):
just spent one hundred. Net.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Well, yeah, I see how it feels.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Good even getting that money back for a return.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, but she was never going to keep all of
the pillows.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Don't encourage her. But this is not helping my case.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
What about automating our finances, Like when it comes to
taking care of our finances or upping our financial IQ, like,
why would someone want to do that?

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well, there's some things that just make life easier where
you're not missing bills because you have them on auto
pay for example, So your utilities is a good one
to put on auto pay. And then as far as automating,
I've been investing fifteen percent into my four O one
K since the day I've been out of debt with
my emergency fund. That's something I automate. I don't have
to think about it. I don't have to go, oh gosh,
I forgot to invest this month. It's just set to

(23:58):
automatically contribute out of each pay check.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So but do you still pay attention? Like this is
what I worry about.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
And Rocket Money actually is something that helped me with
this was when I started using that right after my divorce.
It was one thing where it was helping me sink
everything up in there so I could see where everything
was and I scout Yeah, but I was like, why
do I have multiple subscriptions to this? And like, why
do I have two Max accounts and like three Netflix?

(24:24):
Oh yeah, but just through like something on my phone
one time because of automation. And I think sometimes when
we're not paying attention, which I guess that's on me
for getting a little lazy with it, because quite honestly,
I was never paying attention.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
That was I think most of us have one, at
least one subscription. We forgot about that we're paying for.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
It, right, And then when I saw that, I thought, well,
but if I was looking at this as an actual
bill coming in, I mean, I'm I'm an auto draft
person too, how do we still pay attention? Like we
still have to have some skin in the game. You
can't automate everything and then check.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Out yes, And that's where a budget is so helpful.
And I use an apple that we developed called every Dollar,
and what I love about it is your transactions come
right in. It connects to your bank and so it
lets you know and you're like, wait, I didn't know
I was paying for that, and then you go into
the account and cancel it. But that's part of it
is you can automate, but you still need to be
very aware of where each dollar is going. And people
think this is going to take hours. This is not.

(25:17):
I mean, this is like you're in line waiting for
coffee and I'm just swiping the transaction in from that
day into the right category. So it doesn't take long,
but it really gives me. It puts me in the
driver's seat, and it gives me a lot of confidence
about where I'm going with my money. But then there's
no excuse that it's on you if you didn't hit
your money goal of that month. You're like, yep, I
was a little sloppy on the budget, didn't track that correctly.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
So you have everything budgeted out, like do you know
every month what you're going to spend on food?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
And you know an air air?

Speaker 1 (25:45):
You know, water and air is a tough one.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Now.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
A lot of bills are variable, like all the ones
you mentioned, they change every month. And so what I
do is I, you know, I have a guesstimate. You
kind of know what your water bill is going to
be on a given month.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I was talking about bottled water, Oh.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Bottled water, Yes, cause I'm going to call and it's
like three dollars and eighty six cents for their thirty
pack or whatever. So that one is easy, but when
it comes to variable bills, that's the tough one. People go, well,
I can't budget because my bills are variable, and you
need to set a guesstimate goal and then you can
just adjust it as the month goes on. So if
the water bill's ten dollars more or your grocery bills

(26:19):
a little bit more, you can adjust, and so it's flexible.
But the goal here is that you stick to what
you said you were going to spend. And especially for
eating out, that's a big one for people door dashing
and instacarting. It can add up really quickly, and I
guarantee you people spend close to double what they think
they do if they actually go add up what they spend.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
You know, my girl math on that with instagart, especially
if I have it delivered or door dash.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
That's providing jobs for people.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Your support.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
That's their size, Like that could be their primary job,
it could be their side hustle out there earning money,
and I am giving them that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
With your generosity to support them. That's actually a pretty
That's probably the best defense I've.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Heard because it's thoughtful, it's very.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Thoughtful, and it's about them like you're making them the hero.
You know, you're the guide. Yeah, so that one's justifiable
if it's in the budget. So again, like we have Instacart,
I use it sparingly when I need to. But if
I can save, you know, the extra fees a tack
on all the food's a little more expensive, and I'm like,
I'll just go to Trader Joe's and I won't do
it myself. That's what I did this weekend.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Did you read Donald Miller's Here on a Mission?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yes, yeah, big Sam hero guy here.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
I know.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, I was trying to see that was my way
of figuring out. Yeah, if you're a Don Miller.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Fan, definitely.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
You know, he gave us a fabulous question here on
the podcast when he was on and we've been saying
it ever since, and it's when life throws things at you,
it's just asking yourself, what does this make possible?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (27:50):
And the keybord what being not like because you could
ask yourself, Okay, well why did this happen?

Speaker 2 (27:54):
And I want to figure it out.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
The keyword what is a game changer because it's you're
just you're not spending time on the while and it
also doesn't ignore what happened. Yes, you can still acknowledge well,
this sucked. I'm not just dismissing that and trying to
be all positive, but I'm going to go ahead and
move on and look at what is now possible because
of it.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
And I have a very similar belief in the book
that I lay out and I say, it's not all
your fault, but it's your responsibility, because I think when
it comes to money, so many of us have baggage
and mistakes and we didn't learn growing up, and we
saw how our parents handled money, and so it's easy
to just go, well, it's everyone else's fault. It's the
student loan company, the credit card company, my parents, my spouse.

(28:36):
But at the end of the day, I put that
all in parentheses to go. It's not all Amy's fault,
but it's her responsibility to do it's next. And that's
not a fun but that's part of being an adult
is go, you know, not by my hand, but it's
in my lap. What am I going to do next?
And for a lot of people's financial problems, they're left
with picking up the pieces. And that's where this plan
is so powerful. To go, you have more control than

(28:58):
you think over your money. We don't control a lot
of things, but the way I spend my money, that
is something I'm very much in control of well.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
And I just turned forty three, and so during the
time my divorce, was forty two and suddenly taking responsibility
of my finances and had so much to learn, and
I did spend some time in woe is Me mode?

