George Kamel - Are These Rich People Ready for Retirement?

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

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Today I'm out here in Franklin, Tennessee, which is in one of the wealthiest counties in America. How wealthy you ask? Well, the median home price is over $826,000. But just because you have a nice wraparound porch doesn't mean you can retire on it. So today, I'm asking one simple question. How much do you have saved in retirement? But before I go harass strangers, let's raise a glass of sweet tea to delete me for sponsoring this channel. Let's go. We're talking money today.

How much do you have saved in retirement? I should start saving for that today. I've been a bartender for most of my life, so I just kind of always had spare money on the side that I should be investing, but I never really knew what to do with it. And I just recently swapped over into management. So now I do have to budget a lot more, and it's easier to kind of go that route, but it's still brand new. So was the money disappearing when you were a bartender? Like it was just like, where did that money go? I have it left over, and now it was just kind of spending, entertainment, just living your life?

You don't really track of it, you know? It stays like today and you go out to eat and... Do you want help? budgeting because I can help with that. I would love help budgeting. Don't I look like a guy who could help you make a budget? Yeah. He said that too quickly.

A little too quickly. Nerd alert. We'll get you on a budget. It's called every dollar. I will gift it to you after we're done with this conversation. So you don't have to pay for it. Amazing. Thank you. All right.

Wonderful. That's step one. Can I crunch the numbers with you to show you what could be if you started investing today, the way I teach? Yeah. Okay. This will be fun. I hope this will be aspirational and exciting. So I'm going to use our investment calculator.

our investment calculator. You can go do this at home if you want to search Ramsey Investment Calculator. So current age, you said you are? 27. 27. And what age do you think you'll likely retire? Give me a realistic, like 60? I hope before then. Let's go with 55. 55. Okay. How about round numbers? We'll say 30 years. That's 27 to 57. Perfect. 30 years of working and monthly contributions. Let's say, do you have any debt right now? A little bit. Okay. If we got rid of your debt, Do you think you could invest 15% of your gross income per month? Okay.

Give us a round number here of what a monthly contribution would look like if you were investing 15% consistently per month. Awesome. Easily, she says. Okay. Here we go. A thousand dollars a month. You have nothing saved currently.

We're going to go zero for current investments. So 27 to 57, a thousand bucks a month with zero saved. I'm going to go with an annual return of 10% on average. So some years it might be 23% percent. up. Some years it might be down, but overall, 10% growth every year. And that's compound growth. So that pile of money is going to make more money. The new pile makes more money, and so it's like a hockey stick over time. Way better than just saving money in a checking account. Right. Okay. So crunch the numbers. $2.2 million at 57. That's crazy. Is that encouraging? It is. I feel like

I should have started investing yesterday, but we'll start today. You know, the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago. Next best time? Today. Today. So there you go, but here's the deal. You're not going to have that if you don't put the money in. Now, let's say you went to 60. Let's just see how much more you'd have. Three million. Wow. That's pretty wild that you went from 2.2 to 3 with just three extra years of working. I won't be working through extra years, but I'm okay with the two. You will not. And that's, by the way, if you never have a spouse that also brings an income, like that's just you on your own doing your thing. That's encouraging.

I'm a single dog mom of three, so. She don't need no man. She got... She's a man. Fib will help with the investment. She's got 12 paws to worry about right now. All right. Are you ready to play the game?

Let's play the game. All right. Current ages? 32. 32. What age do you think you're retired by, realistically? Well, the career I wanted to go down at 65 years old, so let's do 30 years from 32. Let's do, what is it?

62. All right, to 62. Monthly contributions. How much could you really? realistically put away. Fine, a thousand. A thousand. I think we should keep each other accountable.

Like, text each other, hey girl, did you do a thousand this month? Where are we at? Okay, crunch the numbers for me. Hit the button, yep. Sorry, I can't see. Another 2.2 million. You know why? Because we invested the same amount.

Same amount for the same amount of time, 30 years. So that's if you never invest more. And let's say you invested, let's see it at 1250. Let's see you bumped it up. $250 extra. You go, okay, that's a decent chunk, but can it really do damage? $2.8 million. So an extra $600,000.

I love this. Do we feel more confident now? I do. How much do you have saved for retirement? I have not started saving for retirement, actually. $0.0. Zero dollars. You have anything in savings?

I do, yes. How much in savings? Well, I don't really want to talk about that person. Is it a million dollars? Because it's a big number? You're like, I don't know. Yeah, I have a pretty good amount saved. Let's go.

How old are you? I'm 20. Actually, I turned 21 two days ago. Congratulations and happy birthday. So that's pretty impressive to be 21 with money saved. Do you have any debt? I do not have any debt, no. Okay.

Why haven't you started investing? Well, I do do a little bit of stock trading. Explain to me your stock trading habits. Well, I'm not super into it. I just do a couple dollars into like certain stuff, like $20 into a stock, and then sometimes I cash out if I'm getting a little bit of money. But I'm not super into it. Okay.

And what's the hot stock right now? What are you investing? Apple? Apple. Okay, that's a classic. Can't go wrong with that. Do you want to do some math to see on what you could have in a retirement if you stop playing the day trading stock game? Sure, yeah.

You just put it in a safer place, long-term mutual funds, index funds. Have you heard of that? I have not. So a single stock is one company, right? That makes sense. Yes. So if you have a mutual fund, it's a fund of many companies. So you could own a piece of like 500 companies, for example.

and then you're less concerned about which company's going to do well. Yes, for sure. Okay. So let's do this. I'm going to pull out my calculator, get super nerdy. Permission to math? Sure. Wonderful.

So let's do the math here. How old are you said 21? On 21, yes. When do you think you'll retire realistically? I mean, probably like 60. Okay. We're going to go 21 to 60, and you currently have $0 saved in retirement. Oh, yeah, in retirement.

Okay. So zero in investments. Now monthly contributions, how much? Which could you put away every month? Like what is 15% of your current gross income? Every month, I usually put away at least a thousand. So you could put away a thousand bucks into investments instead of single stocks? Yes. All right, let's see where that goes. And that's a 21. That's impressive.

Thank you. So we're going to crunch the numbers here. I'm going to go with a 10% rate of return. So if you look at the US stock market, over the long haul, we're talking 50, 60, 70 years, 10 to 12% is what we've seen for the average return. Yeah. Tracking with me? All right. Hit that crunch the numbers button. All right.

What's it say? Oh, wow. Five million dollars. Five point seven million dollars. Does that shock you that if you just put a thousand bucks away from 21 to 60, you could have that? Yeah, that sounds awesome. I would like that. Now guess how much of that you put in?

Because you didn't actually put away five million dollars, right? Yeah, so it grows, I'm guessing. It grows, that's compound growth, is what it's called. $468,000. Yeah. pretty wild to you? That is pretty wild. That sounds pretty good. Over 90% was just straight up compound growth. You just leaving the money and loan and letting it do its thing. Yeah. Does that make you want to invest into something a little less risky? Not that Apple's risky, but something

that was a little more of a sure bet. You don't have to get in and out of cash in, cash out. Yeah, that sounds great. I should probably start doing that. I love it. We have your word that you're going to be an investor starting today, not a day trader. Yes. I did my work today. How much do you currently have saved in retirement? A half a million? Wow! $5.50? That's incredible. How old are you? 38. Goodness gracious. That is really incredible that you did that. How long you've been investing for? I started a Roth IRA when I was 22? 21.

So how long we've been investing now if you do the math? 17 years. 17 years of consistent investing will get you half a million bucks in your 30s. Yes. Is that impressed even you? I mean, it was intentional. Yeah. So do you know what accounts you have set up for retirement right now? I've got a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, and some index funds, some brokerage accounts.

Non-retirement funds. Not a retirement. Wow. Is that included in the 500? No. That's separate. Wow. So are you using the brokerage account as sort of a bridge?

or for flexible spending. Flexible spending when I need it. I don't really spend a lot of money. Well, this bodes well. I mean, if you're in your early 30s, by the time you're 60, this money's going to be multi, multi, multi, multi millions. Have you crunched the numbers on that?

That's the plan. But no, I haven't. No, I haven't. I think today's the day. You're ready to crunch? You can. Permission to crunch, my good, sir. Here we go.

All right. So your current age? 38. And how long do you think you'll go until retirement? What age? I mean, um, go 65? Yeah, 65's fine. All right.

Probably won't retire 65. And you currently have how much in your retirement accounts? Roughly a half a million. Okay. 500,000. And how much are you contributing monthly into retirement accounts? If you average out the last four or five years, I'd say probably between 30 and 50 grand a year. Okay, so you want to say two or three grand a month invested?

All right, three grand a month? That's fair. We're going to go with the annual return of 10%. Hit Calculate. Yeah. $12 million, my good man. That'd be nice. That's what you won.

Yeah. I think you can live a pretty good life. Yeah, sure. Unless you had some kind of crazy lifestyle expenses, $12 million should do the trick. Yeah, that'd be nice. Well, keep at it, man. This is what it looks like.

I mean, you're a normal guy. You didn't have family money? No. Nothing was handed to you. No. Well, keep it up. You're doing great so far. It ain't broken.

Don't fix it. That's right. How much do you have saved in retirement? That is an amazing question. I'm not sure. Is it because you have so much? Or is it because you're not sure you're even investing? I know I'm investing.

I set everything up at work and I'm just letting it do its thing. Do you want to check live or does that make you nervous to like pull out your app and go? Let's see. I'm not sure I know my login information. Wow. I would not. Locked away. Yes, it is.

Do you know how much you're investing per month? Like a percentage of your income or an amount? I do know I max it out. So whatever my options were, I chose the maximum amount. Okay. If that helps. So are you maxing out a 401k every year or are you just maxing out as much as you can contribute? They allow us to contribute.

Can we do some napkin math to see how much you could have at retirement age? Sure. Do you have any goals around how much you would need to retire? No, I don't. How much do you think you'll need? How old are you now? Can I ask a lady? Yes, I'm 34.

Thirty-four. Okay, great. What age do you think you'll retire? retire at? I would love to retire around the same age as my parents did, so 60, early 60s. Okay. Do you want to, is 64 too late? No. I want to go 62? It's your life. Who am I to say? Yeah, sure. Okay, great. I'm going to crunch the numbers using my handy-dandy calculator, and we're going to find out for ourselves the reality of your situation, because right now it's just vibes. It is just vibe. It's like a surprise, you know? When I check. I'll open it one day at 64 and go,

oh, look at that, a million dollars. And that was million. Yeah. And that was million. is going to be enough at 64 based on inflation and your lifestyle? I do think a 401k is not enough. The 401k is not the problem. It's how much you're putting into it, right? Right. I just feel like we definitely need more than our parents needed to retire. Okay, that's a fair assessment. Yes. Okay. So 34 to 64. And do you know how much you're contributing? As a random guess, are you doing a 500 a month, $1,000 a month, $10 a month? Let's say I'm putting in $450 a month. Okay. $450 a month. is your monthly contribution, and we don't necessarily know your current investments. You have no clue of a ballpark.

Have you been investing for 14 years? I imagine it's at least $100,000. I got $100,000 here, and we're going to go with a 10% rate of return. If you're invested in growth stock mutual funds, or things that are going up and value companies that we're all rooting for, right? Right. All right. You crunch the numbers.

Okay. Crunch. How much? How much? $3 million. Does that surprise you? Does it excite you? Does it depress you?

I'll take it. You will take it. And that's without an employer match. Do you have an employer match? Probably. We have so much homework to do when we get home. We do. Okay, but it sounds like if you continue at this pace, you don't stop investing.

You'll at least have $3 million in that one account. That's amazing. I love it. Well, it's great talking with you. I wish you the best on your investing journey. Thank you so much. How much do you have saved in retirement currently? Under 20 grand.

Okay. So you got under 20 grand. And how much do you think you'll need to retire? What must be in that account for you to go like, all right, I'm good? I'm 65 or something, probably. You tell me, retirement's a, it's a financial number. Probably a few million bucks at that point. That's 30 years from now. So two or three? Yeah, I would guess. Would do the trick? How much do you think you'll need to retire? Who's the spender out of the two of you? Honestly, we both spend quite a bit, but I mean, we both have our own jobs, our own careers. Yeah. So are you both investing currently? Like a percentage or dollar amount that's going into, you know, a retirement account?

No, not at all. Is it kind of random or do you just set it and forget it? Throughout the year, we'll put some money aside at different points in time throughout the year, but it's not like a set monthly thing. Okay. That makes sense. Do you know what kind of account it's being put in? Like, is it investment account or is it savings?

It's a brokerage account. Okay, so non-retirement brokerage account. And you plan on using that for real estate or is that sort of like mini nest egg for you? What do you plan on doing with that money? Mini, well, just investing over time. We just wanted to grow. So it's just, you know, like U.S. blue chip, ETF kind of things. Okay.

Just investing in the market. So you know what you're investing in, it sounds like. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Can we use our calculator to see kind of where things will stand and what could be? I'm a dreamer, you know, what can I say? Current age 35? 35, yeah.

And you said you plan on retiring by 65 would be an ideal. Okay? So we're going to go 65. And, you know, like, give me a monthly contribution. Like, how much can you consistently put away or are you into an investment account? Let's say, a thousand bucks. Okay, thousand bucks a month. and you said currently you've got 20 grand.

15. 15, okay, 15 grand. Now, I'm going to go with a 10% rate of return. And if you look at the U.S. stock market, you've done the numbers. You know, let's crunch him. Hit the number for me. All right. 2.5's not bad.

That's kind of where you were saying you wanted to be. That's not bad. Is that encouraging? I don't know what 2.5 is going to buy me in 30 years. Sure, with inflation. What's the buying power of that? Lord only knows. Maybe I can get a car.

That's still, that's more than most people are. we're going to have. Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Now, that's without your contributions, right? I guess, yeah. Can we add those in? I feel like you count. You guys are getting married, you're going to build wealth together. How much are you going to be contributing into your investment accounts, or are you currently? Probably 500 bucks a month. Okay, 500 for you. So I'm going to bump this up to 1,500. And do you have anything in retirement to add to his 15? I do have a 401k. I have not seen the account. I just, I know that I have one.

I work in the schools, so. Okay, so it's kind of an auto contribution. Do you even know how to log into it? No idea. Okay, we got some homework here. We can do that tonight. But let's say you want to take a guess as to how much you have in there right now?

I honestly couldn't tell you. I mean, I've been working for probably about five, six years. Okay. Probably at least another 15 grand, it sounds like. One would hope. All right, I'm going to add 10 to that. We're going to say 25,000 in current investments. And now we're investing 1,500 a month with our new combined income.

Now crunch the numbers. What's it say? 3.8. That's pretty incredible. That's pretty good. That's the power of marriage financially when two people are working together towards a vision and a goal. And that's if you guys never contribute more. You never get raises.

You just stay at this number for 30 years. Can you do it? It's wild. But yeah, hopefully. Yeah, I think so. You could live off of $4 million. Depends on what $4 million is worth in 30 years. But yeah, I mean, even with inflation a little bit,

like it'll be, I think that's a good. You'll still be okay. Not having a plan for retirement, bad. Overpaying for your phone plan? Also bad. And that's why I love telling friends, family, strangers about Boost Mobile, a sponsor of today's video. With their limited plan, you pay just $25 bucks a month forever,

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And with all those sweet savings, put it somewhere it can work for you. And one of the most frequently asked questions I get is, George, what is a good place to put my savings? I always recommend Fairwin's Credit Union, a sponsor of today's video. You see, their high-ield savings account will offer an AP one. of 3% or more. Compare that to your traditional bank offering a half a percent, and you'll see why it's worth the switch. On top of that, they have a no-feet checking account

and a Ramsey-themed debit card, so you can live out this plan, be debt-free, and build for the future. So go check out the smart bundle at fairwinds.org slash Ramsey. How much do you currently have saved in retirement? Do you want to yell at, babe? How much do we have in retirement? $150,000. Do you want to step in and be a part of this,

or do you want nothing to do with this? I probably need to. For legal reasons, he should be involved now. All right. We're getting him involved. So you're investing. Are there still kids you're saving for college for, or are they all out of the house? No, we have a son in medical school in California.

Oh, that sounds expensive. That is expensive. So that's also student loans for that. Are you helping with that? Or is it like a, hey, it's $400,000. Good luck, bud. I think probably the best way to describe that is the tuition part he's doing with loans. but there is a rental of an apartment, there's food, there's the livelihood.

And are you able to help with that, or have you chosen to help with that? Absolutely. That's very nice. Okay, well, let's talk about how long you've been investing, because that's always a factor here. You've got 150 grand in the nest egg between the two of you, right? Just hers. Just hers. Mine's about 180,000.

We do about 7% of our payroll. Okay. So between the two of you, you have more like 330. Is that correct? So let's see kind of where we might be out with some napkin math, shall we? Can you tell me your ages? I'm going to be 55 July. Woo-hoo!

That's exciting. Okay, and I assume you're much younger. 52. Okay, see, I was right. So I'm going to go with her age, 52, and ride this out to, let's say, what, 65? When do you guys plan on working till? Yeah, okay? So 65.

That I think is the number we have. 67. All right, let's bump it up. That'll only help with two more years of compound growth. And you know the general monthly contribution number, like a dollar amount? Are you putting a thousand away into these accounts total? Is it 500? Is it $1,500?

That I don't know. If I bring home 104, and I have a three and a half with a three and a half match, adding one more percent. We're at 8% of $100,000. So round numbers. Yeah. So $8,000 a year and then divide that out. Okay. So final numbers, you're 52.

He's 55. We're going to go to 67, contributing $650 a month. Let's say you never increase that. We're just going to leave it alone. You currently have between the two of you, $330,000 in investments. We're going to go with a 10% average annual rate of return if you're invested wisely in some good mutual funds. Crunch the numbers. Hit that for me.

$1.7 million. How does that hit you? Is there any surprise there? No, no, because that's kind of how we set it up. We follow Ramsey's method, so every dollar, every dollar counts, and we use the every dollar app, it's called zero budgeting. So a lot of those things that we've already planned for. So between your $1.7 million in the nest egg, maybe Social Security, you guys, you can retire. As well, yeah.

Wonderful. Take care of our family. Well, keep it up, guys. Do you know how much you currently have saved in retirement? Yes. Exact number? I have $130. That's amazing.

So we're contributing to my husband's 401K and then to run. Roth IRAs. Sounds like you guys have talked about this. Like you have a game plan. We're Ramsey fans. So I was telling one of your friends. I don't have friends. It's a co-worker.

She wouldn't say I'm a friend. That Dave Ramsey was the reason I got out of my student loan debt as fast as I could. That's amazing. How much student loan debt did you have? I had 70,000. Oh my goodness. How long did it take to get out? I paid it off in three years.

That's incredible. And that allowed you to then invest. You had all that margin for it. Do you think you would have been able to invest if you had the student loan payments still? No. Because all those payments were going to the lender instead of going into an investment account. So I had, I had a friend who had the same amount of loans as I did, and he was paying him off way faster than I did. And I said, how is this possible?

What are you doing? And he was super diligent. He was not going out. He was not getting the coffees, which was what I was doing. So literally one day... You wanted to have the cake and eat it too. So one day at work, I was like, how do I get... How do I pay my debt as fast as possible?

And Ramsey popped up. And I said, okay, we're going to make this most. steps. So my husband and I did not go out to eat. Friday nights we're at home. And that's what happened. And no regrets. No regrets. So do you know how much your husband has saved? Like what's the combined nest egg right now? In just 401k? All retirement accounts. Oh, we're probably under just under 900,000. Oh my goodness. That's incredible. Can I ask how old you guys are? I'm 36. He's 37. 36 and 37 and you almost have a million bucks in retirement. alone. That's without home equity, any other savings, any other assets? Not without the,

not with the home, but with all of our savings, kind of in one. That's incredible. Okay, do you know what you guys are investing in? Mutual funds. So we follow the Ramsey for. So the growth, aggressive growth, growth, growth and income, international. So nice split from large cap, midcap, small cap, international. That's fantastic. So you guys are on, have been on the same page. Do you think that has contributed to the amount of wealth you've been able to build in your 30s? Oh, absolutely. If my husband was not on the same page, I don't know that we would have been able to do it at all. Wow. I'm really inspired by this. I mean, I'm tempted to use the calculator to show you how much wealth you'll have, but I think the calculator might break. Should we try it? All right. We'll see if it can handle these kinds of numbers. Because I'm, you guys probably have, he at least has another, what, 20 working years?

Yes. You guys will be able to retire early. It seems like he's the kind, does he enjoy what he does? My husband a couple years ago got a vanity plate on his Toyota Camry that said RB40, which stands for Retire by 40. He's going to be able to do it? We have three years. I don't know. We'll see. Bless him.

That's an incredible goal. So your current age is 36. Yes. And how long do we want to let this run until? Like what is the age you want to go until to see where it grows? Let's do 65. Okay. 36 to 65.

monthly contributions. If you had a rough number of how much is going into investment accounts currently. Let me calculate. I just did this for this month. He just started a new job, so I don't know what it's going to be exactly, but let's just say it's $4,700. A month going into retirement accounts. