George Kamel Breaks Silence on Dave Ramsey Controversy, Early Retirement, & Getting Debt-Free

17:13George Kamel:Oh, people's a general term, but I would say in the street, they're actually doing better than I expect. When I talk to young people, I found most of them, they have$2 ,000 to$5 ,000 in credit card debt. They're driving cars, you know, 2013, 2016. A lot of them paid off. Some of them have five or seven grand. They're few and far between where I meet someone who's like, I'm$180 ,000 in debt. Those are the calls on the Ramsey show. Those are the extreme calls that we get. But the everyday people on the street, I think, are actually doing better than you would think. And they're driving cars that would not impress you.

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19:16George Kamel:On the street, I met a guy who at Disney, they were 180 grand in debt, in consumer debts. And they were at Disney and they told me they were dropping a thousand bucks a day to be there for a week. And that's the clip that went viral on Instagram. That was the picture of what you expect at Disney, right? this person who's in crippling debt going, I just want to go on a trip. I need a vacation from my, the reality of my life, which is crippling debt. So that one stuck with me because I felt for them. And I talked to them afterwards and I gave them the every dollar budgeting app and kind of coached them a little bit, gave them some next steps.

19:51George Kamel:Cause I hate to, the point of those man on the street videos is not to make someone feel bad about their vacation. The point is to, to create a little bit of conviction that I can do better and I know how to do better now. And therefore or you kind of, our ignorance was bliss until now. I kind of pointed it out. Have you kept in touch with them? I haven't, but I think he's messaged me once before. So I'm gonna try to get back in touch to see where are they now and try to see if I can get them out of this thing. It's interesting because that actually sounds exactly like someone who's addicted to drugs because their life is falling apart and it's because of the drugs that they take, but then they take the drugs to escape that life.

20:30The same thing goes for this person and$180 ,000 of consumer debt or other people, maybe not this person exactly, but like generally speaking, like you're going on this trip to Disneyland, you're taking on more consumer debt in order to escape the stress of being in consumer debt. So it's just a vicious cycle that feeds itself.

20:47George Kamel:Yeah. Dr. Arthur Brooks calls that the doom loop and it happens with all kinds of addiction. And when you translate it to money, it's the retail therapy. I buy a thing. It wasn't enough. The dopamine wore off. So I need to go kind of do more of it, go bigger. And with debt, you see this kind of added to my tab mentality of, well, I'm 180 grand in debt. What's another 10 grand onto the pile? And even I have family members who do this. You know, they go to med school and they're 350 grand in debt. So adding a car payment to that is like a drop in the bucket to them. And that's the scary part is this is like monopoly money to us.

21:23George Kamel:And we don't realize the ramifications. And that's the side we get on the Ramsey show. When life didn't work out perfectly, when they were laid off, they were fired, a spouse wants to stay home because they had a kid, and all of a sudden we have to tell them, hey, you got to sell the house, or hey, that car is about to get repoed. You're about to get foreclosed on. So those are the heartbreaking calls. Everyone takes on payments when they're doing okay in life, and they can afford the payment, quote unquote. And eventually, they have a misstep. Life happens. They have an emergency that they weren't prepared for, and then the whole house of cards crumbles.

21:54George Kamel:So what's the worst thing you've seen on a call? Oh my gosh. The worst thing I've seen on a call, the one that is burned into my memory, is, I don't know if you've heard of the sovereignty movement? The sovereign citizen thing? Sovereign citizen. What is that? They believe that the government is basically operating under false pretenses, that taxes are illegal, and therefore I'm not going to pay taxes, I'm not going to pay back my debts because I think it's unlawful. And a woman called in and said, my husband is a part of this movement. He's sort of fallen into this cult-like mentality. And the car is about to be repoed.

22:34George Kamel:Their house is about to be foreclosed on because he's not making mortgage payments. And he owes the IRS$300 ,000. And I told her, I was like, hey, you might go to jail too. Like you might be able to claim innocent spouse if you're lucky, if you get a good attorney and get out of this. But this guy is going to drag you into prison with him if you're not careful. So those are the scariest ones where someone is, I mean, I think it's a mental illness at that point of that level of sort of paranoia and, you know, deranged behavior. What was her response? I think she was a little bit of, you know, just shock mode of she didn't really know what to do.

23:10George Kamel:And there was a lot of next steps to handle all of it. And, you know, I didn't think the marriage was going to survive in all of this. It's hard. You know, you're so far removed of like, that's not the person I married, you know. And so that was a really difficult call to take. That's hard to nail down in seven minutes on a radio call to help her. And so that's the hard part is you always think about them later on and you kind of have to, like a surgeon or a doctor, go like, all right, next caller. You know, you have to kind of compartmentalize it and not let it stick with you too much. This seems to be more of like a psychological question, but that also seems to be the same thing that leads people to believe that it's a good idea to put debt on, to take on debt in order to get a Coachella ticket.

23:56It's like all just like being disillusioned, basically, like being deluded, seeing reality for something that it isn't. What do you think? We don't see money anymore.

24:04George Kamel:When is the last time you guys saw$10 ,000 in cash? Now, Graham probably has because it's sitting in his safe at home. Every night. For example, money is just like this digital thing. It's just a number in a bank account. And therefore, when we take on debt, like a car payment, it's$50 ,000 for that new car. You didn't have to actually exchange anything for that. All you had to do was promise to make a$750 payment next month and the month after that. But that balance sitting with that car lender of$50 ,000 isn't really real to you, similar to a mortgage. And that's what I think we need is to bring friction back, bring the reality back that But even if you have$20 ,000 in savings and you have$50 ,000 in debt, you are not okay.

24:45George Kamel:You are not safe. There's a real deficit there. And you are in the red. You think it has to do with delayed consequence? Because back in the day, let's say if you didn't pay the IRS or if you wanted to take on debt, I feel like the consequence of doing that could not be stretched so far. Oh, yeah.

25:03Graham Stephan:You'd be borrowing money from the mob or from dude. And then your legs get broken when you're a day late.

25:10George Kamel:Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. Now what you do is you file bankruptcy, you pay a couple grand, get on a payment plan, or they repo the assets or foreclose the home, and then you got to get out of jail free card. Now your credit shot, your financial world is ruined for about a decade, but people just go, I'll file bankruptcy again. That's sort of the mentality now. And people see bankrupt. I mean, we get so many calls where people say, should I file bankruptcy? And they are$12 ,000 in debt. But they just somewhere learned along the way that there was a shortcut out of this thing that did not involve them.

25:44George Kamel:When should you file bankruptcy? I believe never. And if you know Dave Ramsey's story, he famously filed bankruptcy back in the day. But what happened is he had his back up against the wall. He had done everything he could in the time that he was allotted, 90 days to pay back all of the mortgages that he had, and he couldn't sell them off in time and therefore had to file bankruptcy. So we've never told someone on air, you should file bankruptcy. What we tell them is do everything you can to climb out of this thing. And then eventually, if you're a Dave Ramsey situation, it's going to be a natural byproduct because you've run out of options.

26:19George Kamel:But too many people make it the first option instead of a last ditch effort of, man, I I tried everything I could and I couldn't pay it back in time and there was no way out. But rarely is that the case these days. Most of the time, even if it's a couple hundred thousand in SBA loans, that's a big one we get is people took on a bunch of leverage to start a business. The business failed and yet they're left holding the bag. And that's a scary situation. We go, hey, you guys have to go get normal jobs and work on paying this down over time and get on a payment plan. But I still believe that is the best path out because the behavior change and transformation that happens when you have to pay all that money back and sacrifice and actually have that inner transformation, you'll never go back in.

27:01George Kamel:Because what we see is people go into bankruptcy two, three, four times because they just keep doing the same behavior that got them there. They never really learn. What are your thoughts on debt consolidation? Oof, it's another shortcut that I'm not a fan of. people again think this is some like magic trick of just like i'm going to take my 20 different debts and put it into one debt and that'll be easier to manage and the truth is it makes it harder to pay off because now you're staring at everest instead of quick win quick win knock out one debt knock out the next which is the debt snowball method debt consolidation makes the debt snowball method nearly impossible because now you're just paying back one giant what if

27:39Graham Stephan:you lower the interest rate and it lowers your payments and you're able to chip away at it faster? Do you think the psychological aspect just outweighs that?