Speaker 1 (29:19):
There, I thought, grief mode, you got, I'm.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
I'm too late, like when it comes to investments or
even automating things and looking at where my four oh
one k is and sometimes you just feel like I'm
in my forties now, Like why I feel like I'm
starting over in some parts where half of my life
we just we both had to split everything.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Like we didn't plan for divorce.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
It was never an option for us that thought we'd
be married forever, and so we were building towards this
life together and then suddenly all of that changes and
you kind of feel like it's just a little too late.
And so whether it's a divorce or just people are
hearing this now and they haven't started anything, but they
have that mentality of like it's too late.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
What would you say to.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Them, Well, it reminds me of the old adage. The
best time to plant the tree was thirty years ago.
The next best time is today, and so we don't
want to wait another thirty years. You've got to start
creating those habits. And I've heard from people who have
read my book and they're in their fifties, and they go,
thank you for helping me believe that it's not too
late for me. Thank you for giving me hope. Because
we wish we learned the stuff at seventeen years old

(30:24):
and just did everything perfectly. But only psychopaths would have
done that, you know. Or they learn from their parents
and they learn. But a lot of people are in
their forties fifties and they call the show and they go,
what do I do? I don't have anything in retirement,
but I have a lot of hope that if you
can still fog up a mirror, you can still build wealthy.
It may be a different picture than what you imagined.
It may not be private islands, but if you can

(30:45):
get out of debt, get an emergency fund, begin investing.
Even over ten fifteen years of investing consistently, you can
build a pretty solid neest eg especially when you think
about the fact that most people in that age they're
making more than they ever have. So your income is
higher than and that's ever been. You've had time to
sort of figure out what your spending habits are. You
know yourself pretty well, you're established in your career. You know.

(31:07):
In your twenties, you're just you have no clue what's
going on. In your thirties, you start to sort of
get a handle on it. In your forties, life may
throw you a curveball and you reset, but you're much
more mature than you were twenty years ago. Even when
it comes to money, hopefully would you say that.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Oh, absolutely okay.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
But even when it comes to money, it was thrown
at me. I had no choice. I guess I could
have just stayed where I was and not paid attention,
and then I'd probably end up in a lot of trouble.
But I feel like, as a mom with your kids,
are responsible working adult.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
I'm like, I should know how to log into my
bank account. This is a problem.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
But I got married in my early twenties and money
was such a the thing in my house. My dad
went bankrupt a few times, my parents got divorced.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I'm pretty sure because of partially. Partially.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, there was just like a lot of stress there.
And my dad had a lot of highs and he
had a lot of lows. And so for me, I
just opted to ignore money because it felt like if
you paid too much attention to it, the higher the low,
then it's.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Like it's bad. So I just opted to be like
la la lah.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Don't need to eat in check. Like there were times,
I mean, I would bounce checks. Kids these days probably
don't even know what. You want to know something really
bad that I did. This is bad, bad, bad, bad bad.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Thank you for admitting it on on your podcast Bad Okay.
Tell me.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
You want to know something really bad that I did.
This is bad, bad, bad, bad bad.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Thank you for admitting it on on your podcast bad Okay.
Tell me how old was I?

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Probably twenty?

Speaker 3 (32:45):
I was gonna overdraft, like, written a check I did
not have the money.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Explained the bouncing of the check is you write the check,
you know you're not good for that money you write
it anyways, Yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
I was like, well, what's one way for me to
figure it out? And then I was going to ask
my mom, like, hey, can I borrow this money? But
then she like wasn't home, and also I didn't want
to ask her because I didn't want her to get
frustrated me as she should, because I was spending money
I didn't have, and I mean I needed like seventy
five dollars.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Still it was going to bounce.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
So I went into her cabinet at home, and I
got out her check book and I forged her her signature.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I wrote myself one hundred dollars check, thinking she won't notice.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
But my mom meticulously balanced her check book. But also
this is back in the day when you could see
every check that went through, like this is just what
you did, especially if you were a responsible adult, which
my mom was.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
And I just oftened not to say anything. But I
cashed that check.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
So you went to the bank, I wrote the check
forged with her signature, right, and they put the money.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Is there my solution to my problem.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Thinking, well, let's you'll find out later on right.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
But that's how the fear I had around money, because
like I could have just waited talk to herm and
like I messed up. I made a mistake, but I
was just at that time I didn't have the guts
and I just was like, well, I guess I'm going
to steal from her now.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Then it escalated and I thought.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Feelings has carried with you a little bit.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Oh, it's one of the worst things. Like I'm not
proud of myself at all. Because then, of course she
noticed in a couple of days when the check cleared,
and then I got a phone call and then I
was like, yes, I stole from you that That was
my solution in that moment. But kids the days don't
have to deal with that type of problem. Nobody's writing there.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
That would be like I got on my mom's phone
and venmoed myself money exactly. That's the equivalent.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
That's the equivalent. That's what I did. If my one
of my kids did that to.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
You right now, it would not end well, it would not.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
But that's what I did. I forged my mom's signature
and I cashed a check. So anyway, I just never
really paid much attention to money. Didn't like it, yeah,
because I didn't want to. I just ignored it. Well,
that can only take you so far. So when I
got married and my husband he was at the time,
he was in the Air Force and he was deploying
a lot, and he thought, yes, I a partner, This
is going to be amazing, Like she can help with things.
Because I go sixty days about opening mail and we

(35:05):
get married and I'm like, oh no, no, oh don't
I don't open mail and look at bills like don't.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Be crest not in my jurisdiction.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
No, because it gave me such like ugh, like that's why,
you know, I'm surprised. I even knew that I was
going to bounce a check, you know, like I was
that dialed in for some reason regarding that. So then
the whole marriage, I just didn't do it. And so
now that's what I have to face in my forties.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Now you have to open every piece.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
So how old were you when you were broke?

