George Kamel - 18 Minutes of Dangerous Money Advice From the Internet

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

📙 Check out my book, Breaking Free From Broke!   The people of TikTok have spoken . . . and I suspect they’re wrong again. Today, we’re reacting to their worst money advice to see just how far down the rabbit hole of debt these financial Tweedledees and Tweedledums have gone.   Next Steps: • 🎥 Watch my video 21 Minutes of Terrible Money Advice From the Internet! • 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! • 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.   Connect With Our Sponsors: • Go to Boost Mobile to switch today! • Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. • Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! • Sign up with Privacy today and receive a $5 credit just for being a George Kamel fan.   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The people of TikTok have spoken, and per yuge, I suspect they are wrong. Probably. Today, we're reacting to their worst money advice to see just how far down the rabbit hole of debt these financial tweedlelies and tweedlems have gone. But before we get to the madness, let's raise a cup of tea to delete me for sponsoring this channel. Oh, you're supposed to use life insurance while you're alive. It's called life insurance, not death insurance. Let me show you why.

So imagine your life insurance policy is a house. You see, every time you make a payment. on your house, you build equity in the house. You can then use that equity for whatever you want by getting a home equity line of credit. See, but life insurance is way better. Check this out. With life insurance, when you put money in, you build equity in the form of cash value. That cash value is guaranteed to grow 100% tax-free. The money's protected against judgment and lawsuit in most states. You can access the cash value at any time for whatever you want by taking a policy loan. But unlike your house, there is no credit checks required.

There's no financial statements required. Unlike your house, there's no repayment terms required. You could take the money and buy a car, go on a vacation, or do an investment to make more money. And the whole time you're doing this, you're not interrupting your guaranteed compound growth. I hate everything. I hate this timeline. To learn more, check out the infinite banking link in my bio. I got to admit, they come up with really cool names for scams these days.

All right, so everything, this woman at the front and this guy, for the rest of it said is just absolute hogwash garbage. Here's the problems. The premiums for a whole life cash value policy are typically 10 to 15 times more expensive than a term life policy. And the cash value growth is super slow with crappy returns. And the insurance company keeps the cash value when you die with most policies. But here's why they peddle them. They make so much more money when you buy a whole life policy versus a term life policy. So that's why they peddle them so hard. So here's the deal. You want tax-free growth, invests in a Roth IRA. You want more flexibility? Just invest in a mutual fund or index fund outside of retirement. You'll see way better growth without giant commissions that line their pockets. So what's the solution here? Well, insurance is meant to do one thing to transfer risk. Life insurance is meant to do one thing, to replace your income of something where to happen to you. That's it. Do not ever mix insurance with investing. That's how you know you got got by a guy like this. So, solution by term life insurance on one side to protect your life and your income,

and then invest on the other side on your own without making this guy richer. He already has a nice pool. He doesn't need to. Enough said. I don't want to talk about it. You have a house, and let's just assume for a moment that what you owe on it is $200,000. You bought it several years ago. During this last pandemic, what happened?

The price is shot through the roof. So let's just assume for a moment that the current value on your property is $400,000. It's worth 400, but it's half paid off because you only owe $200,000. Did you know that you can go to the bank and you could request something called a home equity line of credit? A helock. And basically you say, bank, I would like a credit card that is attached to the available equity in the house. And the bank says, well, we'll go up to 80% of the value. 80% of the value of $400,000 is 320,000.

And the difference between 320,000, the max the bank would allow you. But what you owe 200. Basically, the bank says, here's $120,000. If you don't use it, it's available. It's kind of like a credit card tied to the equity in your home. So, you get this home equity line of credit and you're like, what if I went and I bought another house? Let's just say I bought a rental.

That rental cost me $50,000 out of pocket. Now, where am I getting this $50,000 down payment? I'm getting it from a $120,000 line of credit that the bank set up for free for me. Now, here's where arbitrage comes in. I can borrow this 50%, let's say. set up 3%. But I can put it into a property where I'm earning a 25% ROI and a part of that is cash flow. And let's assume for just a moment that cash flow is $450 a month. I'm borrowing the money at 3 and I'm earning a total return of 25%. Remember, you get to keep what's in the middle, which is...

Okay, I think I've heard enough from the snake oil salesman. Which by the way, this is what this guy does. He sells you on a course to arbitrage your life into oblivion and probably, cause you to file bankruptcy one day. Sounds fun. I'm not going to sit here and try to math it out. Here's the stupidity around this. You're just moving backwards financially. You're robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking money from your house, then taking out a giant credit card that hopefully you can pay back while putting your house at risk with that he lock because your home is collateral. So all of this is built on a house of cards that can come crumbling down with one bad move. So no, leveraging your way to wealth is not what I recommend.

and it's not a peaceful path that you can bank on. So the Ramsey rule, do not buy investment property until your primary home is paid off. So, yes, what he's saying here is true. You can take a he lock out and it can be up to 80% of the value. It doesn't mean you should. John said, I love these scenarios. Property doubles in value. Only a 3% heat lock.

No closing cost. 25% ROI in the next property. Rainbows and unicorns farts. I like the ending. I don't understand the plurality of rainbows and unicorns. farts. I don't know if that's possessive or what he was going for there, if that was a typo, or if there's something I'm not understanding about the connectivity between rainbows, unicorns, and their possessive farts jointly. I won't go there. Enzo said, you said it so well. Did he,

though? These snake oil salesmen are wasting everyone's time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And note, anything that comes out of this guy's mouth, just run. Run far, far, far. All right, the blood pressure's going up. Let's see if we can keep it up. Listen to me and listen to me well. Taking loans out of my 401k bought everything that we wanted and I paid myself back instead of taking a loan for it. It bought campers. It bought cars. It almost bought a boat.

All the motorcycles that I bought, everything that I bought, I took a loan out of my 401K. I went and paid cash for it. And then I just paid myself back and it was coming out of my paycheck and I didn't even have to look. Didn't you have to pay attention to it. Truth of the matter is every single time you do that, you lose out on compound interest. But if you're taking a loan and your loan rate isn't that great, what's the difference between paying a high interest rate and losing on compound interest? Okay. I've heard enough I'm losing brain cells the longer I watch this.

401k loans are not the move. Sure, is it better than a 401k withdrawal where you're just taking the money out forever with penalties, with taxes, unplugging all that compound growth? Sure, but that's like saying, well, getting punched in the face is better than losing a toe. That is a really good point. All right, great. We can all agree on that, bud. But here's the deal.

Taking money out of a 401k or any retirement account for that matter, before age 59. and a half should be a last resort option when you're facing bankruptcy or foreclosure. It's not free money to go get cars and boats and motorcycles, which by the way, you're trading something going up in value with tax advantages and then you're unplugging all of that growth, paying interest on that loan to yourself back into the 401k while buying things with cash. It's not with cash, bud. You use debt to do it. Then those things go down in value while you just decimated your nest egg. So now, this is a terrible. idea. Buy the things you can afford. Make sure that all the things with wheels and motors in your life

is no more than half your annual income and use that margin to invest for the future. That's it. Don't go into debt for anything. Don't take out your 401k loans to fund your fun stuff. Just save up like a grown adult. That's all I'm asking. I can't write off a private chef, but if I invite somebody over every single night to have business meetings with me and I hire a private chef to cook the meals, I can write off the private chef and the food that went into making the meal. This is how I'm able to afford having that private chef every single year, every single month, every single day inside of my house, making me and my wife meals along with my friends, family members, and my business clients who also some of my family members sit on my board of directors. All right, so family

dinners are now a tax write off. This is wreaking of tax fraud, and I highly doubt this guy has a private chef constantly. But he's teaching the tax game, apparently. I don't, I would, I would not want to take tax advice from this guy. He's going to get you into jail real quick. No trial, no nothing. I don't know how it. You're even allowed to say this on the internet. Oh, H&R Block. Oh. For anyone in the comments, don't do this. UserX, even H&R Block cooked this man. That is embarrassing. That's super... That's like the kid in school who's like the last one to get picked on kickball, roasting you in front of your friends. I was that kid. I can say it. That audit is going to

hit different. I don't need to be a tax expert to tell you, this is not legal. And by the way, Your wife doesn't want to hang out with your business clients every night, let alone family business clients. Yikes. Let her eat in peace. Just go eat out every day if you're going to do something this expensive and dumb. And by the way, writing it off doesn't not mean it's free. It means you're saving a percentage of what that thing cost you in your taxes come April.

Here's a stat for you. Zero out of zero smart people recommend tax fraud. And something else I don't recommend sharing your debit card information with strangers. And here's the thing. Every time you shop online, you are trusting a website with your financial information. And the last thing you want is for your data to be compromised and a slew of unauthorized charges hitting your account. And that's why for years I've loved and used privacy.com, a sponsor of today's video. Privacy protects you by creating a unique card number for every merchant you shop with

so that your real debit card number is never shared. So if a merchant gets compromised, only the virtual card number is exposed, not your bank account. And you can set up spending limits, time limits, all sorts of stuff with these virtual cards. So sign up today and you'll get a $5 credit just for being a fan of this channel. That's a free five bucks, people. Go to privacy.com slash george to sign out. And before we get back to these unwise beyond their years influencers, here's a bit of advice I think we can all agree on.

Don't overpay for your phone bill. And thanks to Boost Mobile, another sponsor of today's video, you won't have to. With their unlimited plan, you'll pay just $25 a month forever. No changes, no hidden fees, no contracts. That whole talk is cheap line. Yeah, these guys are actually doing it. So talk or doom scroll as much as you want. price stays the same at 25 bucks. You can bring your phone, keep your number, and start saving.

Make the switch today at boostmobile.com slash Ramsey. $25 forever requires customers to remain active on Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan. All right, back to whatever this is. A mistake that a lot of you guys make is thinking you need to buy your first car cash. Now, I'm not saying you should never buy a car cash, but I'm saying that sometimes it's not the smartest thing to do. Because look, taking out a small loan that is still manageable for you is going to build your credit one. I know common budget for people's first cars around like 15 to 20k first of all if you have 15 to 20k cash for your first car by yourself bro get go get you something nice but i know there's also some people who have like 10k who are trying to buy a car cash bro you're not getting a car for 10k cash no more also for

teenagers like if you are saving up your money for a long period of time like you're saving up like 10k or something bro dropping all of that money on a car that leaves you literally broke but i would say like the main thing is building that credit, bro. Because a lot of people go into their 20s and, like, have no credit history. And then it's hard to buy anything or, like, to finance anything. But yeah, that's really all. Let me know in the comments what you guys think. I think this is called rage bait in today's world, especially coming from a guy whose

username is Rowan Whips. Rowan Whips, Accura TLX content. Dude, imagine we're in like 2090. And you're like, what'd your great-grandfather do? You're like, oh, he was a, he had a TikTok account about Accura TLX content. That's the legacy you want to leave? Car buying tips and advice. I would not take any car buying tips or advice from this guy.

I got socks older than you, kid. So from the start, it just made me angry. From him saying, it's dumb to pay cash. And who even has the money? Well, people who save up over time. And maybe they got help from their parents for their first car. Maybe their parents covered half of whatever they saved. That happens a lot.

Maybe they just bought a reasonable. used car, which by the way, you can get lots of cars for under $10,000. No one's telling you to drive that car for the rest of your life. But can you drive it for three years, five years, seven years, while saving up to upgrade? Yes, that's called delayed gratification. That's part of being an adult. So pay cash, do not finance. Don't get stuck in this payment cycle, which by the way is what keeps people broke, especially as they chase their credit score, which just lets you get more debt, which lets you get more payments, which then keeps you more broke. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath.

If you need extra money in your pocket, you have a bill coming up. Put on one second, and I'm going to give you a few apps that I have personally used myself that have helped me in times of need. Hold on. The first app I will suggest is credit convie. Okay, when you go into the Apple store, I have an iPhone. When you go in the Apple store, there's going to be an app with a blue background. The letters are going to be white, and it's going to be a C and a two. It is Credit Convy.

They let me borrow $50. The next app I will suggest is for my people that do ride share or make food deliveries off of Grubhub, DoorDash, what have you. This app is called U-L-A. It is spelled U-A-L-E-T-T. They might take a day or two to get back to you, but they let me borrow $550. Oh, boy. So what she just described is just a modern version of payday lenders, and cash advance apps.

These are one of the biggest traps to keep people broke. And it's sad because these are very predatory apps and they'll promise you, hey, need some quick cash. Come to us, we got you. We're not going to screw you over. And then they trap you with the fees,

with the interest, which, by the way, with payday loans, they don't have to disclose. And if you do the math, you're talking 500%, 1,000%, 4,000% APR is essentially what you're paying because of their fees. And you're borrowing from the next paycheck, staying in the cycle,

and it's exactly what keeps people broke. So if you're desperate for 50 bucks and you're going to these apps, you're going to be in desperate need of 50 bucks for the rest of your life. So break free, don't download these apps. The solution is you, your income, living on less than you make, cutting your expenses down to the bone, working as much as you can to get out of that cycle to where you can create your own 50 bucks.

You become your own bank. That's the key to breaking from the cycle, and a budget is what's going to help you do it. So if you want the best budgeting app that I use, it's called Every Dollar. I'll drop a link in the description. That's the only app you need to break free from this. No loans required.

You saved a dollar a day for a year. Do you know how much money you'd have? Roughly $30,000. If you're 25 and you and your friends don't meet up to day trade, how are you expecting to be a millionaire in your 20s? If you go to a restaurant and you're like, oh, what am I going to eat for dinner? Like, that's the wrong mindset.

You should be thinking, how can I buy this restaurant? Flip your mindset. If women just stop getting lip injections for a year, what they save? 80K. You need great determination and a small loan from your parents. I'm at the point where if someone came up to me and said, If you slap your mom, I'll give you $15 million. I'd slap my mom, but I would not accept the $15 million.

Because to be honest, that job experience is invaluable in my rest of my. They say, oh, I have property. How can I make more money on my property? It's simple. Like, buy little greenhouses, maybe a red hotel. And instead of being innovative in building their passive income, people are worried about going to jail. It's really easy to not go to jail.

Just roll doubles and you're done. In life, you need to know who you are. Like, are you an iron? Are you a race car? Are you like a thimble? Totally. And I'm at the point where when I go back to my hometown, people are like, how do I invest in money?

like you, how do I buy properties like you? Where'd you get that tiny little monocle from? Oh, I needed that release. The sweet relief of a parody video where it chaotically escalates into the Monopoly Man. Big fan of this content. More like this on the internet, guys. More like this. But that's sadly not a far cry from the videos we watch today, which is just bad math, telling people that it's so easy and you just need to do this. No, if it sounds easy, it's probably not good advice. If it sounds like it's going to take some work, it's probably the right advice.

All right, slow is better when it comes to building wealth. And anyone that promises you to get rich quick, just leverage this, take out the cash advance, do the he lock. Debt is not the answer to your problems, okay? But this perfectly sums up the absurdity of today's advice. But fun question for the good of the group, let me know in the comments section

which Monopoly game piece you think I would be and why. Are we going thimble? Are we going race car? Are we going top hat? Are we going dog? Why are we going thimble? What's the purpose of the thimble? Don't understand that. Let me know. Last but not least, to give me some further reprieve, producer Alex has selected a video of his choosing that may or may not have anything to do with anything. We're going to watch it and see what we have today. Betting $100 that the gambling addiction hotline operator is a girl.

No. Sorry, wrong number. Come on, bring me my money. Oh, that's dark. That is dark. I want to know. Did they actually call? Is that a... Oh my gosh, that has to be... That has to be... No, don't do that to her.

That's fun. If we don't laugh, we cry. But just to be clear, I'm not a fan of gambling or gambling addiction. I do not condone this behavior. I simply enjoyed the content that was made. If you thought today's episode was rich with that advice, you'll be pleased to know there's more what that came from.

The internet has manifested even more terrible money advice for us to turn up our financially responsible noses app, which I did in this video coming up next. So click here to watch it or use the link. in the description. That's it for today. Thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time.