27:47George Kamel:I still think the interest savings isn't worth it, especially if you're doing our plan, because our plan says gazelle intensity, deep sacrifice for a short period of time. So therefore, the actual math on how much you'd save on interest is negligible when you're going to attack it in 18 to 24 months, which is the average we find people getting out of their consumer debt following our plan to a T. And so I've never seen someone go, man, I became debt free and debt consolidation was my ticket. Or even worse, the debt settlement, debt relief companies that are popping up all over the place. What are you seeing right now with inflation impacting people's finances?

28:22Graham Stephan:Because right now, gas prices are crazy. Even in Vegas, I'm seeing like five, six dollars a gallon.

28:28George Kamel:Yeah, I was just in California and I wanted to throw up thinking about like eight dollars having to fill up a car.

28:33Graham Stephan:There was one gas station by Beverly Hills where someone posted on Reddit, ten dollars a gallon for gas. That is insane. $10.

28:40George Kamel:I think I'd get a bicycle real quick. I'd be walking. It's nice weather over there, so you can easily get to where you need to go. Or just don't leave the house other than going to work and back. But yeah, that's true. Inflation is real. It's not like a boogeyman. There's a real level of prices have gone up. And even as inflation has cooled, the prices just don't go back down. They just don't go up at quite the same pace. And so it is a real problem. I don't see it changing drastically anytime soon. and therefore what's the solution? It's your budget. It's cutting back in other places and trying to make more where you can.

29:15George Kamel:That's the only real solution is to go, all right, gas is gonna cost me 250 bucks instead of 150. Well, where am I gonna find that a hundred bucks? I gotta cut it from somewhere else. And once you can do that math and start to finagle your own finances, it becomes a lot less stressful than just sort of being in denial going, yeah, gas is more expensive, but I'll add it to the tab. I'll put it on my credit card and hopefully I'll be able to pay off the balance at the end of the month. No, instead, make a real plan of where that extra money is gonna come from, whether it's from working extra, getting a raise, getting a promotion, cutting back on subscriptions, cutting back on eating out, because that money is real and you have to account for it.

29:53How often is not making enough money a valid reason for someone's dissatisfaction with their finances or being in debt?

30:00George Kamel:I would say out of all the Ramsey Show calls I take, there's probably 10 % where it legitimately is an income problem. But even then, the debt-to-income ratio is off balance. So they have$40 ,000 in debt, but they make$60 ,000 as a household. That's a really tough situation. As your debt starts to creep up with as much as your income, if not more, the math just becomes a lot harder to pay off. But rarely do I find, I think once you hit the normal threshold, which most of our callers, they're making the average median household income or higher. They're doing well. They're making 80K, 100K, 150K.

30:38George Kamel:Rarely do we get the ones that are, hey, our household income is 40K. Yes, that is a problem. You're not gonna be able to have a stay-at-home spouse with a bunch of kids, with the car you want, life you want, while making 40K as a household. That's just really tight in today's America. So the good news is we always dig in and go, what are you doing for work? Okay, what's the ladder in that field? And if there isn't one, how do we get you out of this hourly wage position making 15 or 20 bucks an hour? Do you tell them to be an AI consultant? You know, I haven't tried that yet. I heard Grant Cardone say you can make a million dollars a year pretty easily as an AI consultant.

31:12George Kamel:I haven't attempted it. But I do tell people, okay, what is the skill set behind the thing that you're doing? And then where can you make a lot of money with that same skill set if you just moved it over here? And obviously, if you listen to Ken Coleman, what is the, you know, the thing you're actually passionate about? So not just the thing that's going to be soul sucking, because we also get a lot of calls from young guys who go, hey, I just want to make a lot of money. I want to go into medical device sales because I've heard you can make a lot of money. Well, that's a terrible reason to go into medical device sales because you're going to get burnt out.

31:42George Kamel:You're not going to last. You're not going to be a good salesperson. You're going to come across a little skeezy if you're only in it for that dollar.

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33:16George Kamel:Rarely. Most people are miserable in their jobs. And sometimes it's a mindset. I've met people who have because you would say if you looked at most jobs in America, I go, I wouldn't want that job. I mean, right. Ninety nine point nine percent of jobs out there. Graham Stephan goes, you couldn't pay me enough to do that. Well, maybe they could pay you enough to do that. Graham's like, I have a number. Yeah, they absolutely get. I have a number. But the truth is there's also people who, no matter what the work is, they find joy in it because they don't look at the face value of the work. Because if you look at face value of the work for most people, I sit in meetings all day.

33:49George Kamel:I'm in front of a computer all day trying to wordsmith an email and then you go home. That's soul sucking. But if you actually like to serve people, you like to be around people, if you have coworkers, you actually want to grow, then almost any work can be fulfilling. I mean, I've met Walmart readers that have more joy than the guy making$300 ,000 at Deloitte. Oh, because they get really good health insurance. That's where it's at. Get that health insurance. Really good. But it's true. There's a quality of life that your job affects. And if you have a poor quality of life due to the income or due to the stress or due to the soul-sucking nature of that job, get out.

34:28George Kamel:There is work out there for you that you can enjoy and make good money doing. So how much do you think it takes per year

34:34Graham Stephan:to have four kids with a stay-at-home life?

34:38George Kamel:Well, it's very area-dependent. Bay Area versus Idaho is going to be very different. So let's just talk then high cost of living, like metro areas. Because metro area, single income, four kids. Now, I'm going to say you don't have debt, all right? Because now you got to way increase the income if you're in crippling debt. You got a bunch of cars, a huge mortgage. Let's say you have a reasonable mortgage. You followed our principles, 15-year fixed, 25 % of your after-tax income, and no consumer debt. You can then survive on a decent, let's say a high-cost living area,$100 ,000. Because if you do the math on that, You're talking six grand a month, probably coming in, maybe five if you're high taxes in California.

35:19George Kamel:And you have a reasonable mortgage. That's two grand a month. You got three grand a month to play with to cover food, utilities, insurance, a little bit of fun money. For four kids. What depends on the kid? I mean, how old are the kids? Are they in private school? All of that matters. But I mean, with kids, you're talking about maybe formula, diapers, and basic clothing. Rice and beans. like what do kids actually need? We don't need to take them all to Disney every year. We're just making sure that they're fed, they're growing properly, they're healthy. That's about it. I kind of agree with that.

35:52Like I could be totally naive here because I don't have kids, but - Or a wife. For a wife or a girlfriend. Shout out to Jack if you're interested. I do not remember being like needing expensive things when I was a kid. Like all of the vacations that we would go on would just be backpacking trips. and so like we would just take the car out load up our backpacks we'd have a tent and then we just walk somewhere and then boom set up the tent and sleep and then of course you have food and then you have like i was in soccer but soccer was maybe like a hundred dollars two hundred dollars to sign up for a team yeah and then aside from that it's i mean what insurance but my mom was a public

36:29George Kamel:school teacher so that was also which is i mean she's not making the big bucks as a public school teacher. And what you find is the reality is a lot of people live in California making$100 ,000 household income. They exist and they make it work. And yet there's other people who make$350 ,000 who are in the red every month, paycheck to paycheck. And so it's really hard to say, well, if they just made this much money, they would be okay. Because as we know, half of those six-figure earners are paycheck to paycheck. So you can't just say, well, if they made$200 ,000, it'd be reasonable because that lifestyle probably necessitates this fancy car that they can't afford the big house that they can't afford but when you go this is the reality of how much we make what can we actually afford you just make different decisions and you make it work there's sacrifices made when you have a stay-at-home spouse with four kids you don't do the things that other people do graham is under the impression that like to raise a family of four what do you think it would cost like over 18 years we had a discussion with the opera month Per month.

37:29We had a discussion with the Oppenheim brothers, and they were throwing out like ludicrous numbers. And I'm like, there's just, my parents weren't making that amount. How many of these people have four kids? Well, no, two kids, because it's a family of four. So how many is four? Oh, family of four. Okay, I have a family of four. Do they have a family of four? No. Graham does not. He's just like very apprehensive to have kids because he feels like he can't afford it.

37:46Graham Stephan:So how - I'm not apprehensive to have kids. I'm just saying it's, I just don't think it's going to be a few grand a month. So how much do you think a family of four needs to be bringing in to support a family? to support the family. I think it really is location dependent if you own your house. Vegas, I'm going to say probably

38:06Graham Stephan:125K a year minimum for a family of four.