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I was twenty three, and then it.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Took you by thirty three you were had a million.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Y Yeah, so it took me eighteen months to get
out of the debt, the forty grand in debt, student loans,
credit card debt. Got out of that, got my emergency
fund in place, began investing, met my wife at Ramsey Solutions,
and so we got married in twenty eighteen, and she
was debt free. She was smarter than me, better, looking,
better with money home run. So when we bought our
first home together, we got a reasonable, modest home, put

(35:57):
a big down payment, and it paid it off very aggressively.
We thought how cool it'd be in our early thirties
to have that kind of options. And so my wife, actually,
this week, as we're recording this, is going to stay
at home with our baby. We have a seven month
old girl, and that was something I always wanted her
to be able to choose without the financial burden of wondering, well,
how are we going to afford this? So it's one

(36:18):
of the main reasons that we were so aggressive with
our money goals to have these kinds of options, so
that when it came time to this, it was just
an emotional decision for her, not a financial one.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
What are your thoughts on couples that don't share bank
accounts don't talk about things Because Lunchbox on the Bobby
Bone Show, he's been married for years and his wife
has no idea what he makes, oh boy, and they
do not share bank accounts.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
That might be a separate coaching session. But we have
this very controversial take that if you're married and you
join and you become one, then you become one in
every way, shape and form, and that includes the bank accounts.
And what I've seen lately from culture and articles and
headlines and the talking heads out there is that you
need to maintain your financial identity and independence and you

(36:58):
don't want to combine bank accounts. It's very dangerous. And
what I found in real life is that the couples
that don't talk about money and that don't combine finances
are the ones that end up having worse marriages. They're
not on the same page, they're not communicating, there's no transparency,
there's no accountability, and what happens is this thing called
financial and fidelity where I don't know what the other
person is doing and oh my gosh, I didn't know

(37:20):
you had that much money in your fun money account.
That's not fair. You've been saving all of yours and
I need the money for this. And then it becomes
like roommates. And so I've just found the best marriages,
the ones that I look up to. They are one
in every way, and that includes their money, and they
build wealth faster. And so I don't buy this whole
financial independence deal, because what we do is We have
one budget, one bank account, and my wife has her

(37:41):
fun money category. I have my fun money and I
don't judge her. She spends it however she wants.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Is there a percentage that should be fun money?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, I think the woman should get more because I'm
a gentleman, But there's no hard percentage because it looks
different for everyone. If you're in debt, you want to
limit it to as little as possible. You're like, no
fun pretty much. You want to limit the fund because
right now we have to make some sacrifices. But as
you get out of debt, you get the emergency fund,
you begin investing. Then you can up it and it's
up to you. Now, I wouldn't go crazy. You don't

(38:10):
want to derail other financial goals. But you know, a
few hundred bucks is normal. That's kind of the average
for people if they're able to spend one hundred bucks
per person or two hundred dollars per person. Some people
go way higher than that if they have the income
to support it. And that's totally fine. And then there's
no need for this whole like financial infidelity and secrecy,
and well, it's my business what I do with my money.

(38:32):
There's full accountability and transparency.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
What's the craziest story you've ever gotten or phone call
you've ever received when it comes to like couples and
money and craziness, I mean, no true crime.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
No murders in the building so far. One lady called
in recently and she was pregnant and didn't tell her husband,
but told us on air, and she was scared to
tell him, was going to wait to tell him, and
we're like, why are you telling America but not your
own husband. There's just a weird communication piece there. Another
woman called in and was scared to tell her husband

(39:07):
about She was in six figures of consumer debt and
her husband had no idea and she was scared to
ask him for help because of all the shame and
guilt and fear.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
So when you say consumer debt, it's like shopping like.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
One hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt, that kind
of thing. And she was just like, well, I'll just
die with it. I'm not going to bring him into it,
Like you have to tell him, you have to bring
this in because number one, she was trying to do
this all on her income and she had the smaller
of the two incomes, so she's trying to pay off
one hundred thousand making fifty and we were like, this
is not a good formula, Like you have to get

(39:39):
him involved. You guys have to tackle this together, and
you've got to face the music. So those are always
scary ones when there's that level of infidelity on the
financial side, and then there's the couples who are have
boundary issues. And then one guy called in recently and
he was an Indian guy in New York and he
wanted to spend half a million dollars on his wedding.

(40:00):
And I was like, well, who's paying for this? It's
not you, because he made a good salary in New York,
maybe eighty thousand dollars, but not enough to pay for
a five hundred thousand dollars, you know, week long Indian wedding.
And he said, well, I don't want to burden my
parents with it. It was kind of this, like I
want to take this on for myself. And it just
boggled my mind that he was going to probably go

(40:20):
into debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands of
dollars to throw everyone else at party. Yeah, that seems
so those ones just hurt my brain a little bit
to grapple with.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Is there anything worth going into debt over? Oh, my goodness,
for happiness, for joy.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
The one we don't yell at you for is a mortgage.
If you do it with a fifteen year fixed rate mortgage,
and the goal is to pay it off early. So
most people do a thirty year mortgage. That's sort of
the norm, but we want people to have freedom long
before that. I mean, thirty years is a long time,
and so the best thing to do is get a
fifteen year and paid off early. In the current market,
that's really hard to do with as crazy as home

(40:56):
prices have gone, interest rates have gone, But we still
think it's the best way to purchase a home. I mean,
obviously one hundred percent cash is ideal, not realistic for
most of America, But those are the two best ways
to do it. And there's no other debt we believe
is worth it. And that sounds crazy to me. But
whether it's cars, credit cards, student loans, I've never really
seen it be a blessing to people's life. Sometimes it

(41:18):
works out on the other end because they get a
great income and they're able to pay it off. But
I don't think anyone is ever like man, I wish
I could go back into debt. It was so fun.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
We want to talk about the number one wealth killer. Next,
I got a little joke before we get into it.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Oh, well, finally been waiting.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Okay, So why should you not buy anything that comes
with belcrow.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
It sticks because it's a total ripoff?

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Oh dang it. How did I not see that coming?

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, so what's the wealth killer? Like? Is it a
total ripoff or what is it?

