Money Secrets They Don't Want You to Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I get there one day, Bert like, what is the
strategy to be able to work from Hawaii part time?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well, the strategy I think is probably in your book.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Oh gosh, you know, I don't think I got that
in depth. We kind of covered like here's how to
get out of debt. Here's that to you know, make
sure to invest in your four one K. But the
little Hawaii part time chapter it got mixed. This sounds
pretty specific.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, I think it's like anything else. You know, you
set a goal and and you decide, Okay, no matter what,
we're going to do this, and and that's really it.
To me. Really, it is no different than then let's say, uh,
getting out of Yeah, I'm getting out of debt. You

(00:51):
just you set a.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Goal and it's going to take what it's going to take, right, And.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
So once you decide this is something, let's do it,
and you just start working towards it. And and like
a lot of goals, I think part of the part
of the trick is you don't overthink it. I I

(01:18):
I think that that's very helpful because it can be
kind of scary.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a pretty big decision, it is.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's a pretty big decision. And I think that what
do you call it. I didn't think, you know, I'm
slightly over sixty, and I didn't think that it would

(01:51):
be so you know, scary or whatever, because it's you know,
it's about the first time that I've packed up my
craped and moved. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So it's part of a lifestyle that you've already like,
all right, this is not like a big I gotta
restructure my entire life. This is something you already wanted
to do.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, I mean, but it is kind of, you know,
it is kind of it's like any any other thing.
I thought it would be easier, but honestly because and
I say, and the reason I thought it was going
to be easier is simply because again I've moved before, right, uh.

(02:35):
And and what's so funny. What's so funny is that
I want to say, the biggest thing about moving to
Hawaii is I want to say, the biggest thing to

(02:56):
move into Hawaii is really probably the same thing is
moving to anyplace else. You know, you're you're you're worried
about hey, friends and family and this and that and
and what's going to happen. And so it was just
one of those things where you just had to rip
the band aid off and do it. Otherwise I figure
it out and.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Then figure it out absolutely life That filed a good
life lesson there. Don't overthink it, just get the band
aid off, figure it out.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Life lessons with Burton.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I love it well. And there I think there's a
there's one of those little memes or whatever that I saw,
uh not too long ago in on one of the
social media platforms where they say that moving away, moving out,

(03:47):
moving away from your hometown in your twenties is a
life hack. And I would say moving away from your
comfort zone is is a life hack.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Oh, there is the shirt reveal that was what a
life hack?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right? Getting out of debt is a life hack because
to say, okay, getting out of debt to me now
is more important than keeping up with fashion, than worrying
about what other people think. Then then it's once you
make you know, once you make one of those big decisions,

(04:29):
they're life hacks.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I like that mentality.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
So all right, so tell me a little bit about you.
First of all, tell me why you wrote the book. Yeah,
let's start with that. Why did you write the book I.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Wrote Breaking Free from Broke? Because I was frustrated with
the sentiment from the current in future generations, which is
there's no hope for me. Inflation, the boomers, the economy,
the president, the housing market, the price of what. It's
not possible for me to live the life I want
to live. And as I looked at the actual facts

(05:06):
and reality, it wasn't inflation that was the problem. It
was the lifestyle, it was the debt payments, it was
the get rich quick, I want microwave success instead of
crock pot it that was causing a lot of these
feelings of cynicism really, which in my definition is negativity
wrapped up in fear. And so I wrote this book
to give a new generation hope that it's still possible

(05:28):
for them, whether you're fifty five or twenty five, I
believe the American dream is still alive and well, and
yes it's going to be harder than it was yesterday,
but it's still possible if you're willing to work for it,
and it's simpler than you think. So that's really the
heart of the book is to rise above a broken
system and acknowledge that there are problems, and acknowledge that
the only solution that's worth its salt is the person

(05:49):
in the mirror.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yes, absolutely true, because you and I can be involved
in the exact same seminar program, accident, and we create
our own interpretation of those events and walk away with

(06:11):
a different perspective.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Absolutely, And so the thesis of the book is there's
a system out there, this financial system that is designed
to keep you broke. It's not all of your fault,
but it's your responsibility, and then you can rise above
the system, transcend it, to live life on your terms
instead of theirs, instead of the lenders. And so the
book has been given a lot of people hope, and

(06:34):
the reviews have been awesome to see people cutting up
their cards getting out of debt, Sixty year olds telling
me thank you for showing me it's not too late,
twenty year old saying thank you for helping me avoid
all these traps out there. And that's really It means
the world to me to write a book under Dave
Ramsey's umbrella and publishing house that carries on this message
of the total money makeover, but with a lot of humor,

(06:55):
a lot of research, and a lot of empathy for
this younger generation.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
I love that. I love that all right, So let
me ask you that I's gonna put you on the
spot a little bit here.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
All right, So here you are.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
You got the okay to write this book, like you
said under Dave Ramsey's auspices there or publishing house talk
about doubts, fears, or was it like, nah, no problem,
I got this.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, you know, like any fun idea, at first, you're
so excited, I'm gonna write a book. It's gonna be awesome.
And then they're like, okay, go and I'm like wait, wait, wait, what,
Like there's no there's no I don't know how to
do this, and so there's no one like walking with
you to be like, all right, here's how you're gonna
set it up. Here's how you write a chapter. The
longest I've written was like a blog, you know what

(07:43):
I mean. So to write an entire chapter and then
do that thirteen or sixteen more times was such an
unfathomable task. And so I broke it down in a
way that made sense to me, and it was chunk
by chunk, and if I was stuck in one spot,
I would move on to the other. And you know,
we had the help of an editor to help sort
of shape some of the ideas to go, hey, here's
what I'm thinking. Help me to still this down, to

(08:04):
make it really connect. And so my goal was to
make the complex simple, to make the un sexy stuff
a little more sexy, and to really connect through humor
and empathy to convince them that you know, this path
to financial peace is the is your best path. And
that was a difficult thing to do, and over you know,
I had ended up submitting I think over seventy thousand words,

(08:26):
and so I thought I got nothing to say, and
then it turned out I had too much to say.
And then you have to edit it down, and it's like,
you know, getting rid of your favorite child, Like no,
I love that chapter, but you're right, it's not the
most important thing. And so there's a writing a book
is not for the faint of heart. And I have
mad respect for anyone who's written a book, whether it's
sold one copy or a thousand. The fact that you

(08:46):
even sat down and got something done and put it
out there is so scary and difficult that you can't
help but have deep respect for those people.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
I agree to your point, whether whether you one copy
or the average is two hundred copies or whatever, if
you have the guts to put it online, to put
it out there right where people can buy it, the
kindle version or the audio version or the physical version.

(09:17):
Putting it out there where people can kill you, they
can criticize it. They man, it's it's yeah, that's the
real deal. That that's the real deal. And and and
absolutely thank goodness for people who decide to do it regardless. Uh.
You know one of my favorite stories is, uh, we

(09:41):
I have a mutual friend and and uh and so
he was telling me about the situation where this stay
home mom had written a book and she he was

(10:01):
you know, she had no intention, as I would call it,
Like a lot of people, she had no intentions in
putting it out there. She just wanted to write it
for her family. That was the intention of her. Whole
thing was, Hey, this is my idea. This is a
story that I've thought about for years, and so I'm
going to write about it. And her sister was like, no,

(10:22):
this is an awesome idea. You have to put it
out there. And this went back and forth for I
think a couple of two or three years, and she
was like no, no, no, And finally she relented, and
she said, fine, if you can find somebody who'll publish it,
go for it. But I have no interest because I
don't want to go through the pain of being rejected.
So that book was called Twilight, which, oh my gosh,

(10:47):
you know, became a series of books and became a
series of movies. And so the mutual friend who told
me the story was their pilot. So in a very
rare situation where are makes a gazillions of dollars, they
bought themselves a ten million dollar private jet that I've

(11:09):
had the pleasure of joining them on and things of
that nature. And what a thrill to know that one
idea was responsible for this change, this massive change in
their life. But also that but if for her sister

(11:30):
twisting her arm, it would not have happened.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
That's amazing, especially considering this was a non fatal failure.
If you put the book out there and no one cares,
you got a few mean comments, All right, you keep
living now. The upside and reward, though, was we have
a totally different legacy now because we we took the risk,
and we were brave enough to put this out there
to see what people think. And I think that that's
a great life lesson in there of you know, there's

(11:55):
a few things that are fatal in life, right jumping
off a bridge. But if it's not fatal, go ahead
and just take the risk of failure, you know, as
long as you do it with some wisdom and tact,
you know, especially when it comes to putting art in
the world and your own creativity.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Totally agree, I totally agree. I think that back to
the old adage about so many of us that live
lives of quiet desperation, and it's because of that fear
that holds us back from being ourselves, from putting things
out there, from being creative, whatever you want to call it.