38:10George Kamel:Is that assuming there's no consumer debt? Correct. Let's assume there's no consumer debt. Don't you think it's a better way to live at that point? To just have no consumer debt? That way - Yeah, that's why I said 125K. He's saying 125K, no consumer debt. So like, yeah, I think that's a good life. Yeah, about 10 ,000 a month. But he said that's minimum. But that's not to cover the kids. That's just to cover the entire household. Everything. Yeah. Utilities, kids, food. The kids are this much of that.

38:35Graham Stephan:They might be - Some travel. 5 % of that. Other expenses, emergency. I think that's the minimum. I think it could be done for less, but I think that would be the amount that would be comfortable. Yeah.

38:45George Kamel:As someone who is a, you know, we have a four-person family. I've got an infant. I've got a toddler. I can tell you what we spend on the kids. and it's diapers, it's formula. And honestly, all the toys and books, we didn't purchase. They come from family and friends and birthdays.

39:01Graham Stephan:It was interesting that Chris Camillo was saying that when you raise kids in a nicer neighborhood, they cost significantly more just because if you don't keep up with what the other families are doing, the kids will feel excluded. That's true. And that you have to have your kids at the same level. Otherwise, they're the odd ones.

39:18George Kamel:Well, I'll give you an example. Our neighborhood, like all of these little kids have these little, you know, these little Jeeps, these little motorized cars are driving around in. And so we got my daughter one because now she's just watching them drive around, not able to participate. And so for Christmas, my family got her a little motorized Jeep that she loves to ride around in now. But there is a level of you sort of and that's funny that we learned this at such a young age that you have to assimilate to the people around you. Otherwise, you stick out like a sore thumb. And there is a truth to it in that you want to be a part of this community, you sort of have to be like that community.

39:54George Kamel:Otherwise, eventually they go, hey, he's not really one of us or they don't want to participate. Would you say Nashville is similar cost of living to Vegas? Oh, 100%. So you're in Nashville. We're in Las Vegas. How much do you as a family of four spend per month? Probably$5 ,000, maybe six if we're really living. But that's our like to cover it. Like if I had a, let's say I lost my job. We needed our emergency fund and we cut back to like a pretty, just like bare bones budget. We still enjoy our life, but we're kind of cutting out all the extras. I could bring it down. Yeah. I could bring it down to four or five grand easily because our actual expenses we have to cover are insurance for the home, taxes for the home, all the other insurances, auto, term life, all of that.

40:42George Kamel:And then food, which we could really, you know, just shop at Aldi and meal prep and do all that kind of stuff if we had to. And the kids have plenty of crap. They don't need any more of it. And so I feel very confident that if there was a situation like that, I could trim way down. But if you look at the average home in Williamson County, which is the county we're in, it's a million dollars now. It's the average price, which is crazy in Williamson County. And so I assume Vegas is similar. I would say it's similar. And depending on the area, you could probably find cheaper. Like if you went to the most expensive area of Vegas, it'd probably be more like that of average home, at least a million.

41:17Graham Stephan:I would agree with that. So how much do you think someone would need to retire in their 40s to support a family of four?

41:23George Kamel:If they retired in 2026? Yeah. Let's say they're 40 years old. Oh, they want to retire early? Yeah. Okay. That's a pretty, well, I wouldn't recommend it, first of all. Why? I've never met someone who can sustain that because the personality type to be able to retire at 40 with a huge nest egg, they're just simply too ambitious to just go full stop. It's like a marathon runner doing the marathon and saying, I am never running again. They're just going to be jonesing for that next thing. They're just too goal oriented to then just stop and have no ambition and sit on a beach. It gets old fast. Even if you want to travel internationally, great.

42:00George Kamel:You go on the trip and eventually you just want, you know, a McDonald's hamburger and to sleep in your own bed. And so I think there's a fallacy that retiring early. I love the idea of retiring early or being work optional. That's what I love. That's a, it's kind of the like, screw you money where you hate everything. You hate your boss. Your job is toxic, whatever. And you can just go, I'm out. I don't need this anymore. And your assets create enough income to cover your expenses. I think it's a great goal to have for your assets to cover your expenses and create, spit off enough income to do that.

42:31George Kamel:But I think the idea that you're going to do nothing is the scary part because those people have so much value to add to the economy. If they're making probably a couple hundred thousand dollars and stocking most of it away to be able to retire at 40. If you think about starting from 25 to 40, 15 years, you are just piling money away, probably to the tune of a savings rate of 50, 60 % to be able to do that. So how much would you need? It depends on your lifestyle. Some people want to live this sort of, and you know this, there's the like lean fire all the way to fat fire from financially independent retire early.

43:03George Kamel:So we're talking, I can live off$750 ,000 nest egg to I need 10 million plus just to survive. And what I found, because I've been looking into these communities, the goalpost always moves. Everyone is so scared to pull the trigger and all the comments go, dude, the math checks out. You're fine to retire. You got $6 million and your expenses are$100 ,000 a year. Go enjoy your life if you want to quit. but most people are so scared and it's not about the money. I think it's about the purpose and value they, and identity they feel in the work that they do. And what's going to happen on the other side when they're just sitting at home.

43:38Graham Stephan:I think a lot of it is that they plan for the downside. Cause I've seen a lot of those posts. I'm on Reddit fat fire, like every single day. And I see those where it's like, and they're almost a million liquid and you know,

43:50George Kamel:I'm doing this. The average person went to the fat fire subreddit. They would go, these are the most out of touch idiots I've ever met. They got$14 million and they're saying it's not enough, right? That's essentially most of the posts in there. They're all sort of like, well, I have this much, but I don't know. I'm still a little gun shy because they just, they're scared of the future, which is kind of what got them here. And they wanted to have some control over their future. And yet they are so controlled by their mind, by their own prison they've created. And what would you tell those people?

44:19George Kamel:I tell them to let go and let God and go find work you enjoy doing and Don't worry about you know the dollar amount at this point because truly they they have Earned their way to financial freedom by all stretches of the imagination And so now it's going dude if you can't learn to live off of 10 million dollars Then you'll never be able to live And I think truthfully what they're missing is a real purpose in life because their sole purpose was get to this number They get to the number and they go well I guess there needs to be a bigger number because I can't let go of the one thing that was keeping me alive, this weird financial goal.

44:51George Kamel:So that's the part that scares me is there's no real foundation other than, well, I want to be able to work out more or, you know, enjoy travel more. I think you just need a deeper purpose than that. And some people avoid having starting families. They avoid getting married. They avoid having kids because they think that is a deterrent to their financial goal. And what purpose do you recommend for those people? Oh, my gosh. I mean, I think getting married and having kids gives you an immense sense of purpose. And it's not to say that if you're single, like you don't have purpose. But I think there's a newfound sense of purpose that causes it forces you to become more selfless and be less inward focused when you've got to you've got to raise these kids and you want to do it right.

45:33George Kamel:And what if they already have kids?

45:35Graham Stephan:Because it seems like a lot of those posts, they already have kids.

45:37George Kamel:Yeah, if they're if they're married, they have kids. I do think faith plays a big part of it. I think without faith underpinning a lot of this, it does feel a little bit meaningless. This sort of like capitalistic rat race. We're here for 70 years, then we're in the grave. So what's the point of anything? You sort of have an existential crisis if you don't have a bigger picture and a bigger thing to live for. And so I think faith plays a big part. Family plays a big part. Your health plays a big part because we see a lot of these people are burnt out, stressed, high blood pressure, out of shape.

46:11George Kamel:And so if you're able to focus on your health, your relationships, your family, your work, and your faith, you are so well-rounded that you're going to have a great life no matter how much money you make or have.

46:23Graham Stephan:How much do you think people should be saving who want to get to that point in their 20s, 30s, 40s? Is there a percentage that you recommend?

46:30George Kamel:For like a work optional sort of aggressive savings goal? Well, what I did is I saved 15 % of my income into retirement accounts while aggressively paying down the mortgage with anything left over. So that was my plan. I'm not saying everyone has to do that, but being completely debt-free in my early 30s then freed me up to go from investing 15 % to 50 % because I still live the same way. We didn't really increase our lifestyle by much. We may have bought our time back in a few ways, you know, lawn care, a cleaner, whatever it is. But aside from that, I'm still the same, George. I don't spend, I don't have this like materialistic, like I just want more stuff.

47:11George Kamel:We really focus all of our energy toward our, like buying our house. Let's furnish it nicely. But outside of that, a vacation's a, you know, it's a pipe dream for us right now with an infant toddler and two dogs, one of which is handicapped. You keep bringing up a handicapped dog. I'm just curious. What's the, what's the handicap? If that's like insensitive to ask, I'm sorry. No, I think the dog would be fine with me telling you. He had something called introvertebral disc disease, IVDD, which is fairly common in French Bulldogs and other dogs. You have a French Bulldog. I got two French Bulldogs.

