Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking Breaking Broke with George Campbell.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Today we are talking all about getting out of debt,
Speaker 3: and it's a good time to have this discussion as well,
Speaker 3: since consumer debt, especially credit card debt, it's been on a.
Speaker 1: Tear over the past several years.
Speaker 3: Basically since the bottom of the pandemic, and we're lucky
Speaker 3: to be joined by someone who knows a thing or
Speaker 3: two about debt. George Cammell. Not only has he personally
Speaker 3: climbed from a negative net worth himself, but he's also
Speaker 3: a personal finance expert over at Ramsey Solutions. George co
Speaker 3: hosts The Ramsey Show as well as Smart Money Happy
Speaker 3: Hour with our friend Rachel Cruz, and he as a
Speaker 3: new book, Breaking Free from Broke, that came out earlier
Speaker 3: this month. We're excited to talk about all of.
Speaker 1: That and more today.
Speaker 3: George, thank you for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Joel Matt, it is such an honor to be here.
Speaker 2: I was telling you guys earlier, I've been fans of
Speaker 2: y'all's for a long time now, and so I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm inside of the matrix. We're gonna see how
Speaker 2: the sausage is really made.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 3: It's much less impressive as you've seen.
Speaker 2: I was impressed, honestly by Matt's hair. I'm already jealous.
Speaker 2: Who isn't I are the hair of the closer.
Speaker 3: We stop recording, George and I will exchange nice on
Speaker 3: how we get that volume.
Speaker 1: It always takes in forty five minutes to get it
Speaker 1: like that, George.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not all about the hair dryer.
Speaker 1: That's right, not too much time, all right, George. First
Speaker 1: question we ask every guest who comes on the show
Speaker 1: is what's their craft beer equivalent? And what we mean
Speaker 1: by that. Matt and I spend you know, someoneld say
Speaker 1: too much money on craft beer, but you know what
Speaker 1: we're saving and investing at the same time. So it's
Speaker 1: a okay, what is that thing in your life that
Speaker 1: you spend more money on than some people would think
Speaker 1: is normal or right? Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, Well, I consider myself bougie frugal, and so I'm
Speaker 2: trying to buy expensive things but get like ten percent
Speaker 2: off and feel like I'm winning. And so the thing
Speaker 2: for me that I think people will go you're spending
Speaker 2: they spent a lot of money on that, and it's
Speaker 2: mostly my wife, and that is Bourbon. I'm in a
Speaker 2: Bourbon society with some friends, about thirty of us, and
Speaker 2: so I just have too much of it. I don't
Speaker 2: even drink it a lot. I just have a lot
Speaker 2: of bottles. There's like a fomo to it when it's
Speaker 2: a special bottle, a hard to get bottle. And so
Speaker 2: the most I've spent on a bottle is probably about
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty dollars or so, and it hurt
Speaker 2: my soul.
Speaker 1: But what was that I ask?
Speaker 3: Is actually Joe and I with our wives, we went
Speaker 3: up to Bourbon country this time.
Speaker 1: Was it last year?
Speaker 3: So I was almost exactly a year ago for my
Speaker 3: fortieth for a little birthday.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what are some of your favorite go tos? Even
Speaker 3: though you're not maybe the biggest partaker of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this particular bottle was a Jack Daniel came out
Speaker 2: with a barrel single barrel barrel proof rye that will
Speaker 2: knock your socks off, very nice.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: So that in Blanton's.
Speaker 1: Weller twelve Classics.
Speaker 2: Angels envy rye is another favorite, and so there's a Yeah,
Speaker 2: those are probably the go tos and they can range,
Speaker 2: you know, fifty to one hundred bucks, and so that
Speaker 2: is something that I splurge on. Ever since I'm not
Speaker 2: broken anymore, I've been able to, you know, indulge more.
Speaker 2: I have no hobbies, So if that makes you guys
Speaker 2: feel any better, I really don't do it. I hang
Speaker 2: out with my dogs, which are the most expensive part
Speaker 2: of all life.
Speaker 1: Well that that and whiskey.
Speaker 3: And it's no wonder that you drop big money on
Speaker 3: that Tennessee bottle with y'all being there.
Speaker 1: Outside of NASHVILLEE.
Speaker 3: But oh yeah, okay, George, we want to get to
Speaker 3: know you as an individual because we I mean, this
Speaker 3: is literally the first time we've ever we've ever talked
Speaker 3: with you, and I'm curious about your money story. You
Speaker 3: are of Middle Eastern descent. Your parents are immigrants, and
Speaker 3: it sounds like that they've fully immersed you into like
Speaker 3: the American culture, but simultaneously, like you've talked about how
Speaker 3: you got coupon's with your with your dad, I would
Speaker 3: love to hear about your parents' influence on how it
Speaker 3: is that you see and just what it is that
Speaker 3: you believe about money.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, my parents are from Egypt and Syria, and
Speaker 2: they moved to the US in the eighties and had
Speaker 2: my brother, and then I was born in Boston, and
Speaker 2: so I grew up in like a weird little Arabic
Speaker 2: Baptist bubble, so Arabic Baptist church, but in an Irish Italian,
Speaker 2: you know, Catholic area of Boston, and so it was
Speaker 2: a really weird time to grow up but also hilariously fun.
Speaker 2: And my parents they adapted and they fell for some
Speaker 2: of these money traps. And they were, you know, we
Speaker 2: were middle class. They worked really hard, we never struggled.
Speaker 2: We didn't go without food, it wasn't anything like that.
Speaker 2: But they also you know, had we had student loans.
Speaker 2: I fell for some of those traps where I thought
Speaker 2: my parents were just wealthy because they were like, well,
Speaker 2: well don't worry about college, we'll figure that out. And
Speaker 2: I went, wow, they have some secret money they've been saving.
Speaker 2: This is wonderful. Turns out it was like co signing
Speaker 2: loans and subsidized loans through financial aid quote unquote, and
Speaker 2: so I sort of felt for these traps. And my
Speaker 2: dad had a you know, forty credit cards that they
Speaker 2: were like maximizing rewards and playing this game but I
Speaker 2: saw those moments of stress where it wasn't fun and
Speaker 2: things were getting tight, and at the same time they
Speaker 2: were very frugal. And that's a I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's a Middle Eastern trade that runs in our DNA,
Speaker 2: but we just love a deal. We love to haggle,
Speaker 2: we love to negotiate, we love to find the coupon,
Speaker 2: and so that has been instilled in me. And I
Speaker 2: love helping people save money on things they really want.
Speaker 1: That is the saddest thing to me about American culture
Speaker 1: is that we don't haggle like so many other cultures.
Speaker 1: I think it's so fun, Like I love traveling to
Speaker 1: other countries and going to the market or something like that,
Speaker 1: and it's expected in so many other places.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but in the US in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the US you asked for a discount and
Speaker 1: they look at you like are you crazy? Like you
Speaker 1: can't ask that question.
Speaker 3: It's not the proper Western European way, Joel exactly.
Speaker 2: That's a game to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, We're always trying to push people in that direction,
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, ask for the discount, even though
Speaker 1: some people might think it's uncouth. You can and if.
Speaker 2: You're a nice guy I found, like, you know, three
Speaker 2: out of five times, like you're gonna something will happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, No, I think you're spot on. Uh okay,
Speaker 1: you we're not going to go through like all of
Speaker 1: your life, childhood, middle school or anything like that. Middle
Speaker 1: school everybody knows was the worst, so we don't.
Speaker 2: It was a cold day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you let's go, let's skip to kind of
Speaker 1: when you joined the Ramsey team. You didn't start off
Speaker 1: as a Ramsey personality. You started off as a marketing intern,
Speaker 1: but you also had you had debt when you joined
Speaker 1: the crew there, and so I'm curious what that hiring
Speaker 1: process looks like. You had debt. Are they like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, you're not allowed to work here? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: does that look like? What any questions are they asking you?