(12:33):
At the end of our life, the things that that
we regret the most is the opportunities or the chances
that we didn't take versus the ones that we did.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
That's right. It reminds me. I think it's an Aristotle
quote to avoid criticism. Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing, okay,
just don't get out of bed, don't leave the house,
don't say anything. Well, that's no life. You're not really
living there. And so like gle like your shirt says,
life begins at the end of the comfort zone. Here
and so I'm going to take the risk and if
there's a few mean comments, I'm gonna laugh about it.
I just saw Seinfeld interview about his movie, The Pop

(13:07):
Tart Movie, and he went, I can't wait to read
the worst, most scathing review for entertainment. And it's because
he's so self aware, confident in his abilities, and he goes,
I don't care. I'm proud of the fact that I
made a movie, and so your thoughts on it are irrelevant, true,
and so I love that mentality. It's very encouraging to
someone who's in the public eye, who gets a lot of,

(13:28):
you know, mean comments in a given day, and it's
just comforting to, you know, especially seeing Dave, who's got
some thick skin, go, that's a Tuesday. Our mission's too
important to let the critics decide what happens next.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right, And the reality, if you understand the way algorithms work,
you and I get paid more for having both positive
and negative comments, not because the algorithm is saying, oh,
this is a positive comment, let's move this up. Oh
this is a negative comment, let's move it down. That's
not the way it was playing to be by one

(14:00):
of the guys at Google was they're looking at the
activity engaged, so engagement. So if your your book, your article,
your blog post, your you're what do you call it,
your post on media is getting tons of engagement, it's
just gonna go right through the roof. It's going to
be shown to more and more and more people. And
that's why sometimes you'll you'll have somebody who'll put something

(14:23):
out there that is completely absurd. But men, they're getting
tons of comments.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Both, I lost your audio for some reason? Can you
hear me? Testing one too? Check? Check?

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Check?

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Hello? Oh no, we were having such a good time.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Bert.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Can you hear me? Not if you okay, he can
hear me? I can't hear him. Bert's audio cut out.
That's weird. This is a problem. All we want to
hear is Bert. Oh, then we're back.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Okay, now we're back.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
What'd you do?

Speaker 2 (15:17):
I let's see.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Did you hit a button?

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, it looked like maybe maybe it switched from my MOC.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Okay, Well I can hear you now, that's all?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
I hated it. I didn't know what you were saying,
but it looked genius. You had that face of like
this is it all?

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I was saying, is we get paid more money for
having haters and lovers than just having a few lovers.
That's true, you know that engagement. All right, So all right,
let's let's get let let's get this this boat on
the show and let me do a proper, a proper
introduction here, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for stopping by today.

(15:58):
My guest today is the one, the only, George Camill.
He is a national best selling author of the best
selling book Break Free from Broke, and a personal finance
expert looking forward to busting some myths helping everyone get
some more financial traction. George, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's an honor to be here. Bert, thanks for having
me on.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
You bet all right. So we were talking before the show,
and one of the things that you said that I
want to dive a little bit deeper into is that
something along the lines that the system is set up
to keep us broke. Why do you say that based

(16:45):
on what.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well, if you talk to any twenty two year old,
they'll tell you all of the problems they're facing, all
of the criticisms of the path that they were led down.
And it usually starts at a young age. We're told, hey,
go to school, follow the path, get good grades, go
to college. Don't worry about the cost. We'll take out
as much Sally may monopoly money as it takes. Be
sure to get a credit card at eighteen, because you've

(17:09):
got to get the credit score up. Go into debt.
It's okay, you'll pay it off later, you'll get a
great job, you'll be able to buy a house. And
here we are an entire generation going I got screwed,
and it's not my fault. And so the theory of
the book is the system is designed to keep you broke.
It's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility. And

(17:30):
finally you can rise above the system and live life
on your terms and actually accomplish your financial goals. And
that was me Bird. I was forty thousand dollars in
debt at twenty three, student loans, credit card debt, having
played this game, being a part of the system. Frustrated,
I had anxiety. I thought there was no hope for me,
and I fell into this Ramsey plan that said, hey,

(17:50):
what if you just got out of debt aggressively and
sacrificed your life for a short time so that you
could have some long term gains, this idea of delayed gratification,
living on lesson you make. So I did that, and
ten years later I was a net worth millionaire, not
with any fancy stricks, no get rich quick, just by
getting out of debt, staying out of debt, having an
emergency fund, putting money away into a four to oh

(18:13):
one k, getting a house the right way, paying it
off early. And here I was in my early thirties
and my wife and I networth millionaires, living with more
peace than ever.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, and to your point, I think debt, especially when
you have a lot of debt, distracts from your life. Absolutely,
without a doubt. I think I'm a big believer that
there is some good debt, credit cards not being one
of them. But Dave Ramsey, and I'm going to ask

(18:43):
you this, Dave Ramsey's a big believer that no debt
is good debt, right, There is no such Yeah, So
do you believe the same thing or do you think
that there are sometimes where for instance, buying a house,
that would be considered good debt. What's your take? Is
there such thing as good debt versus bad debt?

Speaker 1 (19:02):
I don't know anyone whose life was, you know, worse
off because they had no debt. When you think about
it that way, it changes things. So you know, when
it comes to debt, the one type of debt we
don't yell at you for is a fifteen year fixed
rate mortgage that you're working to pay off early. That's
it on the list. And that's only because the the
insurmountable feat of paying cash for a house, which some

(19:25):
people still do. But that's the only caveat there. The
rest of it, I go, I don't see a reason
how this could be a blessing in your life. Just
managing payments. That's I think life's too short to just
sit there and manage payments and be and get good
at debt management. And the problem is social media has
made it very sexy to say, oh, the wealthy, this
is how they do it. They leverage all the debt

(19:46):
they can. And I'm going listen, you're not a Dell. Okay,
you don't have a three billion dollar house. You are
an average person like me, And I'm telling you debt
is not going to be a blessing. You're not gonna
be able to leverage yourself into a peaceful life. And
that's what I found. I think we need to villainize
our debt versus celebrate it in today's culture to break
free from broke well.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I think also to your point about social media,
people have to understand that what works for a billionaire
or a multimillionaire or somebody who is let's say studied,
what they're doing for decades, is different than for average
working class you know, people like you and I. Right,

(20:27):
if you understand finance and money, okay, maybe, but for
the average person, debt is a distraction, Debt is an
energy killer. It's just it's it's not the way to go,
all right, So talk about your background. How did you
go from average shoe with forty thousand dollars worth of

(20:48):
debt to the day following Dave Ramsey and then where
you're at today?

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Absolutely so. At twenty three, I was a you know,
just a knucklehead who thought he knew everything. I had
two credit cards, I had my AMX sky miles, I
had to discover cash back. I had like eleven student
loans between all these federal, subsidized on subsidized. I didn't
know which way was up. I didn't know what the
interest rates were, and I ended up having identity theft,
and so I pulled my credit report to make sure that,

(21:16):
you know, all was clear, and I found out all
the debt that I had, and I went, oh, that's
not that part's on our dentity theft. Look at all
these debts that I took out. And so that's when
it became clear. When I saw my debt load was
higher than my income, my entry level income as a
twenty three year old, it scared the crap out of me.
And at twenty three, I got an internship here at
Ramsey that turned into a temp job that turned into

(21:37):
a full time job, and that was eleven years ago now,
and since then, I went through Financial Peace University, and
I learned about the system that was designed to keep
me broke, and sort of, you know, the veil was
torn and I went, oh, my gosh, I had to
deprogram all of these myths that I thought were true
about money, just watching society, the way my parents handled money,
the traps that I fell into, and man, it's a

(21:59):
hard pill to swallow when you look in the financial
mirror and look at the reality of your situation, and
that going through Financial Peace University, reading the total money makeover.
It gave me hope. It motivated me to go, you
know what, I'm not gonna let this be a death sentence.
I'm going to get out of this debt within two
years by sacrificing, by doing side hustles, by cutting down
my lifestyle. I'm going to live like a broke college

(22:20):
student so that later I can live like no one else.
And so that's exactly what I did, and in eighteen months,
I knocked out that forty thousand dollars worth of debt
through doing all these side hustles. I was doing marketing, consulting,
driving for Uber and Lyft, living off a lean cuisines
when they went on sale at the grocery store. I
was doing everything in my power to create margin, which
is something everyone would say they want more of. And

(22:41):
the only way to create margin in your finances is
to spend less and make more. And by doing both
of those things, it's amazing what you can do. You'll go,
oh my gosh, I got a thousand bucks freed up
just because I got on a budget and followed these principles.
And so that's exactly what I did. I met my
wife here at Ramsey Solutions. She was much smarter, better
with money, better looking than me. It worked out, and

(23:02):
so we started off our marriage debt free, with money
in the bank. We put a big down payment on
a reasonable town home a little ways out from here,
and we got it paid off in our early thirties.
And that was all very intentional, and we predecided this
is the kind of life we want to lead. These
are the kind of people we want to be. People
with peace, people without debt, that have options and margin
and freedom. And so here we are today, networth millionaires,

(23:25):
and I'm just shouting from the rooftop. Listen, It's possible
for you. Regardless of where you are today, things can
be vastly different a year from now, five years from now,
ten years from now.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
It reminds me of a story. I'm from Houston. I
grew up in Houston, Texas. And the gentleman who started
a company called super Cuts, I think they're still around anyway.
He was also based in Houston. He had written a book,
and one of the things that he talks about in

(23:56):
his book was this, I believe there were Chinese, it
doesn't matter Oriental couple who their uncle had brought them over,
their immigrants barely speak any English, and they're starting to
work for their uncle at this bakery. And basically the
uncle says, hey, you know, I'll sell you this bakery
and you can have your own business blah blah blah.

(24:18):
And so I think I think the sale price was
one hundred thousand bucks. Uncle's going to finance it for him.
So the young couple decided that if they get a car,
you know, whether they pay cash for it or not,
they're going to have to have there's still a cost there,

(24:40):
you know, gasoline, insurance, upkeep. And if they get an apartment,
even though they get a cheap one, the same thing,
there's an additional cost there. But they also decided, listen,
if we sacrifice and live in the back of the
bakery like a you know, a bunch of a couple
of bro immigrants, then we could pay this this one

(25:02):
hundred thousand dollars debt off in like a year, I
think it was, And that's what they did. And so
during that, you know, during that course of the year,
she ends up getting pregnant, they have their first child,
and then they surmise, you know, hey, if we do
this for another year, then we can pay cash for
a house. Now, obviously this is back in the day

(25:25):
where you could buy a house for fifty or sixty
grand or something. But either way, the thing that I
walked away from and the moral of that story was this,
this delayed gratification, this ability to sacrifice has been eliminated, deleted,

(25:48):
eroded from the American mindset, which was not which was
not the way our country was, you know, became the
powerhouse that it is. It was based on no debt.
It was based on rolling up your sleeves and getting
to work, and not only getting to work, but sometimes
working hard, sacrificing some of the niceties of life. Right,

(26:10):
and that's why the great that would call it the
Greatest generation, you know, they had saved so much money,
and then their kids, the boomers, we spent all that money.
But do you know that's what I see is that
because we live in this life of abundance and then
we have all of this misinformation about money and debt

(26:33):
and living your best life ever, that this idea of delay,
gratification and sacrifice has been completely ripped out of our
I don't know, mindset, of our jargon.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
What's your take, Well, I think our ability to achieve
success and have a comfortable life is directly correlated with
our willingness to do the opposite, to live in discomfort
while and so here's what we found a Ramsey. If
you're willing to be uncomfortable for a short season, you
will have a long season of abundance and a wonderful,

(27:08):
peaceful life. But when you're not willing to do that,
here's what happens. You have this low level discomfort for
this sort of you know, a little bit of comfort now,
but it kind of wears off, and you go at
some point, life's just too stressful to even go on
another vacation and hope that we have enough credit card
points and swipe our way into the next trip or
thing or you know, product or experience. And so we

(27:31):
live in a very consumer driven culture, which is says, hey,
as long as you look like you're doing well, you
are doing well, regardless of what's actually happening behind the scenes,
behind the curtain, which is, oh, your marriage is hang
on by a thread, you have no close relationships, you're
actually really stressed about money, and that trip isn't worth
it because you're gonna be paying for it a year
from now. But that part you don't get to post

(27:54):
on Instagram. You get to post the sunset from Hawaii
like bird and go look at the life bird has.
Oh my gosh, I want that life. And so it's
a very difficult thing when you look at how you know,
consumer driven and comparison driven are culture is because back
in the day, you know, you only knew what your
neighbor was driving. Now I know what everyone in America
is driving on social media because they're holding shiny keys

(28:15):
and look what Hubby got me, And I'm going, oh
my gosh, what are the payments on that thing? You know,
we don't know the stressful conversation happening behind the scenes.
And so I tell people you got to run your
own race, because if you try to run someone else's
there is no finish line. It's exhausting. You'll end upwhere
And so you've got to figure out what really matters
to you, why those are your motivations, and then run

(28:37):
towards that thing with just blinders on, because who gives
a crap what everyone else is doing and what their
net worth is and what their debt load is. I
just want peace for my family and for my legacy.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Absolutely, And I think again, back to the student loan
stuff that you talked about, there is there is a
system there that needs an enema. You know, back back
in the day, you get a student loan and it
was fairly inexpensive. And also college wasn't the crazy price

(29:12):
that it is today. So now the student loans are
no longer two and three percent, they're six seven eight percent.
And your college, a cheap one is still going to
cost you a forty to fifty grand. And that's assuming
that you get a degree that you can actually convert to.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Cash that has marketplace value.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right, because if you get one of those liberal arts degree,
you better have a backup, you know, it just so happens.
I have a friend of mine he got a Liberal
Arts degree. It was the fastest degree he could get.
His plan was to go to law school. He had,
you know, and so if there was a way to
just go into law school, which kind of makes sense
to me, why isn't you know, why isn't there that ability?

(29:57):
But either way, you've got a Liberal Arts it was fast,
it was cheap, and then he went right into law school,
which I want to say, fifteen years after he got
his law degree. He's a partner at a law firm.
He still owes eighty thousand dollars and I said, well,
why don't you just pay it off? You're making a
lot of money, he goes. He goes, my loan is

(30:20):
three percent, and if I just take my money and
invest it, I can get five, six, ten percent. I
can put in the S and P five hundred and
clip coupons and pay off my loan. What do you
think about a strategy like that? If you got a
three percent debt and you can make eight percent on
your money, would you still pay off the debt or

(30:41):
would you do what this guy did?

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh? Man, I think the spread is never worth it
because behind that is a guy who's secretly or not
so secretly, kind of stressed and trying to keep up
and prop up a lifestyle that he feels like he
has to have because he's a big time partner at
the firm. And this is what we see with people
with high salaries. It doesn't necessarily equate to a lot

(31:04):
of margin in their finances because what do you do, Well,
you get a nicer car with a bigger payment, You
get a bigger house with a bigger payment, and this
lifestyle creep is causing people that are making six figures
to still live paycheck to paycheck, and all it takes
is one thing to happen in their life to where
it's their life could implode. The house of cards comes
crashing down. And so if you can learn to still
live on lesson you make, you can learn to avoid debt.