47:44George Kamel:So that's another thing. They're born broken. Okay. When you think about dogs that just don't look like they should exist, French Bulldogs are at the top of the list. And vets hate and love these dogs. They hate them because of how they're bred and they have so many issues, breathing issues, hip issues, spine issues, and they love them because it pays for their second home. And so French bulldogs have common issues like this. So my dog was very athletic, four years old, great shape. All of a sudden exploded disc in his spine, lost all function in his back half. So we had to make the hard decision.

48:13George Kamel:Do we see if it heals on its own or do we do an expensive surgery to remedy it? They go out and clean the, you know. That's the hard. I thought you were going to say a different hard decision. Of putting him down. Yeah. Well, that's a byproduct that could happen if you don't deal with it. And so we decided to do the surgery. We had about an hour window to decide. I was live on the Ramsey show. My wife's calling me in tears at the emergency vet going, hey, they need a decision now because there's a window of time where you can actually do the surgery. And so we did the surgery and it was eight months of grueling rehab.

48:46George Kamel:And he's doing actually great now as far as all things are considered. He can run and walk. He can't bend his back legs. He kind of does like just this move on the back. That's good. But, you know, he's thriving otherwise. Like he still lives a pretty normal life, which is great, but that's taken a toll on us emotionally, you know, financially. It's just super expensive. Why get that breed of dog? There's some things in life you do knowing that it's not a smart financial decision. And I think dogs fall into that category, but especially dogs with known issues. You buy like a mutt from the rescue, that dog's going to live forever with no issues.

49:26George Kamel:You buy a purebred French bulldog, it's party's over. And so we just, both my wife and I love French bulldogs. We love their temperament. We love the way they look and their weirdness, their personality. And so we just got one and then decided it needs a friend. And so we got another one and here we are. How much was the surgery? The surgery was$6 ,000.

49:51Graham Stephan:It's not as bad as I expect.

49:53George Kamel:It's not horrible. That was just the surgery. The scan and anesthesia, I think, was another$5 ,000. Oh. And then the rehab costs, the medication costs, that just kept adding to it. So it put a hole in our pocket. Luckily, we did. So I don't advocate for pet insurance for most people. I think you're better off just putting money away in a savings account and using that as your insurance plan for a pet. But knowing that these dogs have so many issues, I got sort of a high-deductible pet insurance plan. And so they ended up paying the max for us of a five grand back into our bank account. How much was a pet insurance?

50:29George Kamel:It's probably a couple hundred bucks a year for that. Oh. So we made out like bandits for this one. But it was still, I mean, that's what made me feel good. What I didn't want was to have to make the decision, as Dave has said on air, of like, do you cover it or do you put the dog down?

50:43Graham Stephan:Were those the only options? Because I've seen some dogs that have the wheels on the back. And they were able to use their front legs and they have like the wheels.

50:49George Kamel:We do have those for him to help him sort of rehab on walks, but he doesn't need them to move. Why couldn't he just have that with his lower half not working? Well, there was a chance. That was a possibility. But we wanted to see if he can get back to where he was because he's only four years old. So I was like, he still has a lot of life left in him if we can get him healed up. And so I feel like we are on the right side of history there. Deloney wanted me to just, he was like, dude, I would have not done what you did. Rachel, same way. They're both not, even Dave would have said, I would not have done what you did.

51:21George Kamel:They would have written it out and just to see what happens, but they're not going to pay for all this stuff.

51:25Graham Stephan:I feel like a dog's always like a member of the family. I agree.

51:30George Kamel:And truthfully, the reason we do the baby steps, the reason I'm so conservative with money is because I don't know what life is going to throw at me. So when a dog has a situation like this, we have the money sitting there. We don't need to get on their payment plan or put it on a credit card. We take it out of the emergency fund and go, that sucked, but I'm glad we didn't have to suffer financially too. And so it's one of the biggest reasons I advocate for a debt-free life, the savings in the bank, building wealth for the future, is because you have more flexibility and options with whatever life's gonna throw at you.

52:01So then in order to retire, let's say someone does want to retire early, how much would they need in a low cost of living, medium cost of living, and a high cost of living area? Man, I wish there was a magic number.

52:12George Kamel:It'd be so fun to spit it and everyone goes, this guy crushed it. Uh, again, it depends on your lifestyle, your expenses, but if you kind of go, how about this? We can kind of go with like a, like low, middle, high lifestyle and how much I think is a blanket number. I would like to have an anesthetist retiring in like, but in your fifties, what are we talking? Let's do 50, 50 years old. I think it's an easy, if you want me to just blanket it, I would say 1 million, 2 million, 3 million would get you very far. That's not to say it's going to cover every situation, every family, every level of household expenses.

52:45George Kamel:But I think when you look at the stair step of that, you go, that's a pretty, it would take a long time to deplete that if you only took out what you needed. Three million bucks for most people on a nest egg, they'd be set for life. Now, if you spend 20 grand a month, may not get you that far. But for most people, let's say the average household expenses are between three and seven thousand dollars for most people that's plenty if they're not you know just milking this nest egg suzy orman says five million that's that would be comforting but i think to tell someone that they need five million dollars by the age of 40 is insane 50 by 50 still that's a that's a very aspirational goal that only personal finance nerds now if there's an 18 year old who watches your channel or my channel even in their 20s it's very achievable if you can make a good income, household income of, let's say,$80 ,000 to$150 ,000, you have a great investment rate, you have no consumer debt, you get that mortgage paid off and then invest that mortgage payment for the rest of your life, you can get there.

53:46George Kamel:And I plan on having more than$5 million when I retire. So it's not to say that I couldn't live on less, but the more I have, the more impact I can have, the more I can create generational wealth, the more I can give to my church or nonprofits that I care about. And so I think making money has been villainized and having a ton of money has been put on an unhealthy pedestal.

54:07Graham Stephan:So if someone's 18, what advice would you give them? Would it be to go to college? Would it be to become a consultant? What would you recommend?

54:15George Kamel:I think I would have them figure out the work they're wired to do first, because that will then show you the path. Because for too many people, and I just went to a high school a couple of weeks ago and I interviewed all these high schoolers about their plans after school. And it was shocking to me how many people just went, well, I'm going to college because I don't know the next step. So they're just sort of falling into this herd mentality of I go to college because I'm told that's going to be my best path. When the truth is, it's not, especially in 2026, as you know, most people want to be YouTubers.

54:47George Kamel:You don't need a college degree to be a YouTuber. It probably won't even help you at that point. You're probably better off spending that four years creating content than sitting in a classroom. And so depending on what you want to do, college might be the next step. It might be trades. It might be an entrepreneurial venture. But I do think the faster you know the work you're wired to do, the faster you can fail when you're young, the better off you're going to be. Because too many people wait until they're in their 30s, 40s to figure out, man, I really hate this. Well, I hope you figure that out at 22 instead of 42.

55:18George Kamel:You will save yourself a whole lot of time and heartache. But the 18 year olds I talked to, the number one question I have is, how do I get a million dollars by 25? That's my most viral TikTok was a call on the show. 18 year old calls in and says, I want to turn 100 grand into a million by the time I'm 25. And I said, why? And then he backed out. He went, oh, it was just a question. I went, no, I just want to know truthfully why. And at the heart of it, they're all scared that they'll never get ahead. They'll never build wealth. They'll never own a home. Therefore, they need to do something crazy risky and high leverage in order to make a lot of money now because they're never going to have it.

55:53George Kamel:And that's the heart of it. If you ask someone why or and then what, they generally don't have an answer after one or two rounds of that. Here's interesting.

56:03Graham Stephan:Let's just say he had to do it. He had to turn 100 grand into a million at 25. Okay. How would you do it? Go make a lot of money and sock a lot of it away. How would you make a lot of money? Let's just say his life depended on it. He turns 26 and he doesn't have a million.

56:19George Kamel:I think starting a business is the best path for a young person to make a lot of money quickly. Because I don't know a lot of companies looking to hire an 18 year old, unless there's some kind of prodigy working in tech or AI, who's going to pay them$200 ,000. But you can make$200 ,000 with a lawn care business at 18. And I've met those people. They're crushing it. So find a business that is not sexy, that is not highly promoted on TikTok and go, all right, how do I scale this thing with the time that I have in a smart way that doesn't involve debt? And the people that do it debt-free just have a much, they have much more room to play with.