Speaker 1: And are they kind of steering you in the right
Speaker 1: direction when you get hired.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. A lot of people assume that, like,
Speaker 2: when you start at Ramsey, you got to be debt
Speaker 2: free and investing fifteen percent into your wroth four O
Speaker 2: one K. But truthfully, we have people from all backgrounds
Speaker 2: and walks of life that apply here, and we look
Speaker 2: for a culture fit and if you're pumped about our
Speaker 2: mission and you're actively trying to pay off debt, that's
Speaker 2: what really matters. And so you can come in here
Speaker 2: with two hundred thousand dollars of debt. We're not gonna
Speaker 2: sit here and judge. We just want you to be
Speaker 2: on the plan. And so that I came in not
Speaker 2: knowing much about Dave going. I went through Financial Peace
Speaker 2: University when I started here as part of the onboarding process,
Speaker 2: and that's when I sort of went, oh, crap, I'm
Speaker 2: more broke than I thought because it was my first
Speaker 2: salary job. You know, I was an intern and so
Speaker 2: I didn't even have a full time job here. And
Speaker 2: a few months later the internship ended, I found a
Speaker 2: spot as an email marketing coordinator full time for two
Speaker 2: and a half years. That was my first job, and
Speaker 2: it was my first salary job, and I realized, I'm like,
Speaker 2: this entry level starter salary is barely enough to just
Speaker 2: pay my bills because of my debt and my lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And so I had to make some sacrifices and get
Speaker 2: some side hustles and start doing a lot of things
Speaker 2: to clean this mess up. And that happened in about
Speaker 2: eighteen months, I was able to pay off that forty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars in consumer debt.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so you said side hustles, what were you doing?
Speaker 1: You driving an Uber? Like you got an Etsy shop
Speaker 1: cause of selling George Campbell Crochet's like, what what were
Speaker 1: you doing to make some money?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was a musician, and so I
Speaker 2: was still doing some music gigs. I got some music
Speaker 2: licensing hits, like Ford used my music on our YouTube
Speaker 2: channel video they did and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: they want They're gonna pay me like thirty five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for this. And on top of that, I was
Speaker 2: driving for Uber and Lyft and they were new to
Speaker 2: Nashville at the time, and they had these bonuses. If
Speaker 2: you did this many rides, you'd get a thousand dollars bonus,
Speaker 2: And so I was taking advantage of the Uber and
Speaker 2: Lift sign up bonuses. I was doing marketing consulting, helping
Speaker 2: people launch podcasts, build websites, launch books as the marketing guy,
Speaker 2: and so I was using all of the skills I had,
Speaker 2: and skills I didn't have to just make any extra
Speaker 2: money I could. I even did the Nielsen People Meter
Speaker 2: y'all know about this.
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
Speaker 2: A little beeper? Well, they just listen. It's really creepy
Speaker 2: now looking back, but you carry around this little beeper
Speaker 2: and you turn it on and it's listening to all
Speaker 2: of the media. You're consuming music, TV, all of that radio,
Speaker 2: and it's tracking all of that and it's kind of
Speaker 2: using me as an example of what other people are
Speaker 2: listening to. And so you would get you know, as
Speaker 2: long as you turned it on, you were making a
Speaker 2: few cents here and there, and so I'd get a
Speaker 2: check for twenty bucks a month or something from Nielsen
Speaker 2: for doing this. But I was just willing to do
Speaker 2: whatever it took to make that extra buck and it
Speaker 2: would it paid off. I don't regret it one bit.
Speaker 2: I didn't miss out on life, and I was also
Speaker 2: surviving off of lean cuisines and.
Speaker 1: Hope George was hustling. Yeah, and I love that because
Speaker 1: we talked about that too, like wrapping your car or
Speaker 1: something like that. With an advertisement, A lot of people
Speaker 1: would be like, no way, I'm doing that. But for
Speaker 1: the person who really cares, like about paying off their debt,
Speaker 1: about making progress more quickly, you're you're willing to look
Speaker 1: like an idiot sometimes in order to make that happen. Well,
Speaker 1: even with like the media thing, It's like, how intrusive
Speaker 1: is that you wrap your car? Everyone can everyone knows
Speaker 1: you're what you're getting after it. But if you've got
Speaker 1: something discreet and it's listening to, it's like a fitbit
Speaker 1: but for your ears, for your brain. But it's fascinating
Speaker 1: though that you didn't come into the Ramsey orbit knowing
Speaker 1: necessarily who Dave was, and like over time that that
Speaker 1: that became more a part of your story and your identity.
Speaker 1: But how is it that you went from doing marketing
Speaker 1: and you know, initially starting out as an intern, moving
Speaker 1: to marketing and then ending up being actually in front
Speaker 1: of the in front of the camera, in front of
Speaker 1: the mic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that transition was really interesting because I was the
Speaker 2: kind of I'm a marketing guy. I was doing social
Speaker 2: media and email marketing for my first few jobs here
Speaker 2: at Ramsey for the first i don't know, six years
Speaker 2: of my career. And then I made this transition to
Speaker 2: host an MC for our live events in our video channel,
Speaker 2: and that happened after I went on stage to host
Speaker 2: our Battle of the Band's event we do it's an
Speaker 2: internal company event. Our team members get together, they form bands,
Speaker 2: we do cover songs, and we kind of fight for
Speaker 2: the number one spot. And I was a musician, so
Speaker 2: I was in these bands for three years and I
Speaker 2: kept losing till like second and third place, and I
Speaker 2: got sick of it. The hosting was terrible, so I
Speaker 2: raised my hand and I went, hey, I think I
Speaker 2: could bring something to the hosting gig to transition between
Speaker 2: the bands and introduce and do all the fun stuff.
Speaker 2: And so they gave me that shot, and I put
Speaker 2: all my whole soul into it with creative videos and
Speaker 2: funny parodies and on stage gimmicks and games with the team.
Speaker 2: And they saw me on stage and went, hey, this
Speaker 2: guy could backfill for our friend Ken Coleman, who's stepping
Speaker 2: into this personality role with this career message. And so
Speaker 2: they gave me a shot, and I did a good
Speaker 2: enough job to where they said, all right, you're switching gears.
Speaker 2: We're going to put you in this role. And so
Speaker 2: that helped me get kind of on front of the
Speaker 2: cameras instead of behind him, which was a dream of
Speaker 2: mine to be a filmmaker. So I always love video
Speaker 2: and broadcasting and all that stuff. I just never thought
Speaker 2: I'd be the guy in front of it, and so
Speaker 2: it's been a huge humbling blessing to get to do
Speaker 2: what I do now. And following the money plan, they went,
Speaker 2: this guy's really passionate about what we teach and he
Speaker 2: has really interesting ways of creating content and connecting with
Speaker 2: new people, and we should give him a shot as
Speaker 2: a personality and see what he can bring to the table.
Speaker 2: So that's what happened when I launched The fine Print
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, went on air with Ramsey and
Speaker 2: we transitioned to The Ramsey Show from Dave Ramsey Show,
Speaker 2: and we've been co hosting The Ramsey Show now for
Speaker 2: a few years.
Speaker 1: There's something really powerful when you've kind of gone through
Speaker 1: the process yourself, right, digging yourself out of doing all
Speaker 1: the side hustles, and then you want other people to know, wait,
Speaker 1: this is possible. Like I've lived it. I went through
Speaker 1: years of getting to this point where and now you're
Speaker 1: a millionaire. You host a YouTube show, oh like talking
Speaker 1: to other millionaires in your call the YouTube channel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot going on on that front.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. So like The Ramsey Show, in particular, the
Speaker 1: radio show. You've got your finger on the pulse of
Speaker 1: kind of what's happening with individuals, what's happening in the economy.
Speaker 1: I'm sure just based on the calls you guys get
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, you have a decent understanding of
Speaker 1: kind of what's happening in America and what's happening with
Speaker 1: people's finances. How does the show feel right now, specifically
Speaker 1: in January, post holiday spending hangover that so many people
Speaker 1: find themselves in. Is inflation still a topic? Like? What
Speaker 1: are people wrestling with right now? Are what are the
Speaker 1: calls you're getting that maybe feel the most compelling or
Speaker 1: feel the most indicative of what's going on in our
Speaker 1: society right now.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. And I've talked with our other personalities.
Speaker 2: We'll get off air and we'll just go talk to
Speaker 2: each other and be like, man, do things just feel
Speaker 2: heavier lately? Like the problems are just getting worse and
Speaker 2: people are feeling more and more hopeless. And it's funny
Speaker 2: to me, you know, we'll get comments on Instagram and
Speaker 2: be like, these guys are so out of touch. I'm like,
Speaker 2: we're literally talking to callers like as closely and as
Speaker 2: intimately as we can every single day, and so I
Speaker 2: feel like I'm more in touch than some dude with
Speaker 2: a faceless Instagram profile. But what I'm seeing is people
Speaker 2: are underwater on their cars more than ever because cars
Speaker 2: got really expensive and people were just willing to pay.