(31:25):
Because I'll tell you, if he can just pay off
that debt, it's going to free up some serious payments
that he could then use to build wealth for the
rest of his life, because your income is your greatest
wealth building tool, not some spread on your loan.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Right right, there is another friend of mine who's the lawyer.
And what was so awesome here he is he had
a previous career but anyway, he went back got a
law degree and the people at the law firm kept
giving them crap. He's making, i want to say, about

(32:00):
two twenty a year. And what he drives to work
is his Subaru that he's had for like twelve or
fifteen years. It's an absolute beater, but he's you know,
but again he's he is that of that mindset. I
have no debt, why do I want to get another car?
Even though he could pay cash for it. To your point,
I can pay cash for it, but yet that's money

(32:22):
that I can leave in my investment account and continue
to have that grow. So he's kept driving that car
until he became partner, and then he he opted for
a different car at that point. And there's a me again,
there's a meme out there where it's something like, if
you know, if you would have bought a Tesla S

(32:43):
or whatever and paid I think you would have paid
seventy eight grand in you know, in five in what
is it, five years? The car is worth you know whatever,
it's worth zero or close to zero. But if you
had taken that seventy eight thousand dollars and invested it
for five years, oh, that's what it was. If you
would have if you would have bought Tesla stock.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Oh, instead of buying the depreciating asset, you buy it
I appreciating asset.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Then it would be like you'd be worth something like
two point something million dollars, because you know, at one
point Tesla is two thousand dollars this year.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
If you can't drive your stocks around and impress your friends,
you got to drive the car. And so again that's
a great principle, and I love that your friend had
that mentality. And at the heart of it here it
is not caring what other people think is a well
building superpower. And so he's going, who do I need
to impress? My car drives fine. I don't care what
you think about my car. And I think that mentality

(33:34):
is what causes people to be truly successful, not just
on paper, but behind the scenes when they're at home.
That guy's sleeping well at night because he's not worried
about needing to make another car payment. Instead, he's thinking
about the future instead of paying for the past. And
those people I think are the most inspiring. They're near
and dear to my heart. And it's the mentality that
I've adopted over the last decade, and it's what's caused

(33:56):
me to live with more peace and have more wealth.
And I still live on way hey, lesson I make.
And when you have that savings rate creep from fifteen
percent to thirty percent to forty to sixty percent, that's
you know, that becomes that fu money where you go, Hey, boss,
don't care what you think I'm getting out of here.
I don't need this. That's the kind of life you
want to live. That's freedom, that's options.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Absolutely absolutely all right, So let me ask you this.
We've talked just about a few things, primarily the debt
and the social media junk that goes with it and
stuff like that. Any other money myths or money trends
that are driving you crazy?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Where do I begin? I need to talk to a
therapist at this point. Oh my gosh. Well, you know,
one of the biggest ones I've addressed lately is the
credit card versus debit card mythology. There's a lot of
people who they think you are like living on the
edge if you use a debit card, Like what kind
of idiot are you with your business hanging out there
using your debit card? And so my debit card does

(34:56):
everything a credit card can do. I don't have a
credit score because I don't have any open lines of credit,
I don't have a mortgage, And people look at me
like I got seven eyes because of the way I
live my life, because they are they're playing checkers over here,
playing the systems game of I got to keep up
my credit score to have access to more debt, and
I got to use my car to get the points
to get the rewards to get the flights, and I'm going, yeah,

(35:18):
but I know how to just save up and pay
cash and do my research and get good deals. I
know how to book cars and hotels and do whatever
with a debit card with no credit score, including renting apartments,
including getting a mortgage. I got a mortgage without a
credit score through manual underwriting. And people look at me like, yeah,
well it worked for you. I'm like, no, it didn't
work for me because I'm listen, I got immigrant parents,

(35:39):
I'm Middle Eastern. There's no racial profiling happening here. You
just need to learn that there's another way to play
the game. And so I'm kind of playing chess over here,
minding my own business. And so that's one of the
biggest myths is about the credit score, that your credit
score is everything. You got to have one. There's the
car myth. I'll always have a car payment. You know,
why would you pay cash for a car. It doesn't

(36:00):
make sense. You could deploy that money and you know,
arbitragic and make a spread over here. And as long
as you get a low interest rate, that's all that matters.
Nobody can agree on what a low interest rate is anymore.
You know because for the boomers, six percent is a
great interest rate on a mortgage. Right for the millennials,
they're like, oh my gosh, three percent, I have a
two point one. I'm like, okay, buzz off, I got

(36:23):
a zero percent interest rate. How about that? Student loans
are good debt. That's another one that we've heard a
lot because of the ROI, which is very quickly dwindling
in the marketplace as more and more employers are going,
I don't care about the degree as much as the guy.
Do you have for the experience and skills and soft skills?
And are you a person of character that I want
to hire? Will you show up on time and do

(36:43):
the work. That's what employers care about these days, more
than the piece of paper which any college will grant you.
Now it used to be special to go to college
to get the acceptance letter, and now you just get
to the opportunity to give them two hundred thousand dollars
over the next four years to go to their esteemed
prestigious school. And so there's all of these myths. I
think it's like all these companies are in cahoots to

(37:05):
get you into massive amounts of debt to keep you
playing this game and keep you in this hamster wheel
of stress. And so all of those myths are driving
me crazy lately, and they're all connected to debt. And
it's what I cover in the first two thirds of
my book, Breaking Free from Broke. It's credit scores. I
cover credit cards, student loans, auto loans, mortgages, investment traps,

(37:26):
and all of that. Once you understand where we are,
where this all came from, and why they're not going
to be a blessing in your life, it just helps
you avoid it all and live life with more peace
and follow the next steps, which is, let's build wealth
the right way. Once we're out of debt, what are
we going to do now? And that's a much better
place to be, all right.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
So when you say let's build wealth the right way,
what would you say the first crucial steps to building
wealth the right way?

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Well, number one, we talk about investing in things that
you understand. Many people out there, they see one TikTok
or Instagram reel or their buddy who works at the
firm who says, bro trust me, I'll get you ten X.
You know, you fall for an online course from some
guru who says they're going to ten x your money.
And so there's a lot of get rich quick, and
I think especially from the younger generations, because they saw

(38:18):
their parents struggle for thirty years in a career. They
hated all to have a meager pension, and so they're going,
I don't want that to be me. And so their
path now is, well, I got to make a million
dollars by the time I'm twenty five, or else I'm screwed.
That's what's happening. These are the real calls we're getting
on the Ramsey Show that I'm taking eighteen year olds
who go, I need a million dollars in the next

(38:38):
five years or else, and I'm going, where do you
getting this from?

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Right?

Speaker 1 (38:43):
And so the key to wealth is to be a
crockpot in a world full of microwaves. So invest in
what you understand. Go slow. If it sounds like get
rich quick, run, if it's get rich slow, it's probably
the right path. And what we found in our millionaire study,
we know interviewed study ten thousand of the millionaires that
are real life on paper networth millionaires, and what we

(39:04):
found is that eighty percent of the four oh one
k was the number one vehicle to their net worth
millionaire status. And that's about the most boring financial advice
you could give someone is to just hey, from twenty
five to sixty five, just put fifteen percent of your
gross income away in that four oh one k into
some good growth stock, mutual funds or index funds, and
you'll be just fine. Well, everyone wants to play the

(39:26):
game a little faster. They want to be the hair
instead of the tortoise, and so where that leads them
down a path where they go, No, I'm gonna download
Robin Hood and I'm gonna choose the right single stocks
I'm gonna choose, just like Apple and Tesla are gonna
be the things that get me to whatever or Crypto
or NFTs and so I know whole life insurance policies
that I'm gonna borrow against. That's gonna be my path
to wealth. These are the things that I fight against

(39:48):
in the book, and the Investment Traps chapter and the
Wealth is Patience chapter, I show you in real time
what it's gonna take you to do this more peacefully,
and the fact is it takes longer. But guess what
you're gonna get this. You have a much higher chance
of success if you do it slow then if you
try to go fast and be the genius and be
the prodigy.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
The thing that I learned when I decided to really
start taking charge being responsible for my retirement, being responsible
for my will. I signed up for a couple of
newsletters Motley Cruel, Motley Crue, Motley.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Molly Crue is a great band. I Motley Fool is,
thank you. I was like, Motley Cruz given financial advice.
I've missed out on this this amazing.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Well, you know, if they were giving financial advice, it
probably it'd probably be good about as good as advice
as you'd find on any other part of the internet.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Right, So that's right.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
But yeah, you're right, Motley Fool. Uh And it was helpful. Uh.
But what I realized was, uh, you know, as you
go down this this investment rabbit hole. Uh, Like like
a lot of people, I came across the guy named
Warren Buffett. And the more I start studied Warren Buffett

(41:05):
and listen to Warren Buffett, the thing that I walked
away from is it's definitely time over money or money
over time. You got to you gotta do it consistently,
you gotta do it consistently, over time, over time. And so, uh,
I just look at what Warren Buffett does and I
try to mimic that on a smaller scale. Because one

(41:28):
of the things that Warren Buffett does, and he and
he talks about this, he'll spend hours, sometimes weeks, looking
at a stock or looking at a company before he
decides to invest in them. And he says, if you
can't do that, if you don't have the commitment, if
you don't know how to research a company, he says,

(41:50):
by the S and P. Five hundred and in twenty years,
you'll probably be a millionaire. And I thought, wow, that's
so simple. And again when you study that and when
you look at it, it's true. I mean, and the
thing that Warren Buffett preaches is time. You got to
be patient. He talks about I'm buying Apple today, and

(42:13):
this is a recent thing. When I say recent, when
he bought Apple a couple of years ago or whatever,
he talked, I'm buying Apple today, he says. I don't
try to time the stock. He says, nobody can out
of the stock market. So I'm buying Apple today, and
all I know that in ten years from now. Listen
to that timeline. All I know that in ten years
from now, I'm going to be selling it for more

(42:36):
than what I bought it for. And to your point,
most of us are like, I want to buy it
now and I need to double my money tomorrow otherwise
this whole thing doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
This is a scam, right, And that's where crypto comes
into play. That's really the hope. They claim, well, I'm
gonna buy it, I'm gonna hold it now. You're doing
it because you want a thousand extra money in a year,
and it turns out you have a much higher chance
of losing everything you put in than you have gaining
a thousand decks. And I think Warren is onto something.
He said he wouldn't buy all the crypto in the

(43:08):
world for twenty five dollars. That is a direct quote.
He said, what would I do with it? It produces nothing.
I still have to turn that into money in order
to do anything with it. And I think there's a
tried and true principle there, and there's a reason. The
guy is, you know what, in his eighties now, yeah, no, nineties,
in his nineties now. And you look at that and
you go Okay, he's not a twenty five year old

(43:28):
touting some get rich quick scheme. He's an old guy
who's been investing for a really long time and did
it with a lot of diligence and had success along
the way. And I think most young people they don't
know that. In their minds. They're like, well, I'll never
be sixty. I want to yolo this thing. I don't
want to wait till i'm sixty to enjoy any of
my money. And that's what I love about the Ramsey Plan.

(43:48):
We're going no, you can enjoy your money in your
thirties and forties instead of hoping that there's money later
on in retirement when you did nothing to prepare for it.
And so that's what I love about the plan. I'm
in my thirties, I can do pretty much whatever we
want now because of the financial piece that we've set
ourselves up for by getting out of debt, staying out
of debt, investing wisely.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Absolutely so. One of the things that I love about
warm Buppet he still lives in the same house he
bought one hundred years ago, whenever it was. He doesn't
have some.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Zero lifestyle creep with this guy.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Right right. The only thing that he has, and he
made fun of himself, is that because he became fairly
famous and recognizable, he finally bought a private plane. And
he calls it the indefensible because it is. You know,
he says, for the most part, you cannot defend buying
a private plane. They cost you an arm in a leg,

(44:38):
they're very expensive to keep. But it just got to
a point where he couldn't get through the airport because
people would just swarm him.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Right, yeah, well, he's buying his time back. That's what
the wealthy really do when they spend their money. They're going, Okay,
how can I get more time back in my life?
And he's right, he's shaving off hours and hours a
week just by being able to fly private and that
is a wonderful luxury.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Absolutely. And then there's a fairly famous picture out there
and it's got Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, and somebody
pointed out, if you're looking at these two guys, you
would never know that they're billionaires. They're wearing jeans and
a sweater and I think and that was Bill Gates
and I think Suckerberg was a jeans and a T shirt.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
He's a T shirt guy.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, he's a T shirt guy. And so and what's
so funny to your point where you have these guys
who are screaming, I'm gonna make you rich ten x
this and look at my lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
They have a crazy watches and suits and the private jets.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
And you really got to wonder what it is. And look,
part of their deal is I got to show you
my stuff so you believe me enough to buy my stuff,
so I can continue to buy more of my stuff, right,
And it's it's no different than than the fitness infloor
influencer who's got the six pack. He's got to show

(45:55):
you the six pack, or she's got to show you
the six pack because that way you believe me and
up to buy my stuff. Which is fine. Look that
works well, it's a true and try way of making
money online. But to your point, you got to block
some of that out or all of that out, and
you got to listen to the people who aren't talking

(46:18):
about their assets, who aren't talking about look at my
private jet like a Warren Buffet, and and you got
to look at these people, Warren Buffett's friend who just
passed away, Charlie munger.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Oh yeah, you know, are yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Playing Jane again. No, you would never know. He was
a wealthy not just wealthy, but a billionaire.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
And those guys truly seem happy. Yes, And that's the
best part is like people think that chasing more and
more stuff and this experience and if I get this,
when in reality, the reason they were buying all that
was to impress other people. They really didn't enjoy it themselves.
And so I believe it's okay to spend money on
things that are very expensive if you pay cash for
it and it's born out of the right motives. The

(47:00):
problem becomes when you start buying stuff to impress other people,
and they might be impressed for a second, but then
you start to gather a weird crowd around you that's
very vain, and you have no deep relationships and people
are only surrounded You're only you know, surrounded by you
because they want things from you, and you know, like leeches,
and once you can't give them that, it's just this
empty house of cars. And so I believe we got

(47:22):
to we had to aim bigger than that and aim
for a life that has a little more meaning than
just stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
What's interesting is I interviewed. She's a Harvard professor named
doctor Ellen Langer, and she said something that is so
eye opening. Uh, it struck me hard, and that is
we we buy stuff or we do these things so

(47:50):
we can get respect from other people, so we can
then get self respect from ourselves.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Ooh, it's like, oh what sick burn?

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Oh my gosh. It's just like when you think about that,
that is so true because if you ever go to
a doctor's office or a lawyer's office, or a CPA
or somebody and you and you're in behind them, and
usually in a gold frame is their degree, especially if
it's from a big live IVY IVY schools? Yeah, why

(48:26):
are they showing you the degree? Because we really don't care.
I mean, have you ever gone to your doctor, I
mean your doctor or a lawyer's office and said, hey,
where did you graduate from? Can I see your degree?
What was your g PA? You know, you just hope
that you can build enough to trust with this guy,
that he's got enough that he can solve your problems.
Other than that, you don't care whether he's got a

(48:46):
degree or not.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, exactly, And you know it's usually in font I
can't read anyways from a school. I don't even know
where the school is. I just go listen. If this
hospital system decided they should hire this guy, it's good
enough for he knows more than I do about this
medical stuff, so maybe I should trust him. And you're right,
there's a lot of flexing going on, and when you
can bypass that, you leap frog that like weird game

(49:08):
to get respect, and instead you go, I got self respect.
I know who I am. Most people haven't done the
level of soul searching needed to just build a life
that doesn't exhaust them, to love themselves for who they are,
and so instead they have these trauma baggage, shame, whatever,
and they try to fill this void with other people's respect,
which is a It's an endless chase, like I mentioned earlier,

(49:30):
and so I think you're better off just getting therapy
to deal with that, versus trying to live this fake
life to impress people you don't even care about.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Right, and who truly don't care about you. I mean, hey,
it's great, you're a multi millionaire. That's great. If you
died tomorrow, it would not impact them at all unless
you left money to them. They could care less.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Now that's an idea. Yeah, that's just everyone who follows
me gets a dollar.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
That's it. That's it, all right. I want to ask
you this. This want to become one of my favorite topics.
I want to get your take on it before I
give you my take on it. And that is they
call it tip inflation. Inflation. Tipping is gone rampant. It
is now the latest pandemic. Everywhere you go, people are

(50:16):
asking you for a tip. What's your take on tipping?

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Well, I think the response to that is what's happening now,
which is tipping fatigue, tipping frustration. And you know, there's
a lot of expectation on my take on this. It's
real simple. If I am standing up, I am not tipping.
If you were coming to me now we're talking. If
I'm sitting down, you're providing a service to me now

(50:40):
I'm talking. If I'm paying for the convenience of you
coming to my house to bring me a thing, coming
to the table NonStop to bring me a thing, then
I think the thing is worth the tip. Everything else
unless they really go above and beyond in some way,
I'm not doing it. And it's not out of a
spirit of a lack of generosity. I'm just not a
fan of four generosity because I think it loses the

(51:01):
entire spirit of generosity when it's an obligation. And so
that's the hot take on tipflation and the poor workers.
I really don't blame them because they're working with these
iPads and systems that just go they go, I'm gonna
ask you a few questions. It's like, you don't know
what the question is going to be. Or my least
favorite is when they're giving you mediocre service, but then

(51:24):
right at the end, as they're spending the iPad, they go,
I love those glasses, and I'm like, oh, thank you
so much. And I just happen to be now looking
at the tip screen and I go, dang it, I
almost fell for this trap. They were just being nice
while I was on the tip screen, and so that's
another sneaky trick. And so I don't think there's a
bad time to be generous. But I'm also not going
to fall for this forced generosity where it just allows

(51:45):
employers to not pay their employee employees enough because we're
going to subsidize their pay through tips.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Right, I fully agree. I think first of all, it's
gotten out of hand. I love the idea of yeah,
if I'm standing up, I don't need to give you.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
A tip before you got any service or food they're
asking for. I'm like, I just I don't know. Is
the food even going to show up? Is it going
to be cold? Is it going to be overcooked? I
got no idea, and so I think, you know, we
lost the meaning of the tip when we're doing it
ahead of time with no service presented, while we're doing
half of the work.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
So I'm willing just you know what, if you want
to raise your prices, then do that, and I'll decide
if I still want to be a consumer here and
be a customer here. But don't play this weird tipping game.
Don't sneak it on me. There's a new one they
call like a health fee. And I asked about this.
I went, I was at a restaurant. It was a
three percent health fee. And he I'm this wasn't included.

(52:42):
This wasn't I wasn't told about this. They said, oh, well,
that's to pay for the health care of the employees.
I went, well, that's all good and well, but I
feel like the employer should just pay for that and
then if they need to increase prices, go for it,
but don't sneak it on me as some weird thing
I got to pay for. And so I think that's
what's happening with a lot of business owners. Shout out
to the small business owners. They're doing their best. But

(53:03):
there's a right and wrong way to approach tipping, and
I don't think sneaking it on customers or forcing it
on them at the front end is the way to
do it.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, first of all, I would be suspicious on that
three percent healthy, I bet you. I'm just suspicious. They
probably don't get it. The employee employees probably don't get it.
Number one. Number two, if I'm going to be subsidizing
their health insurance, should I be subsidizing the company's rent too?

Speaker 1 (53:30):
That's right, isn't that the rent of the cost of great?

Speaker 2 (53:33):
I'm just so to your point. Oh my gosh, I
was at a restaurant in California and this is just
a you know, just a run of the bill type
type of cocker reo whatever. And uh. And so they
bring us the menu and in the menu there's a

(53:54):
thing about you know, something about it would be great,
rightful if you can if you're if you could add
an additional tip for the workers in the kitchen. Uh,
and then of course when they bring you So that's
a little ad there to get you ready. So when
they bring you the check, there it is. And I'm like, sorry,

(54:17):
you know, I don't know what to tell you. I
don't own a restaurant, but this seems it seems kind
of sloppy. So I'm not gonna tip the guys in
the back. I'll tip my server and I'll tip them accordingly.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
The person I interacted with that waited on me. That
part makes sense. But just play the guys in the
back what they're worth, right, and they get to decide
if they want this job or not. That's simple and
cant I don't either.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
In California, unfortunately, is an experiment. So far, the results
I think have been poor. We'll see what happens. I
not to go down this political rabbit hole, but you know,
California has done some things when it comes to small business.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Oh yeah, well, people are opting out. They're moving in droves.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
They're moving out in droves. Yeah, it's too expensive and
so uh. The thing that shocked me was when the
governor you know they had they were trying to vote
him out, but they voted him back in unanimously. It
was a landslide. It's like, you got all these problems

(55:27):
and it seems like he's making it worse. I think
that would be a good time to change, but they said, no,
we like and yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
I go retweet, let's try that again. That's right, all right,
So that's fun.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, that's a that's a.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
I just don't eat out as much. I'll do like
take out, you know, occasionally, but overall, I'm just like,
is this really gonna be worth the experience to you know?
And I believe people just shouldn't go out to restaurants
if they can't afford to tip. And so there's a
difference there from like being stingy and generosity. I think
there's the right way to do it. And we only
go out and when we do and we have service,
I want you to tip. Well. I think it's a

(56:03):
good thing to do. But even then, the tip now
the goalpost has moved. Now if it's not twenty percent,
you're a stingy, terrible person.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
You're a dead beat.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Back in my day, it was like, all right, ten
percent of solid fifteen percent, is that's really good? Twenty
percent is like if they went above and beyond amazing,
and now it's just standard twenty percent regardless of what
the heck happened on the on the iPad. Twenty percent
is now a starting point.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, twenty percent and then a twenty twenty two to
twenty five. It's crazy. It's crazy. I always hit no,
I do a custom thing. It's paint in the butt.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Now there's self checkout. It's like, who am I tipping
is self? Do I get the money back? Am I
tipping myself? And even online you buy a piece of
furniture and they go, hey, you want to leave a tip?
I'm like to who the guy in the warehouse who
moved the cap? I don't understand what's going on here.
Just pay your people more and increase the prices. I
would rather pay that in the price of the product
than for it to be put on me in this weird,

(56:56):
awkward social way.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
I agree, I agree, it is it's gotten out of hand.
Oh and real quick. Uh. I did tele med thing
where you visit with your doctor via zoom, and then
they sent me the bill and in the bill was
a tip. It was a tip, and it was already

(57:18):
filled in, so I.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Had a you know, pre selected tip.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, so I was able to opt out. And I've
known this guy for years. I'm saying, what the crap
is this? Oh dude, it's a new software we're using.
It's automatic. I can't I haven't figured out how to
turn it off. Okay, well I'm not tipping. Oh boy?

Speaker 1 (57:34):
You know, and exactly and at what point does it end?
Because then everyone in their mom's going to go, well,
I deserve a tip for what I do at work.
I'm like, maybe you do, but we can't just you know,
let the cat out of the bag here and go.
Everyone gets a tip. You know, I'd love a tip
too for doing this podcast. If you enjoyed it, let's
open the tip jar up for old George. You know,
at some point it gets to be too much.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Absolutely, By the way, if you don't want to give
us a tip, we'll take a lie, a thumbs up,
a comment, a shower. You know, we'll take some a
tip in that form.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
All right, that this show is free, it's not even
costing you anything, and what we're asking you to do
is free. I think that's very nice of you.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Thank you, thank you, and and if you take some notes,
I guarantee you will walk away with something that will
help you and get out of debt and move closer
to your worth wealth goals. All right, So I want
to talk about this because everybody's got them. But I'm
so curious to find out what is George's money hacks

(58:32):
for saving money?

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Oh well, I always joke that you know everything is
one hundred percent off when you don't buy it, And
so the true hack lies in just needing less and
wanting less and realizing more stuff is not going to
add any real value to your life. But if you
want to talk about realistic hacks, you know, there's different
areas that I think people are could do better with.
And one is travel, another one is eating out, another

(58:57):
one is just shopping, especially online shopping. And I have
a framework that I'll share that sort of becomes the
life hack, and it's called the smart Spender framework, and
it spells out the word smart smart. You ask yourself
five questions. The S is for self awareness. Is this
thing going to add value to my life? If you
answer yes, you move on to the M for motive.

(59:19):
Am I buying this for the right reason, and we
talked about that earlier. What are you really buying this for?
Is it boundaries, social pressures, retail therapy. Is it out
of emotion? Is it out of a I need to
impress someone? And if you said yes, I'm buying this
for the right reason, move on to the A for affordability.
Is this in my budget? Which means can I and

(59:39):
will I pay cash for this today with money I
actually have on hand. If the answer is no, that
means we got to pause. We got to build up
our savings muscle here. But if you say yes, move
on to the R for research Is this the best
option retailer and price? This is the part where people
really get screwed bert because it's impulsive. They just go
and they click and they buy and add to cart.

(01:00:00):
And that's where they're not doing the research and that's
where a lot of these money hacks come into play.
And then finally, if you did that research, you move
on to the TE for timing. Is now the time
to buy it? This is opportunity cost because if you
buy this thing now, you can't do X, y Z,
you can't fund retirement, You're not going to be able
to replace the tire, So you got to ask yourself,
is now the time? Or could this wait six months?

(01:00:21):
And usually the truth is if you wait twenty four hours,
forty eight hours, you don't even want the thing anymore
and you realize it was just impulsive. It's the inner
toddler inside of us that said I want it now.
So if you can say yes to all five of
those questions, then you're going to make a purchase with
intentionality instead of regret an impulse. And that's what I
found to be the best way from It helps me,

(01:00:43):
you know, just think through it a little more methodically,
which marketing doesn't want you to do. Marketing says you
need this now, and you've been living without it, and
you didn't know this existed two seconds ago, and now
you can't live without it for another two seconds. That's
what most marketing wants us to believe. And so you've
got to really put that shield up if you want
to win with money. And part of that is you

(01:01:03):
know the money hecks, which is I'm trying to avoid
paying retail price for literally anything. I just recently did
this with concert tickets. Another thing I'm very frustrated by
is the insane like you try to go buy concert ticket,
all the tickets are gone instantly, scalpers bottom all up,
and now you're left paying three x four x five
x that ticket price in order for the pleasure of

(01:01:25):
seeing that artist or comedian or whatever. And so I
did this with Seinfeld. It was a few weeks ago,
he was coming through Nashville. Tickets were four to five
hundred dollars on stub Hub, and I went, I'm not
I'd love Seinfeld. This is a once in a lifetime experience.
I'm unwilling to pay a thousand bucks for a pair
of tickets. So what I did was I scoured the internet.
I literally searched Seinfeld tickets on Twitter, on Facebook to

(01:01:48):
see is anyone out there, any real people willing to
sell their tickets for what they paid for it for
retail price? And I ended up haggling with a guy,
negotiating with a guy, and I got eleventh row tickets.
They were two hundred, two hundred eighty bucks and I
paid eighty bucks for it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
And because it was last minute, yeah, he couldn't use them.
I waited til the last minute because that's when people
start to get a little desperate. And so that kind
of mentality while taking a little more diligence and time
and research ended up saving me, you know, hundreds of dollars.
And that's something most people are just unwilling to do.
And I understand not everyone's going to be a frugal
nerd like me, but also don't just willing nearly impulse

(01:02:27):
buy you know, tickets for five hundred bucks when the
ticket would have cost one hundred and so there's a
little bit of just mentality around it, you know, for
travel hacks, using certain apps and doing your research of course,
Google flights, being flexible with your travel dates and destinations.
Booking on certain days like Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday tend to
be the better days to book travel versus other days

(01:02:50):
of the week. Fair comparison websites, using sites like costco travel.
I've booked some you know, trips and honeymoons and anniversary
trips through them. It's been great sky scanners and a
great option. And even with Southwest, a hack that I've
helped a lot of people with. Here, you book a
flight with Southwest and then all of a sudden they go, hey,
we got a sale, and you're like, wait, is my

(01:03:11):
flight cheaper. Now, well, people don't know. You can go
back and change your flight, rebook for the same exact flight,
and Southwest will give you a credit for the difference.
And people are messaging me saying, dude, you just save
me two hundred bucks. I didn't realize I paid three
hundred bucks for my flight. That was two people. That
was six hundred bucks. I went back and checked, and
I got a two hundred dollars credit back because the

(01:03:31):
flights were one hundred bucks cheaper each. So all that
it warms my heart to see people save money, you know,
in an ethical way. We're not doing anything illegal here,
not doing anything immoral, but again that takes a little
bit of diligence and research, and even eating out, there's
a lot of hacks there, depending on your your poison
of choice. I'm not a big fast food guy, and
so I'm not going to advocate for like, go get

(01:03:52):
the five dollars real McDonald's every day and your life's
going to be great and you'll save money. I care
about your health too much to tell you to do that.
But again, skipping out on appetizers and desserts and realizing
that portion control at restaurants is out of control and
going I probably don't need to eat that much to
the point that I hate myself. So I usually skip
an appetizer, skip the dessert. My wife might My wife

(01:04:14):
and I might split an entree and maybe we'll get
a cocktail if it's a nice cocktail bar or something
like that, and you know, get a dessert on the
way home, stop it at Whole Foods and get a
pint of ice cream and you still saved yourself twenty
five dollars. And so there's things like that you can
do anywhere. Again, I mentioned getting takeout instead of eating
at the restaurant, and that can save you, you know,
the tip at the very least. But also you're gonna

(01:04:37):
get sold on all the upgrades and the appetizers and
the desserts when you're at the restaurant versus takeout, where
you have more control because of course happy hours, lunch specials,
all the things like that, coupon city Saver kind of
books that you can get through your local schools and communities.
And then shopping online is another big one. I love.
There's a there's a browser extension called Honey that I

(01:04:59):
think was now bought out by PayPal and that's just
loaded into my browser, and whenever I'm shopping, Honey will say, hey,
we're gonna automatically apply seven different promo codes to see
if we can get you a better deal, or hey,
we can get you a gift card at ninety percent
of the cost for this purchase you're about to make.
And so all of that has helped me make better
spending decisions. And with Amazon, that's another big one. Everyone's

(01:05:19):
using Amazon. There's a site called Camel Camel Camel no
relation to me, bert as a guy named George Camel,
where it'll actually show you the price history of an
item because the confusing part with Amazon, well, it'll say
MSRP was one hundred and fifty dollars. Now it's on
sale for sixty. And I'm going, how do I know
if that's actually a good deal? What if it's always sixty?
What if tomorrow it's gonna be fifty? And so I

(01:05:41):
can enter in the link or type in the product
on Amazon on Camel Camel Camel, it will show me
the price history and I can go, oh, this is
a normal price, and actually it's gonna dip down every
July or every whatever. September Black Friday, it's gonna dip
down to fifty. I'll just wait and you can even
get notifications when the price drops. So those are some
helpful tools I found for searching online, even Google Images.

(01:06:04):
Have you used the Google Images app as a life Hackberd?

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
I've used it a few times for search, never for
a better price. How are you using it for?

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
So here's what I do. Let's say my mom says, hey,
I love this lamp, but it's a very expensive designer lamp.
Can you find me one that's more reasonably priced? So
what you do is you take a photo of it,
or take a screenshot of it, you upload it to
Google Images as a reverse image search, and Google will
then show you all the places a similar style lamp

(01:06:35):
was available. And now I can actually do my research
find out, Oh, you know what, Target has one that
kind of looks just like it, but it's only two
hundred bucks instead of eight hundred bucks. So I've used
that as a great way. Or even if you just
want the item and you don't know where the heck
to buy it. You saw it online, you saw it
in person, there's no tags on it, take a picture
of it, upload it to Google image search, and there

(01:06:56):
your shopping journey can begin. And so those are some
simple ways you can just be a more you know,
be a smart spender as I call it, and be
more intentional and be a you know, just a more
informed consumer.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
I love those. Those are great. I love the smart framework.
That's brilliant. I will that to me, is is just brilliant.
I'll just leave it at that. That is, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Well, that's in the book. In the Spending is Self
Control chapter of the book, that's where I kind of
lay that out and show you how to live that out.
And I think that's what it comes down to. We
need to have more self control with our spending. Consumer
debt is out of control, as you know, or our
record highs on everything, auto loans, student loans, you know,
even credit card debt is now at one point two
trillion dollars. And so this is an epidemic that needs

(01:07:41):
to stop, and it starts with us. We're the ones
causing the inflation. We're the ones not helping the Fed
when the Fed cuts the rate and I go, we're not.
You know, people are still spending out of control. It's
because of debt. We kind of have this shortcut to
the stuff we want through payments, and that's causing this entire,
you knowomy issue that we're facing where we can't cool

(01:08:03):
the housing market fast enough even as the FED starts
to cut the rate. So I think we're a big
part of the problem, and we're also the solution.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Totally agree. A couple of my hacks since we're sharing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Oh hit me, I got to write these down, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
So one of my favorite hacks is this works online.
Is again, whether you do this with Amazon or you
do this, especially outside of Amazon, it works even better.
But you load your shopping cart, you don't buy it,
you just load it, shut it down, and within a
few hours or maybe twenty four hours, they're going to

(01:08:41):
send you a notice saying, hey, you forgot to check out,
and then you just ignore it. And then within a
day or two, hey, if you check out now, we'll
give you ten percent off. And so it's cheaper for
them to give you a ten percent discount than to
lose the sale.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
In the world of marketing, your first sale is the hardest.
So if you can get that first sale, even though
you might not make as much profit, but that means
that this customer trusts you enough to give them your money,
your credit card, your identity. That's a big, big deal
in the world of online marketing. And so if hopefully
the consumer has a good experience, they got it at

(01:09:20):
a cheaper cost, and maybe they'll buy from you again.
So it's called the abandoned cart hack. That's what I
call it. You abandoned the cart and the uh what
do you call it? Oh? My favorite takes no technical
skills whatsoever? Is you ask for the discount? Oh my gosh, yes,

(01:09:42):
even at a retail store. I kid you not, especially
if you're buying a lot. Like we have five kids.
They're all now grown. But when we used to have
five kids at home, I would never ever be embarrassed
because I'm gonna go drop two, three, four hundred dollars
and I would always ask for the man and I
would always start off the same way. Boy, we love

(01:10:02):
the store we got you think you guys are great.
This customer serve has been nice. I got five kids.
Is there any way I can get a discount? And
eighty percent of the time they'll give you a discount.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Oh yeah, you gotta have no shame and that's a
hard part that they don't want conflict, they don't want
to be rejected, and I'm going again, the reward is
gonna be worth it. Here. The risk is they say Nope,
can't do that, and I go, all right, thank you.
You know, I'm gonna be kind. I'm not going to
be a jerk about it, but you're right. More often
than not, they're going, yeah, we can do tempercent off.
I'll even do a cash discount. I'll say, hey, if

(01:10:34):
I'm paying cash, would you be willing to give me
a discount? And for services rendered? This works well even
for big product purchases, and it doesn't have to be physical, cold,
hard cash. But sometimes if I write a check, they
can avoid the credit card processing fees which is three percent,
and they're willing to discount it. So when it comes
to a big purchase. You know, I even got one
at home depot one time because I was just nice

(01:10:56):
to this kid and he was saying, hey, do you
play video games? And went, no, do you anyway?

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Yeah? Yea.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
I said, what are you into? And I chatted him
up and he went, hey, you know what, I have
a discretionary discount I can give once a day to
a customer, I'm going to give it to you. So
he gave me an extra fifty bucks off on top
of my ten percent coupon on a fridge and he said,
and he was just just because you were cool. I went,
that's so kind, Thank you so much. Leaving a review. Say, hey,
I'd be happy to leave you some glowing reviews. I've

(01:11:21):
had a great experience. Would you be willing to give
me a discount?

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
Or if I leave you a review on Yelp and Google.
And you know that means a lot to a small
business owner, especially if it means a repeat customer. I'm
going to share with my friends. And so never be
scared to ask for a discount. It's not rude, you're
not undercutting them. Be kind always, don't be a jerk
about it. And it's amazing. What will happen?

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Absolutely, you know, for.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Kurtse tell me we've got time for one more?

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Oh okay, so real quick. Acorns is one of my
favorite things. Acorns is one of these things like a
digital coin jar saver. Right, So back in the day,
people like us, we'd come back at the end of
the day and we'd empty out our chains into a jar. Well,
a lot of us don't carry cash anymore. But you
can connect your debit card to Acorns and every time

(01:12:09):
you spend let's say ninety cents, they'll round up to
that ten cents. They'll take it and they'll put into
their account that's got a high yield account. That's how
we take care of Christmas. At the end of the year,
we don't have to get into debt. We look at
our Acorns account. Oh look, we've got an extra two
thousand dollars bam, and sort of a.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Four savings plan, and it's sort of you're tricking your
brain into saving. Essentially, it's sill your money, but it's
sort of like, all right, if I can just round up,
it's not gonna hurt that much right now, right, and
we'll have some money at the end of the year.
And so I think it's great to just think through
ways to trick yourself into saving more and living on less.
That's the key to all of this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Yes, yes, absolutely, okay, So listen real quick, I want
to ask you about the budget. Why is budget? First
of all, people find it extremely hard and they find
it extremely boring. What's your take on a boat?

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Well, like many. I used to think budgets were for
broke people and or accountants and nerds, and I was like, wait,
but I've never met a broke accountant or a broken nerd,
and so there's got to be something here. And I've
started using words like intentional spending plan That really helped
me go, oh, that's what a budget is. Don't think
about a budget as a restrictive tool that's going to

(01:13:22):
say no, you don't get You know that we were
trained growing up to go that's not in the budget,
and it's just this sort of easy scapegoat for not
having fun. That's how most people see it, and so
nobody wants to look in that financial mirror and have
that level of accountability. But when you look at a
budget as a permission to spend, of Wow, what does
a budget allow me to do? Now that's a different mentality.

(01:13:43):
A budget allows me to save up for a house,
to save up for a car without going into debt,
to cover Christmas without stress, to know that I'm living
on less than I make, to create margin to invest
and give and live that, to retire early insert your
dream here. So you can't do that if you're not
paying attention, and the only way to pay attention is

(01:14:04):
by creating a monthly budget, going what did I make
this month? What do we plan on spending? What did
we actually spend? To know if you're on track for
your goals? And so that's all it is. Everyone with
a goal reverse engineers it to make sure that the
goal happens at least successful people, and the budget allows
you to do that. We created one called every Dollar
a decade ago and it's now one of the top

(01:14:25):
budgeting apps out there. It's free in the app store.
Everyone can go download every Dollar and you can go
to every dollar dot com slash George get a two
week free trial with all the premium features. You can
check out bank connectivity, paycheck planning, financial roadmap tools to
look at what's going to happen in the next twenty years.
And so it's been a really helpful tool for my
family to stay accountable, to communicate regularly, to stay on

(01:14:46):
track for our goals. And it's sort of become our
little buddy we have in our pocket on our phones.
Wherever we go. We just track a transaction, going is
this in the budget?

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Cool?

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
And if you want it in the budget, put it
in the budget. Bert's fun money. You know, if Bert
wants to go out and you know, eat out two
hundred bucks at out Back Steakhouse, just put it in
the budget. And that way there's no regret and shame
at the end of that experience. Although blooming onion, that'll
cause some shame and regret. Bird, I'm telling you right now,
it's a lot for the human body.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Yeah yeah, I think the technical term for blooming onion
is disaster pants.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Okay, so what they call me in high school? Bird,
I don't need the memories.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
So every what is it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Every every dollar is.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
Every dollar dot com forward slash George Campbell will put
this in the show notes. And if somebody wanted to
reach out to you, if they wanted to find out
more about you, what's the best website?

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Absolutely well, George Cammell KA M E L dot com
will send you to all the things. But especially if
you want to reach out to me, Instagram is a
great place to do that. At George Campbell with a
K and my YouTube channel, We've got three episodes every
single week. If they're short, they're punchy, they're fun, they're informative,
all about personal finance. You know, breaking down the trends,
helping you understand the tracks, what to do, what not

(01:15:58):
to do, all of that stuff, how to build wealth
the right way, and you can just find that George
Cammell on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
I love it, George. I'll put all these links in
the show notes. Thank you so much for stopping by.
It's been a blast looking forward to have you back again.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Thank you so much. Bert, have a great day.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Bye bye bye. All right, man, thank you that was great.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
I had a great I don't know what these are
normally like for you, but I had a wonderful time.
You're a great interviewer. It felt very natural.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
It was just like hanging out with a friend.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Yes, yes, it was good. You you made it a
lot of fun based on your experiences as a podcast
for yourself, so that was a lot of fun. I look,
my biggest takeaway is the smart framework. If if somebody
listens to today's show and they don't walk away with
at least the smart framework, man, they they missed a lot.

(01:16:49):
But I appreciate you so much. I know you have
to go and we'll talk again.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Thank you so much. Bert, have a good one YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Bye bye,

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