56:59George Kamel:And the people that are highly leveraged, well, now they just own a job with a bunch of payments on the other side. But if you can scale this thing, hire a couple guys under you to start doing the lawn care, you scale into Christmas lights during the winter. you start to get resourceful, you can make money in these little niches over here and compete with the big guys. If someone were to listen to every single thing you tell them to do, let's say you called them every single morning for five minutes, you're like, do this, do this, do this, do this. They're 18, they wanna be a millionaire by 25.

57:27What's the likelihood of them doing that?

57:29George Kamel:The likelihood, okay, give them seven years. Now this is largely dependent on their income because we always say your income is your greatest wealth building tool. So making$40 ,000, you're not gonna get there from 18 to 25 to a million. I mean, it's a$900 ,000 gap we're talking about in seven years. That's over$100 ,000 a year you need to be putting away or growing for you. So I think it's just a terrible goal. And so my number one thing with that person would be to adjust their goal, not to help them get to the number. But let's just say like, if you could put your mind into the mind of an 18-year-old, what's the likelihood that they could go to becoming a millionaire in seven years?

58:08Likelihood, I would say 10%. If they called me every day? Every single day, five minutes with you. And you just, or however long, you know, if you said, hey, today I want you to spend 14 hours going door to door trying to sell this. And then once you have this money, report back to me how much money you have. I'll tell you exactly how to reinvest it. Okay, that you only made this much. We're going to try doing this. Do this, study this, read this book. And if they just listen to every single thing and they needed, let's say eight hours to sleep, two hours for taking care of themselves. They need Alex Tormozzi for this.

58:34They need to scale 100X. I'm just curious.

58:37Graham Stephan:what's the likelihood that they become and they really followed it like they're exactly to a t and they're motivated every day yep i would give it 40 percent oh 40 percent the reason i say 40 percent not 50 percent is because there is an element of just the person and randomness no let's say the person listened to every single thing you said yeah but even then okay so random it's like they get into an accident yes there could be like random things that just come up that that i am not equipped to handle either. So I would say a 40%. I'd be confident.

59:07George Kamel:Well, the key is they would need to be, because I'm not a guy who's going to, I'm not a betting man. So most people would say, leverage, take a bunch of risks, and hopefully it works out. I'm going to go, I'm going to be the tortoise instead of the hare and go, well, what is a six figure job or business you could create and then sock away that level of income. Live off 20%, 30 % of that. Keep living so frugally and sock it away. Which again, is not a good quality of life, which is why I would not recommend it. I would go, hey, what's behind this? What happens at 25 with a million dollars? What then?

59:43George Kamel:They probably don't have an answer.

59:44Graham Stephan:I take it to 90 % if I could have more than five minutes a day with them. You can have as much time as you want. Why isn't this a new channel, Graham? You should start this series. No, because we would do social media consulting and I would have this person nonstop throughout the day creating content not creating content finding people who need social media consulting like corporations you can't pay this person or go into business with them it's not a shark tank I just have to coach them they can't come to me and say like Graham what do I say they need a thumbnail what do you think about this thumbnail you can't get well then they would just be marketing Graham no you're destroying the premise because then they could just say oh yeah I'm basically Graham you're destroying the premise of this random hypothetical come on man I'll just ask Graham, you know, because I'm Graham's closest friend.

1:00:28Then it's back down at 40%. Okay. That's interesting.

1:00:31George Kamel:Yeah. It's hard to answer because I think it's just a useless goal. Because I think once you have a million dollars at 25, your life is not necessarily better. You probably have no relationships at that point because all you did was grind. So now you're just single, no friends with some money, and you probably have bought some nice things along the way. Let's be honest.

1:00:53Graham Stephan:But you could make friends at any age. And to be fair, a lot of the people I hung out with from 20 to 25, I never see them. None of it really mattered. And now I have great friends. And now you have at least one friend. Now I have one friend.

1:01:07George Kamel:And a wife.

1:01:08Graham Stephan:And a wife. And two cats and a dog. One quality friend is worth 100 non-quality friends.

1:01:14George Kamel:Yeah. That math hurts my head, but I'll go with it. I'll go with it. Yeah, I just think that that person has their goals out of order. I would rather them go, what is a problem in the world that I would love to solve? That's a much better question to ask than how much money can I make or how do I get to a certain number? That number needs to be a byproduct of something that you added to as far as value to someone or a group of people. And we talk about that at Ramsey. One of our core values is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. That's what Dave's done. I mean, most of our content's free.

1:01:48George Kamel:We're not asking you for money at every turn. You could buy a course or a book, but it's not like we gatekeep it.

1:01:54Graham Stephan:See, I agree with that, but my mindset was always from 18 to 30. You head down work. You sacrifice everything you don't need and you just head down work because the value of money when you're 20 years old is so high compared to the value of that same dollar at 50. Agreed. Can I tell you the math on it?

1:02:12George Kamel:At 20 years old, every dollar you invest is a 73X return at 65. So$1 at 20 turns into$73.65. At what rate of return? That's, I believe, 9 % or 10%. Now, when you invest that same dollar at 55, maybe a 4x return if you're lucky at 65. So you can see from 73x, it starts to go down, down, down over time because you have less time for compound growth to work its magic.

1:02:38Graham Stephan:So that's why I always thought that it didn't matter if you see friends or not. It doesn't matter if you're not going on vacations because you could do it when you're 32. too like the difference of experience i think between 25 and like 35 very little like i still feel internally 25 yeah i mean you look at great skincare that really helps macy's got me uh moisturizing wow yeah she's got this good she's got all these serums dude i now put on my face i

1:03:05George Kamel:will say i got a huge glow up when i got married there was so many things i didn't know were wrong with me until my wife lovingly pointed them out and said we can fix that what was the biggest one hair was one thing i think i i upped the hair clothing was a huge one i was not dressing very well when i met her and she helped me step up that game um my teeth i think i was using a sort of mouthwash that was making my teeth sort of have a almost like dark lines in between oh that's plaque it wasn't plaque though it was like i listerine too much and it affected my so all that stuff uh glasses i got different glasses that really helped they're a little more modern that fit my face better, all of that stuff.

1:03:44George Kamel:So marriage will do that. So get ready, Jack. One day you're going to have the glow up nobody expected. You're going to be looks maxing. I appreciate that. Have you interviewed that guy by the way? Yeah, Jack has ascended a little bit

1:03:55Graham Stephan:over the last month and a half. Was he nice to talk to? Yeah, he's very friendly. He's socially interesting, I would say. It's a nice way to put it.

1:04:07George Kamel:I was just curious. I just think that I don't get in that world. Like the manosphere, the looks, I have to be told by Gen Z people what's happening right now. And it makes me feel like a boomer. But I just think there's a level of just vanity and grossness and flexing that's happening right now in culture that I'm just not at all interested in. I noticed that you were mogging us when we came in.

1:04:30Graham Stephan:I don't know what that means, but it sounds like it's a bad thing that I did. It's not a bad thing. It's just it is what it is. You were mogging Jack and I. What does that mean?

1:04:38George Kamel:Can you even give me the definition of mogging?

1:04:40Graham Stephan:Yeah, you were kind of like one-opping us. It's like you're kind of showing status a little bit, like the way you were dressed.

1:04:47George Kamel:I didn't mean to. I think you guys just usually generally underdress. That's all. So it wasn't me flexing. But you guys look great, honestly. And you wore my jacket on my YouTube channel when you did my show. Yeah. Are you wearing socks? And you look great. I'm a no-show guy, which I know is a big faux pas in the Gen Z world. It is. I'm told that no-show socks have not been cool for 10 years. Correct. But I simply refuse to wear thick white socks in the summertime or when it's warm out here in Tennessee. But you'll wear a jacket. Yeah, I'm indoors. So what is your current portfolio look like? This episode is in partnership with Airbnb.

1:05:22So Graham and I just wrapped up a trip. We were in Austin for a few days. We filmed episodes with Togi, Chris Camillo, and Caleb Hammer. And honestly, every time we're on the road, we're staying at homes on Airbnb. It's just become the default.