Speaker 2: And then the car market kind of cooled off a
Speaker 2: little bit, and so now the car that they owe
Speaker 2: thirty five on is only worth twenty you bought two
Speaker 2: years ago after they reduced price exactly. So that's one
Speaker 2: huge problem. The other one is people got freaked out
Speaker 2: about the housing market and so they jumped you into
Speaker 2: home they couldn't afford. Now they're calling us saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we bit off more than we can chew. What do
Speaker 2: we do? Do we sell the house? We are strapped
Speaker 2: with payments all over the place, and this mortgage is
Speaker 2: killing us. And that's housing and cars. The other one
Speaker 2: is credit card debt. We are seeing more and more
Speaker 2: people with huge credit card balances. We're not talking five, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: We're talking fifty thousand, one hundred thousand dollars in credit
Speaker 2: card debt with twenty two percent APR, and it just
Speaker 2: takes your breath away to hear some of these stories.
Speaker 2: And not all of them are like we're spending frivolously
Speaker 2: on our lifestyle. Some of them just, hey, life happened.
Speaker 2: We didn't have an emergency fund, and we started just
Speaker 2: putting you know, we're in the red by a grand
Speaker 2: or two every month, and we just started putting it
Speaker 2: on the cart every single month, month after month. So
Speaker 2: those are the big ones we're seeing.
Speaker 1: I'm curious.
Speaker 3: I mean with those being obviously with cars and homes,
Speaker 3: those are massive. Those are big ticket items, right, and
Speaker 3: oftentimes you're not gonna if someone comes to you, you're
Speaker 3: not typically going to say, all right, just go ahead
Speaker 3: and list the house completely, uproot the kids, you're gonna
Speaker 3: leave your community.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how is it that you are? How do you start.
Speaker 3: Talking to folks to get them to wrap their head,
Speaker 3: their mind, their arms around the debt that they have.
Speaker 3: I've got to think that initially you're focusing on the
Speaker 3: credit card debt.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Well, we always you know, I think the debt snowball
Speaker 2: method is the most powerful motivating, encouraging process, which is
Speaker 2: small to largest balance. So the only time we'll tell
Speaker 2: people to kind of go outside of that is if
Speaker 2: they have IRS det and we tell people, well, hey,
Speaker 2: that goes to the very top because the IRS can
Speaker 2: really screw up your life if you don't get a
Speaker 2: hold of it. So if you've got that tax, debt,
Speaker 2: tax burdens, back taxes, put that to the front of
Speaker 2: the line. Then focus on small so largest balance, and
Speaker 2: so that's usually the best case for everyone. Of course
Speaker 2: everyone's situation is a little bit different, but I would
Speaker 2: say nine times out of ten, that's where we're going
Speaker 2: to steer people. And what I do is, I think
Speaker 2: my strategy personally is if if they're really wanting to
Speaker 2: dig into the math, I lean into emotion. And if
Speaker 2: they're very emotional, I lean into the math. And I
Speaker 2: think that helps you get away from the feelings of
Speaker 2: it and go, Okay, how much do you guys make? Oh,
Speaker 2: we make one hundred and seventy five grand a year? Okay, great,
Speaker 2: how much what's your debt payments? Have you guys done
Speaker 2: a budget? Okay? You should have this much margin? What
Speaker 2: is keeping you guys from having that much margin? So
Speaker 2: getting into the details helps. But when someone wants to
Speaker 2: argue about math, I go, hey, how would it feel
Speaker 2: if you just woke up tomorrow with no payments in
Speaker 2: the world, what kind of decisions would you make differently?
Speaker 2: That just helps them break out of what you know,
Speaker 2: vortex they're stuck in mentally, And I found that it's
Speaker 2: a pretty decent strategy to help callers just see things
Speaker 2: in a different way.
Speaker 1: Have have rising interest rates changed the way you talk
Speaker 1: about debt at all? Because that clearly changes the math
Speaker 1: for someone on the math front, right, Like you go
Speaker 1: from a cardit card with fifteen percent APR to twenty
Speaker 1: two percent, or your he lock was three and a
Speaker 1: half percent and now it's seven and a half percent,
Speaker 1: and so that can massively impact your financial trajectory. Or
Speaker 1: is it? Do you think the message is the same
Speaker 1: no matter what's happening kind of in the macro environment.
Speaker 2: I think the ultimate message is the same is get
Speaker 2: out of debt is a thief. It's dealing from your
Speaker 2: paycheck and income. But you're right, with higher interest rates
Speaker 2: come more pain. It's harder to get out when the
Speaker 2: interest is building on that balance, and it's hard to
Speaker 2: pay down that principle fast enough. And we're seeing that
Speaker 2: with cars. I mean, car interest rates are at all
Speaker 2: time highs, and I had a caller call in he
Speaker 2: had like a twenty six percent interest rate on his car.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So, and we're seeing payday loans make a comeback because
Speaker 2: people are getting really desperate, and so the interest rates
Speaker 2: when you actually do the math on these things, can
Speaker 2: be four hundred percent, and they're stuck in these cycles
Speaker 2: trying to get rid of this. So I think the
Speaker 2: interest rates are making things harder for people, But it's
Speaker 2: great for us because it's not that hard to convince
Speaker 2: them that this debt is bad and that they should
Speaker 2: get rid of it. The one area it is difficult,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, is when people call in
Speaker 2: and they want to argue about, hey, my savings account
Speaker 2: makes five percent and my mortgage is three and a
Speaker 2: half percent. Why the heck would I pay off my
Speaker 2: mortgage when I can make five percent of my savings account.
Speaker 2: Those ones they want to argue about the math and
Speaker 2: the spread of what they could be making, and it's
Speaker 2: it's truly exhausting, and I try to again steer them
Speaker 2: toward the emotional freedom of not having a payment and
Speaker 2: what if you could invest that payment, and the math
Speaker 2: of hey, unless you have the full balance. Sitting in
Speaker 2: a savings account making guaranteed five percent, you're not making
Speaker 2: as much as you think you are. If you look
Speaker 2: at your amortization schedule, see how much money you're forking
Speaker 2: over an interest every month on that mortgage. And so
Speaker 2: I'm trying to help people see this with math and emotion.
Speaker 2: But we know that personal finance is eighty percent behavior
Speaker 2: only twenty percent head knowledge. So you can argue with
Speaker 2: this all day long. But you're calling in because you've
Speaker 2: got a problem to solve, and we're trying to help
Speaker 2: you solve it in the way we know best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the end of the day, if you are
Speaker 3: in a boatload of debt, something that you did got
Speaker 3: you there, it takes a different formula to get you
Speaker 3: out of that.
Speaker 1: I guess I want to ask, too real quickly, like timeline,
Speaker 1: how do you help people think through that? Because sometimes
Speaker 1: it can People want the silver bullet, they want the
Speaker 1: quick solution, They want to get out of debt in
Speaker 1: six months when it took six years to get into it.
Speaker 1: How do you help people think through the amount of
Speaker 1: time and effort that it's going to take and kind
Speaker 1: of sustained vigilance maybe to get out of that debt hole. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Good. Most people, when they get that desperate, they're looking
Speaker 2: for shortcuts, and so they're asking, hey, should we take
Speaker 2: out the heelock, Hey should we take out the four
Speaker 2: one k loan or make that four to one k
Speaker 2: withdrawal in order to pay off this debt? And I
Speaker 2: tell them, hey, you're not solving any problems here. You're
Speaker 2: just moving debt around. And it might feel good for
Speaker 2: half a second, but doing these consolidations and settlements and
Speaker 2: debt relief and whatever these shortcuts are, they're not going
Speaker 2: to actually lead you to long term freedom, and so
Speaker 2: it always requires a level of sacrifice that's uncomfortable. But
Speaker 2: I also remind them people on average, following the Ramsey
Speaker 2: Plan with we call Gazelle intensity in eighteen to twenty
Speaker 2: four months that pay off all consumer debt except the mortgage.
Speaker 2: So this isn't forever. But when you're drowning in payments,
Speaker 2: twenty four months feels like a lifetime, and you want
Speaker 2: to get out next month with one of these shortcuts,
Speaker 2: but it's never worth it. We try to walk them through,
Speaker 2: here's what's going to happen. You're going to be calling
Speaker 2: back three months from now, because now you just have
Speaker 2: debt in a different spot that you're still trying to
Speaker 2: pay off. You have to change your behavior in order
Speaker 2: to finally get freedom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the behavior change is needed for the vast majority
Speaker 3: of folks, I do think, and we hear from folks
Speaker 3: that reach out to us where they truly were in
Speaker 3: the dark, and it's like they have seen the light.