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Oh? One hundred percent. So that video specifically on my
YouTube channel was about auto loans and I laying out
the current state of auto loans as we know it,
and they surpassed student loans. So we think about student
loan debt as like a major crisis, and yet auto
loan debt just kept creeping up to where it passed
student loan debt. It was one point five to seven
trillion dollars last time I had checked when I was

(42:18):
writing the book. And one of the reasons is it
turned it was like college tuition. What happened with college
is Sally May showed up and they said, hey, we'll
let you borrow as much money as you want. The
colleges were like, hey, we can raise prices, and they'll
just keep on taking more monopoly money from Sally may Well.
It's almost like the same thing happened with cars. Cars
got more expensive and everyone's just like, well, it's only
going to add another one hundred dollars to my payment.

(42:39):
Might as well buy a fifty thousand dollars car with payments,
And they don't realize how the interest rate works. They
don't realize that car depreciates while they're paying interest on it.
So you buy a car for forty thousand, you end
up paying fifty after interest. The car is now worth twenty.
That's bad. So almost every person that calls the Ramsey
Show is underwater on their car loan, meaning the car

(43:02):
is not worth what they owe on it. They might
owe twenty five thousand, but the car is only worth
fifteen and you can't get rid of the car unless
you find the difference. So that's a real scary place
to be. And it's also the most normalized that. I mean,
everyone you know is like, well, you got a car payment.
It's kind of like, what's your car payment? Everyone knows
you're gonna have one. And when I opted out of that.
It was such a freeing thing to go, Oh, I

(43:24):
can pay cash for a really crappy car, but I'm
gonna upgrade over time with cash. So one of my cars,
this is in twenty seventeen. It was a two thousand
and nine Hot Acivic I bought in twenty seventeen for
six grand, and I drove that until I had the
money to upgrade to the car I wanted. And all
of a sudden, you don't have payments on your back.
You're able to save up for other future goals, and

(43:45):
you're able to fund the five twenty nine for your
kid and put money in the four to one k,
And it's just such a freeing feeling to never never
have a car payment again.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
So what if is a used car?

Speaker 3 (43:55):
I mean, I understand a brand new car and driving
it off the lot, it's like, oh, it's a huge hit,
But like, can you do a payment on a used
car or you just really I mean, what if you'd
like have no car and buying it not an option? Yeah,
like you don't even have the six grand for the
whatever car.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
If you're in that drastical situation, the goal is to
finance as little as possible and nothing if you can. Now,
if you're truly in that situation, which I think is
very few people can afford zero. Okay, you know with
a car, you have income, you may have some debt.
We would tell you, hey, pause on your debt savings,
scrape together three four five thousand dollars and get that
used car. And they're out there. In fact, I just

(44:35):
did a video on I think it was like the
top used cars under five thousand dollars, and they weren't
beautiful cars. But these are you know, Toyotas, Hondas. They're
probably two thousand and fours, two thousand and fives, over
one hundred thousand miles, but they're still running to this day.
Some of these cars had three hundred and forty thousand
miles and they were still running. So when people are like, well,
I can't drive a car with over one hundred thousand

(44:56):
miles that's going to explode, I'm like, that thing's barely
a third of the way through its life. You've got
plenty of time. But the truth is most of us
don't want to drive those cars. We want something flashier
and newer, even if it's used. But I still tell
people pay cash for that used car.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Okay, so save up to you have the cash for
what you want, and it may be what.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
You can get right now. The dream car is out there.
But even now, I drive a twenty thirteen car, and
you know, I waited until we had a paid four
house to even purchase that car. But I found that
cars are just things. They're just toys. They're going to depreciate,
they go down in value. It's fun to drive a
nice car. My wife has the nice car, and even
that's still a used car, and so I'm just I

(45:35):
think cars are just not a great investment.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
What about leasing, Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
That's even ok. Well, the thing with leasing is you're
basically pre paying all of the depreciation upfront. So there's
a reason the dealership's always push for leasing. It's because
they make the most money off of this. You have
to keep the car in pristine condition, keep it under
the mileage, and you're just paying a rental fee to
rent that car. So at the end of three years,
you have nothing to show for it other than to

(46:01):
get another lease because you don't own anything. And so
it's even worse than renting because of all the fees
that are built in and how they make their money upfront,
and so I don't like leases.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
So you refuse to do that.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Ever, I would never lease a car. I would not
wish that my worst enemy.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
What are other things you refuse to do or refuse
to spend money on? That's something else I saw you
do a million.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
Of Like is it about frugal people?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
That was frugal people? Which some of it.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I was like, what, Like the paper towels was the
big one.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
I mean pets.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
I was like, okay, I gotta have my cat. Yeah,
well in my case two French bulldogs.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
But there was other things like bottled water, the latest technology,
a brand new car, a five dollars six dollars coffee,
brand name items when generic is available, dry clean only clothes,
stuff like that was on the list. But what about you, George,
like you yourself, like what do something you refuse to
spend money on?

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Anything that I can do myself that doesn't take a
lot of time. So, for example, something I'd spend money
on is I have somebody mow the lawn because I
don't have.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
I'm kind of shocked you pay to your lawn mood.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, I'm just something I refuse to do. And these
are things that once we got at it, we got
it in a good financial spot. I was happier to
have the luxury of so I understand this is luxury,
you know, having someone come clean the house once a month,
to like scrape down the shower grout over time. I
was like, you know what, this is something as someone
else is better off doing than me. So those are
some small luxuries that I do. The ones that I

(47:22):
refuse or when I know I can do better, I
can get a better deal. If I can go pick
up the pizza and save on the four dollars delivery
fee and the tip for the driver, I will go
pick up the pizza myself.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
But when you're tipping the driver, you're providing.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
I'm supporting small. I'm supporting a guy trying to get
out exactly you sound. You sound just like my wife.
She's like, just get the pizza delivered.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
I just wear a minute ago you just said she's
smarter than you.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
She is, and that's I listened to her, and so
you know what, she wins, and we get the pizza
delivered if we have people over. But if it's like
one pizza, I refuse to pay the fee. So there's
things I'm very frugal, and there's things that I would
only buy used that aren't worth buying new, not like
I don't buy a lot of use clothing. So that's
one I guess I have my limits in that regard.

(48:07):
But I think the bigger the ticket the item, the
more research I'm going to do, and the more willing
I am to buy something used.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
What about loaning money to family.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Or friendsof yeah, that one's scary. I would gift it,
but I think loaning money rarely ends well, and it
usually ends with a resentment for the person that loaned
it because it gets awkward. The person you lent the
money to now kind of doesn't talk to you because
they feel this overwhelming kind of guilt every time they
interact with you that they still owe you money.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
So if there's no expectation to get it back, then
there's no resentment.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Exactly why it's a gift.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
So if it's like, hey, you know what, I don't
loan money, but if you need it, I'm just going
to give this to you, pay it forward or you know,
pay me back if you're ever able to. But then
it kind of releases you from it that's the bigger thing.
But I've just found that when family borrows money, it
just makes Thanksgiving dinner awkward. It's rarely paid back on time.
It just causes is a rift in the relationship. And

(49:01):
I don't think any relationship that's important to you is
worth that.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
What if it's you know, just you know, a friend
that's asking for like one hundred bucks here and hey,
just spot me, I'll pay you back, Like do we?

Speaker 1 (49:11):
I mean, I've done the you know, if we're at
dinner or something and my friend covers the bill and
I'll be like, hey, just send me a Venmo request.
That's fine. I don't know if they don't. And if
they don't, I will hit the remind button on Venmo
and I will call them out. Yes I'm a reminder
on Venmo. But again, I.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Don't like the time you're like, oh, I don't want to.
I'll just let it go, Like I'll just let it go.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
But then it's sort of that thing a form me
wants shame on you, but for me twice shame on you.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Well, then people start taking advantage of you, and then
you feel resentful, and so it's I just don't think
it's good for either party. But there are situations where
it's just like, hey, spot me, I'll get you back.
You know, they're good for the money. It's not it's
not going to be an awkward situation.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
I feel like something that my seventeen year old daughter does, well,
she'll be seventeen in a couple of weeks, but she's like, hey, mom,
can you pay for this?

Speaker 2 (49:52):
I'll pay you back.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Does she actually pay you back?

Speaker 2 (49:54):
She really does. Or she'll work it off.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Like house chores, or.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Yeah, if I need something, I'll be like okay. Or
if I need her to help me with her brother
and take him somewhere. I mean, sure, she's pretty good
about helping out with that anyways, but I mean if
it's above and beyond of like, hey, I really you
need to do this for me because it helps me
help your brother because it's something I would normally.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Do but maybe I can't.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Or yeah, she'll do things around the house in addition
to what her chores already are, and she'll help with
she'll kind of be the tutor for our son, Like
if there's a homework and I'll be like, well, you
wanted me to order those little cute hair clippy thing.
He's from Amazon's so he's got science homework and that'll be.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Great, wonderful. So it's a bartering so so sort.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Of but I feel like we've gotten into a pattern
where she's getting it and then having to pay it
off instead of earning it. And I do think that's
correct me if I'm wrong, but there's got to be
some psychology there to where if she were actually.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Earn the money first and like.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Have the money and have to spend the money instead
of it's sort of that credit that seems like I'm
her credit card.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yeah. Well, and it kind of reminds me of the
second wealth killer, which I talked about recently, which is
by now, pay later. You get it right now, but
then you can pay for it later, so you get
all the benefits and the pain is reduced because it's
sort of a we'll worry about that later. And that's
sort of what's happening with your daughter. She's getting it now,
I'll work it off later versus having a work for it.

(51:18):
You just look at it differently psychologically.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Well, so what advice do you have for me?

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Being that I have a seventeen year old and an
almost fourteen year old O in that range where I
want them to learn about money, like I want to
set them up for success, but I don't know that
I'm doing the best at that.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Well, we have a great curriculum that's in forty eight
percent of high schools now. It's called Foundations and Personal Finance.
And I'm in at Rachel cruz As and you've had
on this show, and what we wanted to do is
kind of be the preventative medicine and be the guides
for these students so that it wasn't all in the
parents to have to teach them all the right ways
to handle money. So the curriculum is a great tool
that is in high schools. It's even for homeschool, so

(51:58):
you can just go to Ramsey Education Calm and get
it for yourself and show it to the kids, and
it's really fun. Shows them all about budgeting and investing
and building wealth because that's what they want. They're thinking
about their futures now at fourteen and seventeen, and they're
thinking about the lives they want to live and the
places they want to live, the careers they want to have,
the stuff they want to have, and so I think
at that stage, it's your job to sort of go

(52:20):
into coach mode and to sort of start to step
out of being a parent, because they're almost out of
your purview now, you know, at eighteen years old, it's
sort of like just prayers, you know, thoughts and prayers.
And so the best thing you can do is teach
them that money comes from work. There's three things you
can do with it. Give it, save it, spend it.
We don't buy things that we don't have the money for.

(52:41):
And if you've instilled those kinds of principles, I think
your kids are going to be just fine.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I have to brag on my daughter a little bit.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
So her I mentioned her birthday's coming up, and she
said that for her birthday she wanted to go serve
the homeless community.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Oh my goodness, who did you raise? This is amazing.
I don't know was that you growing up?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
No?

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Where did this come?

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Did our kids? Six years ago?

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (53:02):
So she moved here when she was about eleven, and
she's a caring heart, but she's never said anything like this.
But she's also thinking head.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
She's a good forward and I'm like, wow, is there
am I missing something? And I mean as a mom.
I'm like, very proud, but I'm also like, what's up.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah, like, what's what's behind this?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
What's behind this? But I don't want to think that way.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
I just so I'm eliminating those thoughts and I'm just
gonna live in and I'm gonna set something up with
Steven at Home Street Home And it's a great organization
here in Nashville of her just learning how to best
come alongside what they're doing and serve that community. And
you know, we'll see, we'll see I some like at
the end of it, some big ass comes of like

(53:43):
so how about that?

Speaker 1 (53:45):
But I think it is such a beautiful way to
also fight entitlement and to be more content and have
more gratitude, which you know you talk about so much,
and I think it's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I got into this American culture real quick. I kept thinking, well,
they're gonna come from Haiti, they came from an orphanage,
they have nothing, and my son his birthdays in August
and he's like, so how about that Apple watch?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
You know, it's amazing how quickly it can turn. Yeah,
and so and Rachel's talked about that of how do
they want to ruin. My kids, Like, they have much
better lives than I did growing up, and we're not
gonna try to like hide that from them. But how
do we also raise them in a way that shows
them that nothing is just gonna come to them? Like
they have the blessing of being raised by us in

(54:25):
this house with great values, And I think part of
that is putting them in environments where they realize, oh, wow,
this is what the real world is like. Once I leave,
you know, mom's house, I got to actually work. I
can't just be supported by Mom the rest of my life.
And I think that that's a really powerful place when
they get their first job. So is your daughter working
at all?

Speaker 3 (54:44):
It's just working awesommer long. She's gonna be a camp
counselor for Barefoot. Some of the camps are local and
then summer Honesty, so she'll be overnight some camps and
then some she'll be just going down to different churches
for eight hours a day. But she signed up for
pretty much every camp they have this summer. She's gonna
be working it.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
That's amazing. And so that's paid.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Working all summer it's paid.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
And so when she gets that paycheck, that's a different
feeling when you've worked for two or three weeks or
a month and you get that paycheck after the fact.
You treat that paycheck differently than if it was allowance
from mom.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
So when it comes to the give part as a
parent with her earning this summer, is there a certain
percentage that I encourage or do I let her decide
that on her own?

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Or because I feel like my.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Mom was always I mean, it was the standard, like
ten percent, this is what we're going to tie. So
I grew up with that in my head of we
donate ten percent, we donate ten percent, we don'tate ten percent.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Do I just offer that up.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
To her or she figures out a way, or how
do we encourage our kids to give? I mean, I
know that by example is probably the number one way.
But also this is me, your first time really earning
a chunk of money throughout the summer, and I think
she might be like, heck no, I just want to
put this away and save it. So what's something I
can do to help encourage?

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Yeah, there's this thing we notice later on as people
call into the Ramsey Show, they tend to have a
flat tire and so they're really great at saving, but
they're not giving at all, and they have a hard
time spending, or they're all in on spending, but they
have a hard time giving or saving. And so what
we found the healthiest person is the person is well rounded.
Ten percent is a great baseline. If you can encourage that,

(56:21):
that's great, and it's less about the number at that age,
and it's more about the heart behind it. And what
you want to teach them is that giving is the
most fun you can have with money. If they can
learn that early on, they're going to be so generous.
They're going to be what we call philanthropists later in
life when they have a lot of money, because we
found that money just makes you more of whoever you are.
And so it sounds like your daughter is just a sweet, wonderful,

(56:41):
giving person, and that tells me she's probably going to
be a giver later in life too. But to encourage, hey,
what's an organization or mission you're really passionate about. Great,
We're going to give ten percent of the check to that.
How does that feel? And then have her experience it.
The more she can kind of put herself into the
experience versus just going online hitting a button, the more
she's gonna want to give in the future.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Is this part of that Ramsey curriculum that we can get?

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yes, kids, what was the program called again?

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Foundations in Personal Finance?

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Okay, I'll link get in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yes, so that way it's all there. So we do
you talk about generosity there, because I think it's it's
kind of the antidote to a lot of the stuff
we're seeing out there, and it can heal communities. It's
what inspires us, it's what brings us the tears. And
it's fine. Let her spend some money too, and what
would be really cool, maybe she funds a little into
a roth ira and she gets to see the power
of compound ground. Now, yeah, you can do a custodial wrath.

(57:34):
So if they're not eighteen yet, you can help her
open that and she'll get, you know, control and access
of it when she's an adult.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Oh okay, all right, okay, I think my dad did
that for me. Yeah, and then when I got control
of it bad, I've sent it all like I know.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
But you can teach her that. You can say, mom
made the mistake of pulling the money out of retirement
and I want you to watch what happens when you
leave the money alone.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
I wish my dad would have put his foot down.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Said you're not doing that right. That's a tough one. Yeah,
but you know what you learned the lesson. Well, Dave
always says it's only dumb if you make the same
mistake twice. So if you learn from it, we're doing great.
But the roth Ira is a great tool for anyone
with earned income. So if they actually had a legitimate
job and got paid legitimate money, they can start to
fund the roth Ira. And a really fun thing you

(58:18):
can do. We have a free calculator at Ramsey Solutions
dot com, an investment calculator. Just put in that number
and put thirty years and see what that number turns into.
If you just put in one hundred dollars a month
over the course of thirty years, what that money would
turn into. It would blow your mind because you're like, wait,
I only put twenty thousand and it turned into two million.
How did this happen? Okay? Yeah, that's the power of

(58:41):
compound growth. Your money makes money over time.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Compound growth.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
That's the secret. And if you show kids that, this
is the best part of the curriculum. They watch that
and they're like, oh, my goodness, mom, how do I
start an investment account. They're starting to talk like mature
adults all of a sudden, and they're less likely to
go spend their money on the latest toy because they
want to build a wealth for the future.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Okay, see, I knew the team talk too.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
It's good for us adults because I feel like, as
I'm teaching them, I'm going to be learning too.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Like I'm I'm excited to download this curriculum, not.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Just for them to watch it with you first. In
my books, I'm Free from Broke, I'll make sure you
get a copy. But I try to write it in
a way that seventeen year old George could understand, mostly
because that's how I think and talk, and so I
wrote it in a way or I wanted the cookies
on the bottom shelf. So if you've never understood four
to one k's and mutual funds and all this stuff,
I put it in a way where I just want
you to get it.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
It's not audible too.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
It is. I actually read it myself. We did sound effects.
I play music in it. It's a lot of fun,
so it's even better on audiobook for sure.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Okay, there's some people like a downloadable option.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
I'm an audio I what I do is I read
the hardcover with the audiobook piped into my ears. It
helps my add I.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Saw something funny that Bill Murray once said, and it
was like, the best way to teach your kid about
taxes is to eat thirty percent of their ice cream.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yes, my dad would do that to me growing up.
Whatever I had, he'd take a bite and go taxes.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
Or Halloween time, that'd be like a parent tax and
like take like a chunk and candy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Your daughter when she gets that paycheck from summer camp,
it's gonna hurt. She said, like, wait, I got paid
this much an hour.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
Mom.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
When I'm doing the math, and you're gonna yep, right there,
that's the government.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
Right because the money I'm letting her pay off and earn,
like I'm not charging her.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Oh maybe that's what you should start doing. Start charging
her taxes and interest. Oh gosh, and she borrows money.
So now I gave you one hundred, but now you
owe me one hundred and ten taxes an interest. She goes,
what's not fair? Welcome to the real world when you
owe people money.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
Yeah, ay cheap.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Yeah, I'm personally thankful for this chat, and I'm excited
about your book, which, by the way, you don't have
to make sure I get a coffee. I'll support you,
and I feel very encouraged and motivated that I just
need to like sit down and do some things, not
only with my kids but with myself to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Sort of get some ducks in a row.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Can't go back on that investment I made last week,
but I need to start chipping away and figuring out
the Heelocks situation.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Yes, I'm fully believe that you will pay off for
especially we're gonna get rid of it. Next time we talk.
You're gonna be like I paid off the Heelock. I'm
working on the mortgage now. Okay, that's not what I
want to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
I'm not getting rid of my Amazon points though, but.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yet, I think if you read the book, you'll have thoughts.
I want to know your thoughts after you read the
credit card chapter. I think you're going to be like
I had no idea and I actually cut up one
of seven cards. So I'm on the way.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
I'll keep you posted.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
So, what are four things you're thinkingful for speaking of
books like maybe you have a book, a TV show,
a drink, and an Instagram followed, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Yes, okay for book. I'm a dad now, so I'm
mostly reading kids books instead of adult books. And so
I've brought you Rachel's newest books. So she had I'm
glad for what I have. Now we have I'm glad
for where I am, her second installment, and so I
have one signed by Rachel Cruise herself. Nice amy. And

(01:01:52):
so the kids are a little old for the kid's book,
but truthfully, and Maddie, my publicist, read it to me
in the car on the way here, and I almost cry.
Is very emotional. Her first book was all about contentment.
This one is about gratitude. Okay, so I thought this
was perfect. It's what I'm grateful for. And it's a
great read to remind your kids that they're exactly where
they need to be.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Which is a good reminder for us as well. Exactly
everybody listening, you're exactly where you need to be.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
That is that's my favorite book right now in dad mode,
as I read all the kids books and I'm like, wow,
these are not great. Maybe when I was a kid.
I was like, this is amazing, but now they're a
little you know, primitive.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
So that's favorite book, favorite drink. I'm going to go
rum old fashioned. I learned how to make it. It's
so easy and I feel like a real mixologist anytime
I whip one of those up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
You know, I got those with code drinks like oh,
I like pre mixed and you can either have it
as a mocktails you don't add anything, or you add
whatever amount of alcohol it says and then shake it
up while lah you're good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
That's a really good one too. And Rachel Cruse and
I have a podcast called Smarmony Happy Hour. It's very
much like this, and we do mocktails and cocktails and
talk about money. So if you want a conversational show
about money that's not stuffy and intense, that's the one
to listen to. And you'll get some great drink ideas too.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Speaking of drinks, I saw y'all post a video y'all
went to Starbucks and did like the hacks, like how
to save money when you're paying for really expensive coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
The best hack is just don't. But if you're gonna go,
I go on occasion, no judgment. I find that the
black coffee is if you can get there emotionally, it's
the best bang for your buck as far as caffeine goes.
What do you get what's.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Your exciting drink from Starbucks's black coffee?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Well, truthfully, I do a nitro cold brew, but they
keep upping the price to where I'm like, this keeps
going up, Like it's almost six dollars now for a
grande nitro cold brew and that hurts my soul.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
But I like a cold brew with the cold foam
on top, like either the caramel or vanilla or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Great taste, great taste, But it is true. I like Starbucks.
And then food, the gluten free cheese pizza at Costco.
Sabotassos is the name of the brand. It's in a
green box. It comes in a three pack for like
fifteen bucks. It tastes like old school chuck e cheese
pizza in the best way.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Oh, I'm I'm grateful for this pro tip. You probably
don't like that I spend money on a car wash
at Costco, but it's pretty awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Costco car wash is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
It's a great value.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Seven dollars and ninety nine cents.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Yes, it's still way cheaper than going to other car washing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
I know, but I feel like you're gonna tell me
Amy you need to pay on I'm not feel like you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Need to wash your own car. No, I wouldn't do
that to you. I would not do that to you. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
I love the Costco car wash.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
It's great.

Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
Then.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
You know I thought that I had in the car
wash the other day was that you know, I'm breaking Bad?

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Did you watch that?

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
One hundred percent on my face?

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
They bought the.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Car wash to launder the money. And so I'm there
and I'm thinking, like, what other businesses in town are
simply in business to wash money? People were dming me
once they thought They're like, there's a vacuum shop over
there in frontmprint.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
What they're like, definitely laundering money.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
It's like coming in, they're like, I got my own
passion from nineteen fifty four.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Breaking Bad is one of my all time favorite shows.
I haven't gone back to ever rewatch it. But is
there a show that you're obsessed with that you've rewatched
or it's just your favorite?

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Yes, I found my genre. Once you find your genre,
you're like, great, and I found that it's dark comedy,
so it's sort of a drama that happens to be funny.
And one of those is Beef on Netflix, which is
a road rage incident that goes out of control. Another
one that's a similar vibe is The Bear, very intense,
Yes Chef, Yes chef, and I love the sort of

(01:05:26):
intensity of it, and it's a drama, but there's like
these wonderful funny moments, well scripted. And then louder Milk
on Netflix another one kind of a dark comedy with
Ron Livingston from Office Space.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Okay, it's called louder Milk.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Louder Milk. One word.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
That's his last name, Oh, louder Milk. I was thinking
louder Milk.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Yeah, that's exactly it, but just one word. Those are
in the same genre, and I think if you enjoy
one of those, you'll probably enjoy the other ones.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Nice. What about an Instagram follow?