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1:06:33Graham Stephan:And when Jack and I started the Ice Coffee Hour, in the very beginning, we were winging it. We were trying to figure out everything ourselves. And that's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you get it and how frustrating that could be. But that is why our sponsor, Shopify, is so incredibly helpful. Realistically, you probably already know what Shopify is. But if you don't, Shopify is essentially an all-in-one business platform. They support millions of businesses worldwide from huge brands like Mattel and Gymshark to entrepreneurs who are just getting started. And here's a fun fact.

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1:07:44Graham Stephan:So start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing all you got to do to get started is to sign up for their$1 a month trial when you go to Shopify.com slash ICH. Again, that is Shopify.com slash ICH. shopify.com slash ICH. The link is also down below in the description. Thanks again to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. What is your current portfolio look like? The same as it always was.

1:08:11George Kamel:It's the home. Let's talk percentages. The home is probably, let's see. The home is probably about half of my entire net worth. And then the investments between my wife and I's retirement, checking savings all of that is probably another half and then what are the investments look like um my we have my wife now stays at home so she had a 401k at ramsey and we rolled those over to iras a traditional ira for the traditional side roth ira for the roth side so we have that just sitting there i've got my 401k at ramsey i have an ira from a rollover from yeah but like what are they invested in? In mutual funds.

1:08:56George Kamel:I do have a brokerage account that's non-retirement that's invested in Vanguard index funds. So that's pretty, that's the only thing that's not. Do you do international index funds? Do you do bonds, treasuries, anything? I don't do bonds or treasuries. I'm an equities man. So I like to go 100 % equities. I think it's the asset allocation theory is kind of bunk. And the idea that I need to have 40 % in bonds is wild. What percent do you have in cash? Cash, probably close to 10%. And do you buy the dip or do you just dollar cost average? I dollar cost average across investments. I like to do things monthly.

1:09:31George Kamel:I might like fund a Roth IRA, for example, you know, in one fell swoop. But other than that, I like to have things automated so that my human brain can't mess with it. So, for example, I have my kids 529 college savings plans. I automate investments to that. I automate the investments to my brokerage account so that the money's gone. Like paycheck hits, the money disappears. I'm basically living like I'm broke, which is great. I keep only as much as I need for household expenses and checking. How much Bitcoin do you have? Currently close to zero. And by close to, I mean I have zero. Truthfully, I don't even know how to buy it.

1:10:08George Kamel:You could buy the ETF. That still sounds like work to me. Like if you gave me the choice of a S &P 500 index fund or a Bitcoin ETF, I'm going to go index fund every time because it's the one that I understand. I understand what's behind it. There's 500 companies. They're weighted. There's market caps. Bitcoin is based on how we all feel about it. Can I buy you one share of iBit? You can do that.

1:10:36Graham Stephan:Are you going to donate it to me?

1:10:37George Kamel:How does that work?

1:10:38Graham Stephan:No, I would just Venmo you. Enough to buy. What's one share cost? $40.

1:10:42George Kamel:And what's that going to do for me?

1:10:44Graham Stephan:Now you could say you have a little Bitcoin exposure.

1:10:47George Kamel:Oh, okay. So it's the flex for me. Yeah. In case people ask and go, yeah, I got a little Bitcoin. How much? Graham bought me some. Graham bought me 40 bucks. It was a gift from a friend. Would you take it? Who am I to say no? I'm not one to block a blessing. So if you want to give me$40, sure.

1:11:01Graham Stephan:But with the express intent that you have to buy one share of item.

1:11:05George Kamel:Yeah. If you show me how to do it, I don't even know how to create a wallet and all that. It's an ETF. It's traded on any brokerage. Any brokerage. It's IBIT is the ticket. Oh, so I can go to Vanguard and purchase this. Yeah. Okay, great.

1:11:17Graham Stephan:If I can do it in Vanguard, I can understand that. Okay. Great. $40. Deal? Deal. So now George owns Bitcoin. Yeah. There we go. Holy cow. We just convinced you to buy Bitcoin here on the podcast. Well, technically Graham bought Bitcoin. Well, I'm just holding it. You own Bitcoin now.

1:11:33George Kamel:Yeah, I guess so.

1:11:34Graham Stephan:I don't even know what IBIT is. It just represents Bitcoin? Yes. It's an ETF. So it's a fractionalized ownership of Bitcoin. but as a stock. So do I actually own Bitcoin or just move up at the same price Bitcoin does? Yeah, you own the stock. You own the company that owns Bitcoin. You're not directly buying the Bitcoin itself. What company owns Bitcoin? I thought it was not owned by anybody. This is BlackRock. You're buying BlackRock?

1:11:56George Kamel:That's scary.

1:11:56Graham Stephan:Fund.

1:11:57George Kamel:Feels like I'm in with the mafia.

1:11:58Graham Stephan:Well, there's FBTC too, but that's$70. So I picked iBit.

1:12:03George Kamel:You're not willing to spring the 70 for me?

1:12:05Graham Stephan:Do you want to split it, Jack? It'd be a nice coffee hour expense. Would you rather have...

1:12:09George Kamel:This video is going to produce more than$70 for you guys. I feel like I'm worth it. We had expenses flying out here. You know how much our flights were going back to Vegas? Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Just one way? One way, two people. One way for two people. Okay. From Nashville to Vegas, one way, what airline? Southwest. I'm going to go - Total. Total. With$780. $1 ,200. You got ripped, man. You got ripped. Gas prices and flights are - Jet fuel cost? Yep. I think they knew it was your account on Southwest and he's got the money.

1:12:44Graham Stephan:Probably. So that's why we have to settle for IBIT. Yeah, I get it. I get it. We got to save money where we can.

1:12:49George Kamel:No, I'm fine with that. Again, I'm not anti-crypto. I just don't understand it enough and I'm not interested enough to be a part of it and track it knowing that it's 24-7. There's nothing underlying in it other than maybe utility in the future. That's it. I mean, so I like to know, hey, Apple just released the iPhone 17 and a new MacBook and their revenue went up and therefore the share price went up and therefore I benefited from that. That I can understand. And I love Warren Buffett's take that he wouldn't buy all the Bitcoin in the world for$25. He said that. I don't know if it's still true, but I respect the man for having some principles going.

1:13:25George Kamel:It doesn't produce anything. He's like, what would I do with it? Would you buy all the Bitcoin in the world for$25? I would. Yeah, 100%.

1:13:31Graham Stephan:Okay, there we go. If you said no, I was really going to push back.

1:13:35George Kamel:You got me with your hypotheticals. If someone offered all the Bitcoin in the world, which I assume is like trillions of dollars at this point, I would take it to$25.

1:13:42Graham Stephan:But let's say Bitcoin crashes. It's worthless. And they say you could buy all of it for$25.

1:13:46George Kamel:Yeah, I would do that.

1:13:47Graham Stephan:Okay.

1:13:48George Kamel:I mean, that's DoorDash money. Good. Wouldn't anybody other than Warren Buffett?

1:13:54Graham Stephan:Because he already has billions.

1:13:56George Kamel:He's fine.

1:13:56Graham Stephan:But you wouldn't take a billion dollar loan at negative 10 % interest.

1:14:00George Kamel:It's a totally different process. That's debt. That's borrowing money. This is money I actually have to purchase something. So that's the difference maker. Happily, I will buy things with my own money. But borrowing money to get anything? Not interested. One thing I just realized right now, which I think is very funny, is this shirt I purchased with my Saks Fifth Avenue credit that I get from the Amex Platinum. Look at you. Thank you. And these pants I purchased with my Lululemon credit that I get with the Amex Platinum. And I didn't even do that on purpose. You know who loves that right now? Saks Fifth Avenue and Lululemon, which is why they paid Amex good money to give you that credit.

1:14:38Also, these pants were like$130 and my credit was$75. So I paid an additional, you know,$70. Costume. I'm just being honest. And this was also more than$50. Well, plus we got the annual fee. Which is the Saks Fifth.

1:14:48George Kamel:You know, what's the annual fee on that card? $700 or something. So now we're already over$1 ,000 that we've paid for the pleasure of getting some credits that you then had to use. Because you wouldn't have shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue. you could have got that on Amazon for a fraction of the price. This? Yeah. Well, how much did you pay for that jacket? I didn't pay for it. How much did you pay for that shirt? This is an old Everlane shirt, probably 20 bucks maybe. Those pants? Probably another 50 bucks. The socks? $2. Shoes? $60. Glasses. I'm wearing some money right now. Warby Parker's, 100.

1:15:20George Kamel:Oh, I am high index. So they charge you more for the pleasure because otherwise I'd have lenses this thick. So maybe 180 bucks.

1:15:27Graham Stephan:Graham?

1:15:30Graham Stephan:free free free two dollars wow free ding ding ding so jack is the high roller here well i also well yeah if you account for the credits i mean this was a christmas present these were free i do like the pickleball socks that really brings the outfit thank you and i i actually was hoping that they

1:15:48George Kamel:weren't going to show on camera but you know i think you wear those socks to show you want to show them off. No, no. I did a purge of my socks lately and these were some of the ones that I kept and just happened to pack them. Wow. Well, I'm glad we're all pretty frugal with our clothing. What do you waste your money on? If like what other people would say I waste money on? Sure. Oh man, that's a tough one. If you looked at my bank statement, you would say we waste money on our dogs, a hundred percent. They would say it's a waste of money to spend money on their specialized food. We send them to like our friend's house for like a daycare a couple times a week.

1:16:23George Kamel:We spend money at the vet, you know, rehab visits, acupuncture, all of that stuff. People would say that is a waste of money. And I go, there's about five, six creatures that I am, that I really care about on this earth and my family and dogs are in there. If you came into financial hardship, would you sell your dogs? Would I sell my dogs if I came into financial hardship? if it was like life or death or like to avoid bankruptcy, I still don't think I would. I would find a way to make money. But people should sell their horse. Well, financial hardship, well, here's the good news. I physically, there is zero reasons I would ever be able to go into debt.

1:17:06George Kamel:You know what I mean? Like financial hardship, I'm not going to need to borrow money ever. And so that's again, a crazy hypothetical. But if my dog was worth$20 ,000, $25 ,000 and I was$135 ,000 in consumer debt, would I knowing that horses are to be bought and sold on the open market? Absolutely. Now, would I maybe a rehoming fee temporarily while we got our feet back on track? I might do that. Now that the horse thing has ran its course, how do you feel about it? That's pun intended. Yeah. I think I'm on the right side of history if you understood the context of that call. I think on what I said, I wish I could take back a thousand times.

1:17:52George Kamel:Explain what happened. Katie called into the show, 136 grand in debt, rural area in Kentucky, working for the USDA, making 36 grand a year. And I was doing the math going, she's never going to get out of this because she's like, well, I can't move. It's a rural area. I have no plans on going anywhere. I'm stuck here because of my horse. And I finally find out the horse is worth 25 grand. It's a prize winning horse. And so finally, the end of the call, after she hit us with excuse after excuse of why she couldn't take any of our advice, I said, Katie, I'm going to give you a hard challenge. Could you sell the horse?

1:18:25George Kamel:And she went, not 11 years. And I'm like, Katie, the horse doesn't even know your name. And then we went to break. So the part that I wish I could take back was the cruelty in which I threw out the horse doesn't even know your name. I thought a lot of people agreed with you. There was a small subset. The large majority were in shock at what I said and how I said it. I thought it was hilarious. But I think over time, people are more on my side, which I appreciate. The thing is, if Caleb Hammer was on that call, he would say to sell the horse immediately. Well, when you look at the horse as an asset, which by the way, if you are racing your horse for profit, you can't tell me it's just a family member.

1:19:06George Kamel:Okay. I don't race my dog for profit and then try to claim that, you know, it's a family member. So that's the difference maker is horses do go for a million dollars if it's a prize winning horse for the derby or whatever. My dog barely can walk. And so, you know, it's not really something anybody would want. But French Bulldogs, you know, if you go out in the open market and try to buy one from a breeder, you're paying three grand, four grand, five grand. We have a member of this community.

1:19:30Graham Stephan:It's called the Index and he breeds horses. And I've seen the prices that he gets for some of these horses. He sold one recently. I think it was like 400 grand. And they go to auction.

1:19:41George Kamel:But they have a soul. How could he do that to that poor horse? That's a show horse. All horses can be show horses if you put them on a show. Is Katie doing okay now? Did she end up selling the horse? She's doing better. There was a lot of backstory that she kind of filled me in on. But she is chipping away at the debt still. This was years ago. And she's still in the debt. To my credit, could have sold the horse and been out of debt by now probably. Did the horse go up or down in value? I don't know. I don't know how I need to ask her about that. She's been tracking the value of said horse. You know, you got to get a horse appraisal, I imagine, which that's a job.

1:20:14George Kamel:Somebody's out there appraising horses. Maybe that's what the 18 year old should be doing. Don't tell me there's not some opportunity out there. There's no jobs out there. Go appraise a horse. Dude, an AI horse consultant. Grant Cardone, get him on the line. I think you need to go spend more time around horses. I think you need to get a connection. I am going to the Renaissance Fair here in Nashville coming up. so I'm going to have to meet some horses. Take some pictures with horses. I do have an irrational fear that I'm going to get bucked by a horse to my untimely death. There's no way that has nothing to do with you telling this lady to sell her horse.

1:20:47George Kamel:I just think if it happens, we're all going to go, kind of had it coming. Final destination. So on the topic of controversy, because that horse issue was a controversy, people online are making crazy speculations of what's going on with Ken Coleman. Oh, I love it. He's left Ramsey. Yeah. So now we're all curious. We're sitting in his studio for his old show, Front Row Seats. What happened to Ken Coleman? The only true story, which at this point, who's going to believe me when they already have a narrative in their mind that something crazy happened? I've known Ken longer than most people in this building.

1:21:21George Kamel:I've known him since 2010. We were friends before he even worked at Ramsey. And we were really good friends when he was here. And he truly did not see this opportunity coming. And if you follow Ken's content, you know that he preaches the proximity principle. That's do the work you want to do. You get around the people doing it. And his whole thing was get better, move up, lead well. And because Ken is such a sharp guy, that he had a lot of friends. And those friends were entrepreneurs and business owners. And they moved over here. And now they're at this company. And so he tapped Ken on the shoulder for this opportunity to become kind of an executive, you know, C-suite SVP of communications for this tech software company.

1:22:00This caught Ken off guard.

1:22:02George Kamel:He wasn't expecting it. And the more time went on, you know, a month or two of discussions, conversations, praying about it, talking to his wife, he realized that it was an opportunity that was a once in a lifetime generational wealth building thing for his family that he just couldn't pass up. and Ken loves a challenge if you know Ken and his you know he had a great what 12 year run here going from host to personality multiple shows carrying Ramsey show and live events and books and products that have done really well so there was no animosity he had a great two hour meeting with Dave at his house and you know there was tears there was hugs he's still going to be a family friend to Dave's and I know that's the least exciting story I could tell So I've seen the truth.

1:22:48Graham Stephan:I've seen wild controversies online. There were these theories. Give me the craziest ones. I'm curious. Viewership was declining. And so Dave Ramsey internally is bleeding so much money. Oh, that's hilarious. Demoted him. And that.

1:23:02George Kamel:Well, Ken has the most successful digital product in the Ramsey store. So that's just already like a debunk. His find the work you're wired to do the get clear career assessment is top selling product.

1:23:13Graham Stephan:Okay. Well, apparently Ramsey Solutions was bleeding money. couldn't afford to keep the show going. He was demoted.

1:23:18George Kamel:That's hilarious.

1:23:20Graham Stephan:And because he was demoted, he ended up taking another opportunity to be able to leave on his own terms instead of getting fired.

1:23:26George Kamel:Wow. So we let him go with dignity is what happened because he was such a money loss for the company. No, that would have been a cooler story though. That would have been a lot more exciting than what actually happened. I'm curious, why can he not just pop in once a week to film something? Well, I mean, once you're no longer employed, we're an all-in or all-out company. We're 40 hours a week. You are representing this company and this brand. And so it gets too messy when you're now working for another company full time and then just popping in. I'd be mad because I'm like, well, I don't get to pop.

1:23:57George Kamel:I got to be here doing this show with you guys. I'm working out here. But Ken will remain a dear, dear friend. We were texting the other day. I asked him if he's making new friends at work and if there are any. So he's already there. Yeah. He had a weekend gap, if that, a day gap before jumping onto the new. It's just the way the timing worked out. So he wrapped up some great events that we did, Ramsey Show Lives, wrapped up a speaking gig, and it was sayonara. But he's still going to always be a pal of mine. Who's going to take his place? He's not moving, so he's still here. Who's going to take his place?

1:24:29George Kamel:Nobody. We're not backfilling his role. He was a once, like this role was created for him because of his passion. So it's not like a field we're just trying to fill to fill, if that makes sense. But if the right person came along and they had a similar thing, who knows? You know, we're always hiring. Would you guys hire Caleb Hammer? I would say if hell froze over, we would consider it. I think Caleb and Dave are so at odds with their principles, their values, their faith, the way they carry themselves, their mission, their goals, that it would not make sense. To work here, you have to have a similar like mind, similar values, and Caleb just doesn't have those.

1:25:08George Kamel:It's not a knock against Caleb, but, you know, we don't have that type of content around here. And we have a different mission. When you say that type of content, what is the main thing you're thinking of? I would say the cussing. It's not family friendly. We have a set of values that are faith based that I think would be jarring for Caleb to then like adhere to or grapple with in this building. and our mission is not to like scale at all costs, which I think Caleb is just, he's a young entrepreneurial guy. He wants to scale and there's not much stopping him. And this place has been around for 30 something years.

1:25:45George Kamel:We have a thousand people. We represent something kind of bigger than us and we're not willing to, you know, kind of water that down to get more clicks and views, which Caleb would obviously get. The guy crushes it, but to us, it's not worth it. And that's why we don't do that style of content. What do you think Caleb is doing right? What he's doing right? I mean, creating crazy engaging content while sneaking in the teaching. So he's leaning into the edutainment where he's teaching about taxes while yelling at the person. And you just learned about how tax brackets work in the meantime. That I think he does really well.

1:26:18George Kamel:But I can't watch the content because I have children at home. And so I'd have to have headphones on at all times to engage in any of it. At what age would you let your kids watch Caleb Hammer? Oh, gosh. I wouldn't left to my own devices I wouldn't now if they go off and they're doing their own thing and they choose you know at some point you can't control what they're gonna watch on the internet I would hope I raised them enough to go hey you don't want that kind of filth in your brain you know and I was on Caleb's show I left needing to take a shower after that it was just you know I'm too much of a prude I guess to be in that world so you know my kids watch Blippi and I already don't like that what do you think we can improve on?

1:26:59George Kamel:I think you guys, what you've done well is sort of like let anybody in, which is really nice that you've it's an open forum. Essentially, you guys stay very curious. I think what you could do is have a have a sort of a stance, like have a foundational principles that you got that's clear to the audience of here's what we believe. And therefore, that's the basis for the discussion.

1:27:22Graham Stephan:I'm so fluid with a lot of these things, though, that I don't have like very firm beliefs on a lot of things. and I'm open to hearing other people out. You're telling me I could convince you

1:27:29George Kamel:to cut up all of your credit cards and pay off all of your debt in one discussion.

1:27:32Graham Stephan:You could convince me. I'm not saying you will convince me, but you theoretically could convince me. Hmm. If I hear another viewpoint that I'm like, wait a second, that actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I'm incorrect. Graham is oddly fluid sometimes, but also I would say you're also very hard-headed and very stubborn with some stances that you take.

1:27:52George Kamel:You're a sucker for logic, and it's all about the logic. Yeah. So that's why I think I don't know what I do. And I think the part of the I guess the blind side, if there was one, would be the reality and emotional and psychological side of the principles that we teach. That's the hard part to just like rattle out there of like, well, you feel better if you didn't have a mortgage. Like, yeah, but I could make one hundred thousand dollars if I kept it. I'm like, well, yeah, but you'd feel better, like psychologically, emotionally. I feel better with one hundred grand, though. That's the question mark.

1:28:26Graham Stephan:So you're not willing to try it to see what it's like. Because I can't reverse that. Like once I pay off the 2.875 % mortgage. You're a smart guy. You'll figure it out.

1:28:34George Kamel:You'll arbitrage it. You'll box spread it. I can't get that again. You'll options call it. I can't get that again. See, that's a short-sighted mentality. It's going to limit you in life. Think big. I think thinking big is not paying off the mortgage. Jack, agree, disagree? I think if in a perfect world, yes, it makes more sense to not pay it off. I agree. Because I think one is subject to like you're adding a layer of complexity, which is someone's emotions and feelings. If you remove that and it's just by perfect world, you mean if you could control every single variable in your life without fail, then it works.

1:29:09Yeah, I would say in a vacuum, it makes more sense to take on the debt. Would you say we exist outside of a vacuum? Yeah. And it also depends like how far you want to expand outside of that vacuum. So like, you know, if you're going to go 10 layers deep, you know, and you add complexities in your life and then you add emotions and you add this and you add that and you add maybe someone who has a more flippant nature and they were raised a certain way, then, you know, they have they have addictive personality. then yeah, like it doesn't make sense. But I don't think that it's necessarily black or white.

1:29:39I think that like it depends on how many of your variables you can control. For example, for me, I do not even check my portfolio daily. Like I don't do that. I don't stay super close to my money. I don't idolize money. I just try to do whatever I think is the most rational thing. And so for me, I'll keep my sub 3 % interest rate debt because it just makes sense. And I'm aggressively investing into the markets. I don't check my accounts daily. I don't have like some crazy theme that I try to adhere to in my portfolio. And it's worked out very well for me. I agree with the math. The math agrees with me.

1:30:14But I'm also like weird because I'm a little sociopathic in that sense. Like I just, I don't care as much, I think. Yeah. Well, we can agree on that, that he's sociopathic.

1:30:23George Kamel:Yeah.

1:30:26George Kamel:Exactly. That's a great way to wrap. Ending on Jack is a sociopath. That's your tag. One last question for you though. Yeah. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Selling a covered call. I don't even know enough about that to give you yes or no, but I'm going to say no because I don't know how to do it.

1:30:42Graham Stephan:Do you think it's possible that Jack would be able to make 3 % a week selling covered calls? Not consistently.

1:30:48George Kamel:How do you know that? Because if he could, everybody would be doing it. And it's so easy to do the math. Well, if I just sports bet and I make 5 % per day, if that compounds, I'll have a million dollars by the end of the year. The problem is the house always wins and there's still risk involved. and you're not going to bat a thousand in the financial world. And so therefore, I think it's a simpler, I'd rather just leave the money in an index fund and eventually you'll have enough. And even paying off the mortgage, to your point, let's just say you're going to have plenty of money. Even if you pay off the mortgage, you're going to have more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime.

1:31:22George Kamel:What's the point of having a little extra money right now? You have plenty. Well, if I had all of the money in the world, then I would pay off the mortgage. Yeah. But do you have enough to pay it off right now? Uh, yep. So why won't you? Because I don't have all the money in the world. What happens if you pay off the mortgage right now? Are you broke? No, I'm not broke. The way that I see it is that there are certain tiers of wealth. And once you check those boxes, once you elevate to that level, let's just say a net worth of$5 million, once you hit$5 million, then you have a new tier of FU money.

1:31:52It's not quite FU money, but it's the amount of money that you need in order to raise a family of four comfortably in most locations in the world, right? And so I kind of want to race to this new tier. And then once I get there, I'll be selfish enough to pay off my mortgage because that reduces the emotional toll of having a mortgage. I'll be selfish enough to spend a little bit more on clothes, to do other things that I wouldn't normally do. But right now I feel like I need to be a little bit more selfless and do the thing that might be a little bit more uncomfortable to be financially advantageous to then get to that point of being able to take care of my family better.

1:32:29George Kamel:Okay, we'll play back the clip. He said once he gets there, you'll do it. Pay off my mortgage? $5 million net worth, you'll pay off my mortgage. I would not pay it off your$5 million. You just told me you would. Well, I would start enjoying other things, yeah. You just told me if you had, if you got to this point, then you would do it. No, I said all of the money in the world. No, you said five. And then the way that I said - You did say five. That's a wrap. Did I say five? Did I say five? I said five, but that was after I said all of the money. I said there are different tiers once you hit five.

1:32:55This is sociopathic behavior.

1:32:57George Kamel:Wow. Pathological liar. Is that how we end this episode? That's how you want to wrap? We can tell them about our credit idea, Jack. No, I don't want to hear about that. I'm not going to invest. I'm not your short tank. Do you want to say it's going to - Easy 3 % a week if you invest. You couldn't tempt me. Everything you guys are saying is just making me want to run the other way. What if we offered equity? In iced coffee hour? No, in our credit idea. Yikes, no. I'll take equity in iced coffee hour. Well, if you want to check out our credit startup, guys, we're going to leave it more mysterious.

1:33:25It's incredible. Check out my debit startup.

1:33:27Graham Stephan:It's in the description. You're going to click it to see what it is. I don't co-sign any of this, by the way. George does not co-sign. George, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks.

1:33:58Thank you.