Speaker 3: The blindfold has been removed from their eyes, and they've
Speaker 3: seen the error of their ways, and with that in mind,
Speaker 3: they are able to make some of those more mathematical
Speaker 3: changes coupled with that desire to change how it is
Speaker 3: that they've been living their life. But like I think
Speaker 3: about folks that do have these massive sums of debt.
Speaker 3: But then on the other hand, you have folks who
Speaker 3: are just kind of playing with debt just like it's
Speaker 3: something that they've come to accept. Right, Like you write,
Speaker 3: this is a quote. The normalization of debt over time,
Speaker 3: it robs us of margin, freedom, options and joy and
Speaker 3: the way we approach debt. Like, we do think there
Speaker 3: are some advantageous use uses of debt, but talk about
Speaker 3: like the cascading consequences as we've become desensitized to debt
Speaker 3: in our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I talk about this in the book that it's
Speaker 2: not all your fault, but it's your responsibility. And I
Speaker 2: have a lot of empathy that it's just not like
Speaker 2: people spending frivolously. We were led down this path by
Speaker 2: society and misguided guidance counselors and well meaning parents because
Speaker 2: we were told get good grades, go to the school
Speaker 2: of your dreams, to get this degree that's going to
Speaker 2: give you some magic salary. And what that turned into
Speaker 2: was borrow as much Sally May monopoly money as you
Speaker 2: can get your credit score built up by opening a
Speaker 2: bunch of credit cards and trying to spend respond possibly
Speaker 2: at seventeen eighteen years old, so that you can live
Speaker 2: your financial life, so that you can get a good
Speaker 2: deal on your car payment, so that you can get
Speaker 2: a house that's too much house for a twenty five
Speaker 2: year old to be jumping into. And then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you look around and your income is swallowed
Speaker 2: up by all these payments. And I say in the book,
Speaker 2: you know, you were promised the American dream and you
Speaker 2: were delivered this American nightmare. And it's not all daisies
Speaker 2: and rainbows on the other side, it's stressful and you
Speaker 2: don't make as much as you thought you did, and man,
Speaker 2: after taxes and all those debt payments, there's really not
Speaker 2: much to live off of, which is how you turn
Speaker 2: to more debt and more debt. So that's what I
Speaker 2: call the toxic money culture. And I've learned because I
Speaker 2: was the same way. So I have empathy because I
Speaker 2: was there, I believed all of those myths, and now
Speaker 2: being outside of it, and you know, I rose above
Speaker 2: this debt system by just realizing I don't need to
Speaker 2: play the game and these companies are not my friend,
Speaker 2: and I don't need to leverage any of it, and
Speaker 2: I can live a more peaceful life without any payments.
Speaker 2: And so that's what my wife and I did in
Speaker 2: our early thirties. We paid off our house and went
Speaker 2: what options could we have in our early thirties without
Speaker 2: any payments in the world. And so that has really
Speaker 2: freed us up as we've entered adulthood, and you know,
Speaker 2: now we have a little girl who's five months old.
Speaker 2: It's really just taking off the money stress that many
Speaker 2: people are experiencing.
Speaker 1: Well congrats on that, by the way, and so fun
Speaker 1: to get into that area of your era of your life.
Speaker 1: But it's so much more fun and so much less
Speaker 1: stressful when you don't have like ridiculous debts hanging over
Speaker 1: your life and when you're financially prepared to take that on.
Speaker 1: And that's always a tough question, like to wrestle with people.
Speaker 1: Are we ready to start a family? Are we financially ready?
Speaker 1: And you're never fully ready financially emotionally, Like you're read
Speaker 1: all the books, you're never really not sure until you're
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, you can read what to expecting, you're
Speaker 1: expecting three times through and you're still not quite ready,
Speaker 1: but still you want to be prepared. All right, George,
Speaker 1: we got more to get to with you, and include
Speaker 1: what we're gonna talk about spending. Especially from a guy
Speaker 1: who loves to get a good deal, I want to
Speaker 1: pick your brain on that front. We'll get to the
Speaker 1: more of George Campbell right after this.
Speaker 3: Right, we are back from the break again talking with
Speaker 3: George Cammell. And you know we spent the last section
Speaker 3: George talking about debt and I think you've mentioned this
Speaker 3: in your book. You want to take money from being
Speaker 3: a stressor in your life to a blesser and a
Speaker 3: part of that being able to enjoy your money is
Speaker 3: spending it. And in particular, I like your smart Spender framework,
Speaker 3: and I think following those.
Speaker 1: Steps it'll help a lot of folks just dial back.
Speaker 3: Needless consumption that is harming their finances as keeping them
Speaker 3: from their ultimate money goals. But talk to us about
Speaker 3: that framework if you don't mind.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So I started this when we did a Financial
Speaker 2: Peace University lesson called why Spending, and I was trying
Speaker 2: to come up with a simple framework to help people
Speaker 2: use as a filter when they're making any purchase, whether
Speaker 2: it's ten dollars or ten thousand dollars. And so I
Speaker 2: came up with these five questions and they spell out
Speaker 2: the word smart if you walk through them. So self
Speaker 2: awareness is the st art. You got to ask yourself
Speaker 2: will this add value to my life? Is this truly
Speaker 2: going to add some utility to my everyday life? And
Speaker 2: if that's a yes, you can move on. If it's
Speaker 2: a no, we got a pause. So if it's yes,
Speaker 2: we move on to the m from motive. Am I
Speaker 2: buying this for the right reason? So many of us
Speaker 2: are buying things because of outside pressures or boundary issues
Speaker 2: or it's emotional. It's retail therapy signaling, right. You guys
Speaker 2: have seen that with callers as well. A lot of
Speaker 2: our purchases are emotional.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's one hundred percent true. There's that is
Speaker 1: a huge reason why people spend I'm actually reading a
Speaker 1: book by a professor from the University of Michigan right now.
Speaker 1: It's called Tightwads and spin Thterst. We're gonna have them
Speaker 1: on the show soon. I'm really excited.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's and so many of those decisions often
Speaker 1: get made not in the realm of the budget and
Speaker 1: often divorced from kind of those ultimate money goals, And
Speaker 1: it's about the signaling or the emotional response in the moment.
Speaker 2: That's so much smarter than I could say it. I
Speaker 2: love that. So that motive is the second step. If
Speaker 2: you can say yes, I'm buying for the right reason,
Speaker 2: then you move on to the a affordability which you
Speaker 2: touched on. There is this in my budget. That's a
Speaker 2: very simple but revolutionary question because if we answered this correctly,
Speaker 2: America would be zero dollars in debt if everything was
Speaker 2: in the budget, everything we could afford in cash. So
Speaker 2: if you can say yes, we've saved up, we're going
Speaker 2: to be able to cash flow this purchase. Then you
Speaker 2: move on to the R for research. And I know
Speaker 2: you guys will love this one. Is this the best option?
Speaker 2: Retailer and price? Most of the time it's kind of impulsive.
Speaker 2: We just kind of clicked on that ad or we
Speaker 2: saw that in the store and just grabbed it. And
Speaker 2: what I like to do is just pause and do
Speaker 2: a quick search online and see, hey, are there other
Speaker 2: retailers that have this? Is there generic brand that could work? Oh,
Speaker 2: Amazon makes a knock off, it will work just as fine.
Speaker 2: So asking yourself those questions will help you just pause
Speaker 2: and be intentional about your research. And then finally, if
Speaker 2: you say yes, I've done the research, you move on
Speaker 2: to the T for timing. Is now the time to
Speaker 2: buy it? This one comes down to opportunity cost. It
Speaker 2: might be in the budget. You might have the money,
Speaker 2: but you might want You might want to wait a
Speaker 2: year or six months or two weeks to make that
Speaker 2: purchase because you have other financial priorities. So those are
Speaker 2: the five questions to ask. If you say yes to
Speaker 2: all five, you're making that purchase with intentionality and no regret,
Speaker 2: and if it's a no to any of them, you've
Speaker 2: got to pause and adjust your motive, your lifestyle, your patience,
Speaker 2: and your budget until you can say, heck yes to
Speaker 2: all five.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think that's super helpful because most of
Speaker 1: the time we're not running through any framework or we
Speaker 1: don't have any delay between the desire and then the
Speaker 1: click to purchase. And obviously not just Amazon, but Amazon
Speaker 1: in particular makes it so stinking easy to pull that off.
Speaker 2: Well. Now, with ads, they're so targeted, it's like they
Speaker 2: know exactly what you're wanting and things yourselves. Yes, and
Speaker 2: these marketers are so smart, and so you've got to
Speaker 2: be aware that companies are constantly coming after your wallet.