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
An Instagram follow as a dad? I follow one called
the dad Now and it's just very funny posts about
a sort of pain, arenting relatable content and so a
lot of memes, a lot of tweet grams that make
me smile, so I'm I'm in my dad era. I'm
loving it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
Yeah, and then your Instagram is just George Cammell with
a K, Camel with a K, and then Georgecammel dot
com is where people can also find you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
You naw find all the things, Yes, the YouTube channel,
the book. We try to put it all in one
place for people.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
So, yeah, I love your YouTube channel.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
It didn't really and then obviously that the reels are
sort of just part of Yeah, we cut.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Things out from all sorts of places that Ramsey show
my YouTube channel, but their YouTube channel is great too.
If you have teenagers who want to learn about money,
three episodes a week and I'm just I'm putting the
cookies on the bottom shehelf a lot of pop culture
and memes, and adults will find it funny too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
See like you do a good job of working in
like funny clips and bringing in different image.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Money should be more funatable, don't you like more people
would talk about it, be into it if we just
made it more.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Entertaining, less yeah stuffy, Yeah, because it can be intimidating.
I think that was the thing for me too. Is
wide and I just avoided it because I was like,
I don't really understand it, yes, because I never took
the time, but it's never too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Late, so you can watch it nine minutes and go, oh,
I understand that. And I'm reacting to you know, TikTok
videos about financial stuff and outrageous stuff and sort of
just calling out the craziness going on in the world
and reminding people it's so much simpler than you think
to build wealth with peace, which is what I've done.
I'm not playing the games. I got too much anxiety
as it is, but it's not happening when it comes
to money.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
So how did you get involved with the Ramsey Group.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I started as an intern in twenty thirteen, so I'm
going on eleven years now, and I was really into
social media and marketing, but I was attracted to these
personalities that had amazing messages to share. So over time,
working my way through social media and email, I made
my way on to stage and in front of microphones,
and I lived out the Ramsey Plan, started teaching it,
coming up with creative content and video ideas, and a

(01:07:50):
few years ago I was knighted Ramsey Personality and now
I get to help others win with money. Especially these
younger generations, and my real goal is to make it
more humorous and easier than ever and to give people
that peace in a chaotic world that they can get
control of their money.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
I think it's dud reminders you about intern because Morgan
who's over there, she ind on the Bobby Bone Show,
and then now she manages Bobby and is the president
of the podcast and she's killing it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
And I've known Morgan for years now outside of any
of her fame and acclaim, just through mutual friends and
my wife and we almost died on a boat together.
So how we were on Percy Priest and we had
rented a boat and we did not follow the weather.
Crazy storm came through. We're in the middle of the
lake and we were trying to bust it back to
the dock, and there was a lot of this, and Morgan,

(01:08:35):
I think was just you had to actually like a
legitimate fear of death. I think in that moment, lightning
strikes were happening all around us, and so we're all
just cowering with fear as our friend and captain was
going sixty trying to get us to the dock. So
we survived it, but I think we trauma bonded after
that experience.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Well, what about a boat, because now I'm thinking, like,
are you going to get a boat?

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
No, but that's one of those things you hear like
you should never buy. Like, if you want a boat
to have fun, just like rent it and have fun
for the day.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Because I'll give you another joke. What's the greatest day
of your life the day you buy a boat and
the day you sell the boat?

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
No, I mean I get that because it's like so
fun when you buy it and then you realize how
extensive it is.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
You're like got to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Sell those the maintenance, the slip fees, all of the
things involved the actual boat itself. And so I think
a boat is a great fun, luxury thing to have.
Dave has a boat or two, But it also is
something you shouldn't do unless you're paying cash because they
do go down in value. And so it's similar to
a car, but it's even more luxurious because it has
less utility. It truly is just a toy. And so

(01:09:37):
do it clubs or something. There's a way treat a
boat club. Yeah, I've got some friends that do that.
I think that's a smarter way to do it is
you pay, you know, a monthly fee, kind of like
a country club membership, and you can access the boats
at any time. So I think, if you want to
dip your toe in the water, got it? I did that.
I do then try out one of these rental boat
clubs to try it out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
I also think I'm going to try to do more
Rent the Runway. I've never done that. But do you
are you a fan of Rent the run.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Well, my wife does Newly. Have you heard of Newly?

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Yeah, my friend Kat does it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
And so she recently went to New York. She got
all these cool, like big jackets for New York that
she wore and then she can just return them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
The question the deal that I made with myself where
I'm not wanting to buy clothes until I've sold a
certain amount on Poshmark.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
This is just a twenty twenty fourth thing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
But if it's Rent the Runway, do I have to
sell something on Poshmark to rent?

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Oh, that's a good idea. I don't remember how much
it is, maybe eighty dollars a month or something.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Yeah, I saw you can get a certain amount.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
It depends on which level how many pieces you want
to get okay per month.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Yeah, so I think that's wise if you're replacing your
clothing budget with that for a season until you know. Okay,
here's what I'm after. Okay, so you have my permission again,
as long as it's in the budget and as long
as you're paying cash. Okay, So use your debit card
for that one. I won't Yeah, okay, car with your
Amazon you're going to miss out on the point.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
What I'm going to get the point.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
Look, I'll read your book and i'll report back, But
as of right now, I'm using my points.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
You are too smart, too successful. You don't the cards.
The cards need you. You don't need them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
This is the point.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
I thought the points that is me being smart, but
you're telling me it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
I'm a mouse taking the cheese.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
This is my challenge I put out in the book
for thirty days, only use a debit card and see
how much less you spend. That's it, Okay, that's the challenge.
Thirty days. Put the credit cards in a nice block,
tuck them away in a safe. You only get to
use your debit card and just see Is that a deal? Deal?

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Thank you, George.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
You'll miss out on points for a month, but you
will survive.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Okay, all right, I appreciate it, all right, George. Everybody

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