Speaker 2: And I know our friend Clark Howard would agree. You've
Speaker 2: got to be on the defense here and think psychologically
Speaker 2: about what is happening to you and how you're feeling
Speaker 2: that day and is this really the time to make
Speaker 2: this purchase or did you just click on that ad
Speaker 2: because it was a slick ad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You almost need like a mental chastity belt for
Speaker 1: your while to keep it protected. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on lifestyle Creed George, Because you're a dude, who who's
Speaker 1: made a lot of progress over the last decade. You are,
Speaker 1: you've reached a millionaire status, you've reached full debt payoff.
Speaker 1: That you paid off your mortgage in twenty six months.
Speaker 1: I want to say, which most people would say ridiculous, George,
Speaker 1: don't know how you did it, but like, are you
Speaker 1: still as frugal as you were before? Have you loosened
Speaker 1: the purse strings of the merse strings? I guess maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 2: I like that strings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the man person. Clearly you spend a little bit
Speaker 1: more on bourbon these days. But once you kind of
Speaker 1: pay off debt and you've been investing for a number
Speaker 1: of years, how do you think about spending now? And
Speaker 1: are you willing to spend more than you used to
Speaker 1: be then you used to be willing to spend.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Absolutely. We have increased our lifestyle,
Speaker 2: you know, modestly over the years as we've made more,
Speaker 2: as we've gotten rid of debt. But for most people,
Speaker 2: lifestyle creep is the biggest problem. As I call into
Speaker 2: the show, people are making one hundred ninety thousand dollars
Speaker 2: household income and they're calling us and they're broke and
Speaker 2: it's all due to lifestyle creep. The more money they made,
Speaker 2: the more money they spent. They got nicer cars, they
Speaker 2: upgraded to the nicer house, and they're falling for all
Speaker 2: of these debt traps. And so I do believe lifestyle
Speaker 2: creep is one of the biggest issues that people aren't
Speaker 2: really paying attention to in their budget and they're wondering,
Speaker 2: I'm making more and more money, but it's all about
Speaker 2: inflation and the housing mark. We're blaming everything else, but
Speaker 2: we're not looking at the guy or gown the mirror
Speaker 2: going like, oh, I increase my spending excuses. So it's
Speaker 2: rare that people go, I'm just going to increase my giving,
Speaker 2: and no one has gone broke by being generous. You know,
Speaker 2: it's all spending, and no one's gone broke by saving money.
Speaker 2: But I do think the Ramsey plan. What I've found
Speaker 2: is people who follow it to a tea who are
Speaker 2: really intense, have a hard time making the shift back
Speaker 2: to we're going to spend more now. And so that's
Speaker 2: an area I try to encourage people with. They're calling
Speaker 2: us saying, hey, we make one hundred and fifty grand
Speaker 2: and we buy the thirty thousand dollars car in cash,
Speaker 2: we have no debt. I'm like, buy the freaking car. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: But those are the people that have a harder time,
Speaker 2: and so I feel for them because it still hurts
Speaker 2: me emotionally. We just bought my wife a car and
Speaker 2: it was the biggest purchase we've made outside of a home,
Speaker 2: and it hurt my soul. But I also knew you
Speaker 2: got to like enjoy life too. You know, we're saving,
Speaker 2: we're giving, but you also have to not have a
Speaker 2: flat tire when it comes to spending. And Dave has
Speaker 2: been very encouraging in that way because he's he's a
Speaker 2: big fan of enjoying the money while you're on earth.
Speaker 2: And so there's a good balance between saving, spending giving,
Speaker 2: and we're on track for retirement. We're not worried about that.
Speaker 2: We're giving in all the ways we want to, and
Speaker 2: so the rest we get to enjoy. And so that means,
Speaker 2: you know what, We're gonna get the house cleaner once
Speaker 2: a month, We're gonna pay for the doggy daycare, you know,
Speaker 2: twice a week. All of those things are now luxuries
Speaker 2: that we are able to afford because of the sacrifices
Speaker 2: we've made.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: This is a conversation. I feel like that we've been
Speaker 3: having more and more. We recently talked with somebody who
Speaker 3: used to be a part of the Fire movement, and
Speaker 3: a big part of our conversation with Gwen was just
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to allow yourself to spend
Speaker 3: more money, because yes, there can be a mental block,
Speaker 3: but then even once you get past that, how is
Speaker 3: it that you, as you're talking to callers, how do
Speaker 3: you encourage them to explore and to maybe even determine
Speaker 3: what it is that they're going to spend money on.
Speaker 3: And even then once they've identified something, do you have
Speaker 3: any sort of rule of thumb? Is there some sort
Speaker 3: of line that you're wanting them to not cross? Because
Speaker 3: I feel like it can be a slippery slope once
Speaker 3: you start freeing yourself up to spend a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your thoughts there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think an easy framework is to realize that there's
Speaker 2: only three things you can do with money, give, save,
Speaker 2: and spend. You know, you can teach this to your
Speaker 2: seven year old and they'll grasp it. So I think
Speaker 2: a great way to look at any extra money that's
Speaker 2: floating around is First, you know, we're big on generosity,
Speaker 2: and so I think giving some off the top is
Speaker 2: a great way to just already have a loose hand
Speaker 2: with it. And again, the the joy you get from
Speaker 2: giving surpasses any that you would get from spending and saving,
Speaker 2: and so I think that's a beautiful way to start.
Speaker 2: Then we can save if you want to just put
Speaker 2: away twenty percent of that money. You know, if you've
Speaker 2: got a house paid off, you can go hog wild
Speaker 2: with investing in max out retirement accounts and put someone
Speaker 2: in a taxable brokerage or the five twenty nine plan
Speaker 2: for the kids. But beyond that, you know, we tell
Speaker 2: people you don't want a flat tire. If you're just
Speaker 2: really good at saving, but you're a miser when it
Speaker 2: comes to spending, you're not going to have a quality life.
Speaker 2: Your family's gonna suffer, your marriage is gonna suffer. So
Speaker 2: you have to be able to enjoy things. So what
Speaker 2: I tell people to do, that's a hard one. It's
Speaker 2: a hard habit to create, but you force yourself in
Speaker 2: the budget to put a line item for that spending.
Speaker 2: And for some people that's a vacation. They haven't taken
Speaker 2: a vacation in ten years. It feels like a frivolous luxury.
Speaker 2: And we go go spend five thousand dollars and go
Speaker 2: to an all inclusive and just have a great time
Speaker 2: and force yourself to spend that money. And it's all
Speaker 2: about ratios, you know. Dave talks about this. If you
Speaker 2: make a million dollars, well, spending ten grand is like
Speaker 2: a biscuit to someone who makes forty grand, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Yeah, So it's all about ratios. And
Speaker 2: so it's okay if Dave Ramsey goes out and buys
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars car, it's a very small portion
Speaker 2: of his world, his net worth, his income. And so
Speaker 2: as you make more money, it's okay to look at
Speaker 2: those ratios and go, we can up it in this area.
Speaker 2: And the greatest one I've heard Dave talk about is
Speaker 2: the burn test. Can you put that pile of money
Speaker 2: on the dinner table and burn it and still be
Speaker 2: okay and not have an emotional breakdown? And if the
Speaker 2: answer is yes, then it's probably an okay decision. But
Speaker 2: if the answer is, oh my gosh, I would I would,
Speaker 2: it would take my breath away to see ten thousand
Speaker 2: dollars just disappear. Then don't do it, because most of
Speaker 2: these things are toys and luxuries. Like he talks about
Speaker 2: vacation properties and cars. These are toys, and so you
Speaker 2: can't put too much of your net worth into these And.
Speaker 1: The timing, the order of when you make those decisions
Speaker 1: matter so much. Buying the new car at twenty three
Speaker 1: and financing it is a completely different thing than buying
Speaker 1: the brand new car at thirty three when you have
Speaker 1: no debt and you have significant savings on hand. Right,
Speaker 1: You mentioned relationships too, and the money decisions we make
Speaker 1: drastically impacts our friendships. They impact our relationship with our
Speaker 1: spouse and our kids, and I think, yeah, being too
Speaker 1: cheap can certainly have a negative impact over time. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about that a little bit. You met your
Speaker 1: wife on the job, so it sounds like y'all were
Speaker 1: probably on the same page a little bit with money already.
Speaker 1: How important was that to you, given the amount of
Speaker 1: progress you'd already made. Kind of having someone with a
Speaker 1: similar vision for their finances. And I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: callers too who aren't on the same page as our spouse.
Speaker 1: How do you encourage them to maybe kind of land
Speaker 1: in a similar place.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is such a great question because the biggest
Speaker 2: wealth hack is marrying the right person. I totally agree,
Speaker 2: And it is really hard to build wealth if you
Speaker 2: marry the wrong person who doesn't have the same values
Speaker 2: and same goals. And so obviously meeting my wife at
Speaker 2: Ramsey Solutions, she still works here. She's a boss babe
Speaker 2: executive assistant for one of our board members and Dave's
Speaker 2: right hand guys. And so she when I met her,
Speaker 2: she was obviously better looking than me, smarter than me,
Speaker 2: and better at money management. And so when I met her,
Speaker 2: she was already dead free. So she was saving you exactly.
Speaker 2: But I think my charm won her over. She likes
Speaker 2: fil middle Eastern guys under five to eight, so that's.
Speaker 3: A big plus great personality.
Speaker 2: So that was a huge win. I mean, when we
Speaker 2: started dating and we got married, it was like, all right,
Speaker 2: we're going to pre decide that we're gonna put as
Speaker 2: much down on a modest house as possible and paying
Speaker 2: off as fast as possible. Because we asked ourselves those questions,
Speaker 2: what kind of options could we have in our early thirties,
Speaker 2: How could it change the decisions we make when it
Speaker 2: comes to life and work and enjoyment and generosity if
Speaker 2: we didn't have any payments already in our thirties, and
Speaker 2: so we predecided. So that meant we were going to
Speaker 2: be aggressive, and we saved up a big down payment
Speaker 2: on we got a town home outside of the Franklin
Speaker 2: area that was cheaper. Even though the bank would be
Speaker 2: willing to loan us a bajillion dollars, we were like, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to do something that's weird and rare and
Speaker 2: get a modest town home. And so we did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't you love that pre approval letter for two
Speaker 1: thousand more than you're actually wanting to spend. That blows
Speaker 1: my message with people so hard.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so we did another weird thing, and we
Speaker 2: didn't have a credit score because we didn't have debt,
Speaker 2: and so we got a mortgage with no credit score
Speaker 2: through a process called manual underwriting. And it wasn't that difficult,
Speaker 2: it didn't ruin our life. We got a great rate
Speaker 2: on the mortgage, and so I've been railing against that
Speaker 2: myth for a long time. But all of that allowed
Speaker 2: us to pay off the house in twenty six months
Speaker 2: with we were really aggressive. This is not the Ramsey plan.
Speaker 2: We tell people you can move from intense to intentional
Speaker 2: when you move from baby step, you know, two and three,
Speaker 2: which is getting out of debt, getting the emergency fund
Speaker 2: into four five six, which is investing and paying off
Speaker 2: the house early. And so we were just aggressive because
Speaker 2: it was a fun goal for us and we're weird
Speaker 2: like that. But marrying her and having the same vision
Speaker 2: and goals was such a blessing to just exponentially grow
Speaker 2: a wealth so much faster. And so if you're not
Speaker 2: on the same page, I feel for you, and you've
Speaker 2: got to have the hard conversation. You've got to tell
Speaker 2: your spouse really really how you feel. And if they
Speaker 2: like you and they love you, they're going to listen
Speaker 2: and they're going to try to understand and they're going
Speaker 2: to go, Okay, I get it. You're stressed out about
Speaker 2: this debt. What can we do to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: That's when you guys go, all right, we're going to
Speaker 2: read the Total Money Makeover or Breaking Free from Broke
Speaker 2: or go through Financial Peace University to create that shared language,
Speaker 2: to create those shared vision and goals for what we're
Speaker 2: going to do and how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2: That's how we see couples win. And it also improves
Speaker 2: their marriages, which makes sense because you're communicating and there's
Speaker 2: expectations and you're working toward the same goal, maybe for
Speaker 2: the first time in your life, and so it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful thing when you can get a spouse on board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm all about that, George.
Speaker 3: And there are some differences between how it is that
Speaker 3: we view certain things in the Ramsey way, but I
Speaker 3: will say when Kate and I, the way we first
Speaker 3: got on the same page was through Dave Ramsey. I
Speaker 3: literally was like, hey, babe, yes, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you've ever heard of this, and this is over fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago, but we I bought tickets to one of
Speaker 3: the live events because for us, we didn't have a framework,
Speaker 3: we didn't have a way to talk about it, and
Speaker 3: so we need to to learn the same language. And
Speaker 3: that was the first step towards financial freedom for us.
Speaker 1: Now they have the Dave Amsey face tattoo on their
Speaker 1: on their shoulder to prove it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tat has faded over the years, but thanks
Speaker 3: for sharing that, George. Just the story with you and Whitney.
Speaker 3: But we're gonna talk more. We've talked about spending money,
Speaker 3: and you're touching on rolling your net worth and just
Speaker 3: the ability to save up large amounts of money. We're
Speaker 3: going to talk more about investing. Right after the break.
Speaker 1: We're back from the break. We're still talking about Breaking
Speaker 1: Free from Broke. That's George's new book, George Campbell and George.
Speaker 1: We covered a lot of ground already. Let's talk about investing. Though.
Speaker 1: I feel like you you're thirty four, I believe already
Speaker 1: a millionaire. Pretty amazing. Not many people get there at
Speaker 1: that early of an age. I feel like the apps
Speaker 1: like robin Hood, social media, what we see there, they
Speaker 1: they want to make it seem like getting to that
Speaker 1: point can be quick and easy. That maybe it's almost
Speaker 1: like the difference between getting rich versus building wealth. What
Speaker 1: was the process like for you getting that point? It
Speaker 1: sounds like it was just a lot of hard work,
Speaker 1: having a massively high savings rate, allocating more to debt
Speaker 1: payoff and then more to investing. Was it just was
Speaker 1: it this really sexy process or was it kind of
Speaker 1: plain vanilla in nature? You getting to that millionaire status?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, if you look at the comment section,
Speaker 2: most people make fun of how simple my financial plan
Speaker 2: was to build wealth. But I find it encouraging because
Speaker 2: if it's that simple, then anyone can do it. You
Speaker 2: don't have to be a prodigy, you don't have to
Speaker 2: download the right app, thank goodness, regardless of what these
Speaker 2: apps market to you. So I have a whole chapter
Speaker 2: in the book on marketing on investing traps, and one
Speaker 2: of those is micro investing apps. A lot of these
Speaker 2: distractions that cause people to think they're building wealth but
Speaker 2: doing it at such a slow rate while trying to
Speaker 2: do seventeen other things. It causes them to never make
Speaker 2: progress in any area, whether it's debt payoff or wealth building.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love about the Ramsey plan is
Speaker 2: it's one thing at a time. Let's focus on debt payoff.
Speaker 2: Let's focus on the emergency fund. Now we can invest
Speaker 2: fifteen percent, which is way more than most people are investing.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's a beautiful plan to just
Speaker 2: stay focused. And that's exactly what we did. And my
Speaker 2: investing plan was real simple. We invested fifteen percent of
Speaker 2: our household income into our WROTH four O. One case
Speaker 2: here at Ramsey, and we split those across four mutual
Speaker 2: funds that were diversified, and so that allowed us to
Speaker 2: slowly build wealth in our investment accounts. And then of
Speaker 2: course with the house payoff, you're building equity with this
Speaker 2: forced savings plan, and the house is going to appreciate,
Speaker 2: and so we have the beauty of living in Franklin, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: which is one of the hottest areas. Definitely in Tennessee,
Speaker 2: but in the South in general. Nashville area has been
Speaker 2: blowing up when it comes to real estate. So with
Speaker 2: the house appreciation and then paying off the home, we
Speaker 2: got another home that's paid off. And so when you
Speaker 2: add up all of our assets between our retirement accounts
Speaker 2: and the house, it's over a million. And you go, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, you kind of accidentally got there with intentionality.
Speaker 2: And so people will make fun of me because they go, well, George,
Speaker 2: your house doesn't count. I'm like, well, according to just
Speaker 2: basic accounting, it does. But also, I don't need a
Speaker 2: million dollars in liquid cash. What the heck am I
Speaker 2: going to do with that? That's not really a flex
Speaker 2: that I care about at this point in my life.
Speaker 2: Because we have margin with every paycheck. We have margin.
Speaker 2: We have a bunch of money in savings. We have
Speaker 2: money in our retirement accounts that's growing for us with
Speaker 2: compound growth over time that will tap into later on.
Speaker 2: We can build a bridge account so that when we're
Speaker 2: in our fifties, if we want to retire early, we'll
Speaker 2: have that money to cover us. And so I've never
Speaker 2: understood the argument that you need a million dollars in
Speaker 2: liquid cash to be considered a real millionaire according to
Speaker 2: the YouTube comments, which is funny to me, but that's it. Truly.
Speaker 2: Our retirement is I've got a wroth Ira, a wroth
Speaker 2: for on and K. My wife has a wroth for O,
Speaker 2: on and K. We have a paid four house and
Speaker 2: two paid four cars, and then a bunch of money
Speaker 2: in our emergency fund in a highyield savings account.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: And that's all my cards on the table.
Speaker 1: Do not live your life according to YouTube comments, they'll
Speaker 1: lead you.
Speaker 2: That's just good life advice.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Instagram or tiktokic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exhaust I know I shouldn't look, but it's
Speaker 2: like a car wreck. I'm just so intrigued to see
Speaker 2: what the heck is going on and then I go, Okay,
Speaker 2: I need a shower after reading these comments. That's right,
Speaker 2: It's that simple.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So, like we're kind of talking about retirement, can we
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about the safe withdrawal rate? Because
Speaker 3: you put out a video based on a bunch of
Speaker 3: pretty robust evidence out there that you know, like the
Speaker 3: four ish percent is a safe withdrawal rate for retirees.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of that's based on the Trinity study.
Speaker 3: Talk about that and just the approach and how it
Speaker 3: is that folks should feel comfortable about drawing down on
Speaker 3: their retirement.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, when it comes to withdraw rate, it's
Speaker 2: such a personalized decision because everyone's situation is different. Everyone
Speaker 2: has a different nest egg, everyone has different expenses, and
Speaker 2: so it's a it's a hard thing to just put
Speaker 2: out there and say, well, for everyone in America, they
Speaker 2: should do this. But I do think you know, Dave
Speaker 2: Ramsey was on air famously talking about, hey, if the
Speaker 2: market does twelve percent and you withdraw eight percent, there's
Speaker 2: still a four percent spread for cost of inflation, rays
Speaker 2: and all of that, and you could survive off of
Speaker 2: that just fine. And you got a lot of flak
Speaker 2: for that, and I understand, but you got to remember
Speaker 2: that people following the Ramsey plan after fifteen years, if
Speaker 2: they follow our plan, they don't have a house payment anymore.
Speaker 2: They've been investing for decades potentially, and so they don't
Speaker 2: need to have one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year
Speaker 2: in retirement. And so it's a beautiful thing when you go, oh,
Speaker 2: I could withdraw it eight percent, but I could withdraw less.
Speaker 2: And so my goal and the other question is do
Speaker 2: you need this account to stay at the principal balance forever?
Speaker 2: The answer is no, there's nothing wrong with drawing down
Speaker 2: that balance. And most people with the life expectancy, if
Speaker 2: you retire a sixty two, most people won't live past
Speaker 2: seventy five or eighty, you know, based on data, that
Speaker 2: is true, and so you really need this account for
Speaker 2: about fifteen years, not thirty to forty years.
Speaker 1: So hope we're a good shape and we're living passes.
Speaker 2: That's how I hope to live to I'm gonna trust me,
Speaker 2: I'm planning to go from you know, sixty to ninety five.
Speaker 2: If the cards play around at.
Speaker 1: George Mathusla Camill, what they're gonna come with yes.
Speaker 2: At seven eighty four years old, still doing this podcast.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a it's a fun conversation, but
Speaker 2: it's also so hypothetical and nerdy, and I wish we
Speaker 2: could be arguing about this. But the truth is, most
Speaker 2: people aren't saving anything. Four and ten people have nothing
Speaker 2: in savings and most people dream of having a million
Speaker 2: dollars and they've lost hope. And so it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where if we can just focus on investing,
Speaker 2: you won't have to worry about withdrawal rates. Most people.
Speaker 2: I've never heard someone calling to the show being like, hey,
Speaker 2: we are withdraw rate was too high in retirement and
Speaker 2: now we're broke. Most people are saying, we don't have
Speaker 2: anything for retirement.
Speaker 1: What do we do exactly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's so it's a very different conversation.
Speaker 1: It can be a psychological hurdle, I think too, for
Speaker 1: people to see that balance go down, and I think
Speaker 1: more we need to help make retirees more comfortable seeing
Speaker 1: that balance go down a little bit, because that's why
Speaker 1: you saved it up in the first place. That's why
Speaker 1: you spent so many decades on the front end making
Speaker 1: sure that you were going to be able to have
Speaker 1: retirement and you know it's okay, I guess to leave
Speaker 1: money to your heirs. That's also not something Matt and
Speaker 1: I prioritize. We love our kids, we want to give
Speaker 1: them every advantage in the here and now, but we
Speaker 1: also don't We want to try to avoid entitlements, and
Speaker 1: part of that is not leaving behind hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: or millions to our offspring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're probably gonna leave at the worst case,
Speaker 2: you're gonna leave paid for real estate. Yeah, which is
Speaker 2: gonna be worth a whole lot of money. When you
Speaker 2: guys you know hit you know, hit the old Rainbow
Speaker 2: trail there, and so even that think it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: Even that, though I don't. We'll see if it goes
Speaker 1: to them. I haven't made up my mind on a
Speaker 1: bunch of things. So much depends on how things progress.
Speaker 1: And I want to make sure they have every advantage,
Speaker 1: like I said, like in the here and now as
Speaker 1: they're ten, eight and four, but as they as they
Speaker 1: get older and grow up go to school. Want to
Speaker 1: help them along. But I also want to make sure
Speaker 1: that they have to drive to.
Speaker 2: And they're not just reliant well daddy's got exactly a
Speaker 2: portfolio that I'm going to get. Yeah, that We've seen
Speaker 2: that before where I'm trying to convince someone and they go, well,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a trust fund, so none of this matters.
Speaker 2: And I go, Okay, then I don't know why.
Speaker 1: What's this conversation right? Good for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we all want that for our kids. We want
Speaker 2: to give them a better life than we had, but
Speaker 2: we also don't want to create this entitlement. And I
Speaker 2: went on air because people wanted to talk about on Fox,
Speaker 2: like Guy Fiedi says he's not leaving his kids anything,
Speaker 2: and Marie Osmond says, he's not leaving our kids Jack Squad.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know that that needs to be
Speaker 2: the goal, you know what I mean? Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: think it's a good thing to grapple with, to go,
Speaker 2: how do we leave this in a way that doesn't
Speaker 2: destroy them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, all right, last question, talk to me about
Speaker 1: optimism versus pessimism. I am naturally an optimist, like one
Speaker 1: hundred percent all the way, and I know that everybody
Speaker 1: kind of comes out of the womb a little differently
Speaker 1: on that front. But at the end of the book,
Speaker 1: you talk about how cynicism, negativity, and fear can stem
Speaker 1: me your process. So how important do you think your
Speaker 1: outlook is on your ability to make progress? And how
Speaker 1: malleable is our outlook like? Is it set in stone?
Speaker 1: Is it nature from the very get go? Or do
Speaker 1: we have enough ability to kind of change that? And
Speaker 1: how do we go about doing stuff?
Speaker 2: Well? I was the opposite growing up, but I still
Speaker 2: struggle with it. I'm a recovering pessimist. I am sort
Speaker 2: of the optimist cynic and so I have to fight
Speaker 2: this every day, and it's a daily decision because it's
Speaker 2: so easy to be cynical. And I thought it was
Speaker 2: like a flex like. I thought it was a personality
Speaker 2: trait to be cynical when I was younger, and I
Speaker 2: let cynicism for too long, I steal my joy and
Speaker 2: it kept me stuck in this victim mentality, because when
Speaker 2: you're cynical, it's everyone else's fault and you're just sort
Speaker 2: of this critic that's above it all, and you're just
Speaker 2: resigned to your fate as a cog in the machine.
Speaker 2: And I drank that poison for too long, and nothing
Speaker 2: changed for me financially until I realized that pity's not
Speaker 2: going to lead to progress, and so that was a
Speaker 2: hard thing for me to make a paradigm shift to.
Speaker 2: And when I found out in the Millionaire study, they
Speaker 2: asked a really interesting question. We did a national study
Speaker 2: of millionaires, the largest one ever done, and they asked
Speaker 2: this question and the answer was this. Ninety seven percent
Speaker 2: of the millionaires we studied said they believed that they
Speaker 2: controlled their financial destiny. It's such a simple belief, but
Speaker 2: do you believe that you can personally effect where you
Speaker 2: end up financially? And if you don't believe that, then
Speaker 2: why would you even bother to get out of debt
Speaker 2: and invest for your future. You're just going to resign
Speaker 2: to your situation and wait for someone else to fix it.
Speaker 2: And so that when you have this positivity and this
Speaker 2: optimism that you can actually have agency on autonomy over
Speaker 2: your financial life. It creates this thing called hope. And
Speaker 2: that's sort of the secret thing we do here at Ramsey.
Speaker 2: That's our secret sauce is that day for thirty years
Speaker 2: is really good at just giving people hope. And when
Speaker 2: you have hope, you're willing to do the hard thing
Speaker 2: for a season. You're willing to sacrifice and get the
Speaker 2: second job and sell the car because you can see
Speaker 2: light at the end of the tunnel and you know
Speaker 2: you're working towards something because you have a deep why.
Speaker 2: And so that's really my hope. At the end of
Speaker 2: the book. I put it there because it's not really
Speaker 2: finance related, but it certainly affects your finances. And I
Speaker 2: want to talk about money so we can stop talking
Speaker 2: about money, because, like you guys mentioned earlier, money is
Speaker 2: an obstacle for most people. And when we can turn
Speaker 2: that into a tool to really live a life for
Speaker 2: out of that doesn't exhaust us. That's what we're really after,
Speaker 2: not just a pile in our.
Speaker 3: Nests about what you can do with that money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that sacrifice leads to the ability to change your life,
Speaker 3: and like I'll say on the show, that the ability
Speaker 3: to change your family tree. And George, we really appreciate
Speaker 3: you coming on the show and talking with us. Where
Speaker 3: can folks learn more about you? Where can folks learn
Speaker 3: more about the book?
Speaker 2: Absolutely so if you want to copy of Breaking Free
Speaker 2: from Broke, it's available at Ramseysolutions dot Com, Amazon, wherever
Speaker 2: you get your books, you'll find it there. If you
Speaker 2: search breaking Free from Broke, and if you want to
Speaker 2: connect with me, I'd love to hear what you thought
Speaker 2: about this podcast. I know you're fans of How to Money,
Speaker 2: so hopefully you'll be fans of mine and you can
Speaker 2: follow me at George Cammell with a K on Instagram
Speaker 2: and X which I hate calling it that, but that's
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: We have to just get used to it, guys at
Speaker 2: this point. So I love, love to connect with your fans,
Speaker 2: and we have so much more in common than we
Speaker 2: do that we disagree on. And so it's an honor
Speaker 2: to be on the show and help people break free
Speaker 2: from broke and find financial freedom.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent George, thanks so much, man. It was
Speaker 1: a pleasure and we'll talk and soon.
Speaker 2: Awesome, thanks guys.
Speaker 3: Nice man, what a great conversation. And I'm curious if
Speaker 3: listeners were thinking, all right, Mangel, they're gonna wrap up
Speaker 3: this conversation and immediately cut up all their credit cards. No,
Speaker 3: because I still I'm still working on get some more
Speaker 3: points there on my Southwest card.
Speaker 1: Heya, I'm gonna be taking a lot of free trips
Speaker 1: this year thanks to my credit cards, you know. But
Speaker 1: like George said, we have a lot more exactly, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what Dave is known for.
Speaker 3: But man, I just really appreciate how George is approaching
Speaker 3: personal finance, how he's approaching money, and the way that
Speaker 3: we think about it. But uh, yeah, I guess what
Speaker 3: was your big takeaway from our conversation today?
Speaker 1: I think my big takeaway and you and I talked
Speaker 1: about this regularly, simplicity is so important underrated, right, And
Speaker 1: like he's talking about how your focus is spread across
Speaker 1: seventeen different action items, you're gonna make little to no
Speaker 1: progress on all of them. And I think that's so true.
Speaker 1: And he talked about his simple path paying on the
Speaker 1: mortgage and investing fifteen percent in those retirement accounts, and hey,
Speaker 1: guess what if you do that with regularity, pretty soon
Speaker 1: you're a millionaire. Like, not in a day or a
Speaker 1: week or a year typically, but in the eight to
Speaker 1: ten to twelve to fifteen year timeframe. You can get
Speaker 1: to that point if you have that sort of focus.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it doesn't have to be some sort of
Speaker 1: complicated methodology or attacking this multi pronged system. It's paying
Speaker 1: off debt, increasing how much you're dedicating towards investments, watching
Speaker 1: those investments straightforward. Man. Yeah, I mean we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of different things on this show.
Speaker 3: Because we're nerds, Yeah, because we are diving into the weeds,
Speaker 3: and because we're nerds, we want to optimize at every turn.
Speaker 3: But it is important to point out that that's a
Speaker 3: particular kind of person, and it takes you as an
Speaker 3: individual knowing what type of person am I What kind
Speaker 3: of strategy do I need to focus on that is
Speaker 3: going to allow me to arrive at my goal?
Speaker 1: Yes, as fast as quickly as possible. At the core,
Speaker 1: at the heart, at the root of the situation, it's
Speaker 1: simplicity all the way down. If you want to make progress,
Speaker 1: and we can talk about all these things on the edges,
Speaker 1: they're going to help you make additional progress. They're going
Speaker 1: to help you take that cheaper vacation, or that going
Speaker 1: to help you increase the rate that you're earning on
Speaker 1: your savings or whatever it is. But man, that focus
Speaker 1: on simplicity is so important in something we have to
Speaker 1: constantly come back to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, man, I think that is so true. So
Speaker 3: I think my big takeaway is going to be I
Speaker 3: guess going back to Earlier on in the conversation, we
Speaker 3: were talking about advice that George gives when he's talking
Speaker 3: with somebody and they've got a bunch of debt on hand,
Speaker 3: and I liked what he said about leaning the other
Speaker 3: direction from the individual's natural tendency. And so, for instance,
Speaker 3: if somebody is maybe a little more emotional when it
Speaker 3: comes to their spending, well maybe it's worth leaning a
Speaker 3: little bit more towards the math near to your side
Speaker 3: of things. But if you have somebody and they're over
Speaker 3: analyzing their numbers, they're over there, maybe they're doing a
Speaker 3: little bit too much number crunching. What they need to
Speaker 3: do is to realize, hey, like, let's connect with the
Speaker 3: emotional side of what this being clear this debt, what
Speaker 3: that's going to allow you to do. I think there's
Speaker 3: some balance that that approach can provide that I think
Speaker 3: could lead to a lot of folks seeing like outsized
Speaker 3: progress then the approach that they think is going to
Speaker 3: get them out of that hole, because bottom line, the
Speaker 3: tendency is what got them into that hole, and so
Speaker 3: a lot of times it's going to take a different
Speaker 3: strategy to get you out of it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: if there's there's some good wisdom there.
Speaker 1: If you're bogged down in emotion and that's how you
Speaker 1: mainly relate to money, you should lean in the numbers
Speaker 1: a little more. Maybe it used to need to get
Speaker 1: a little more analytical with it. Yeah, Or maybe you're
Speaker 1: like the engineer type and you're in the spreadsheet all
Speaker 1: the time, and maybe you're not seeing the way that
Speaker 1: the way you treat money impacts your family, your household
Speaker 1: on the emotional level, and you need to step back
Speaker 1: and think through that because that's an important part of
Speaker 1: money too. So I like that. Yeah, maybe taking a
Speaker 1: little bit of that and sprinkling it in at least
Speaker 1: thinking through the opposite of your natural tendency makes a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. Totally. That's right, man.
Speaker 3: Here's a little peek behind the curtain. Is our conversation
Speaker 3: with George was here in the morning. So you and
Speaker 3: I decided for the sake of the show, we're not
Speaker 3: going to drink a craft beer. I mean, George was
Speaker 3: drinking heavily like a fish. He's drinking bourbon out of
Speaker 3: his tubbler over there. No, it's early in the morning,
Speaker 3: and so you and I are both enjoying nice cups
Speaker 3: of coffee here I got my I will say this
Speaker 3: is a splurge. This is the tim Windlebow like the
Speaker 3: finest coffee straight out of Norway.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, the best coffee comes from Norway, my people's.
Speaker 3: But truly, this was not a cheap bag of beans
Speaker 3: that purchased last week. So yeah, no be a review
Speaker 3: this week. But hey, we'll be back next time always.
Speaker 1: All right, that's gonna do it for this episode. If
Speaker 1: you want links to some of the resources we mentioned,
Speaker 1: including George's new book, you can find those up on
Speaker 1: our website at Howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 3: That's right, buddy, So that's gonna be it until next time.
Speaker 3: Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.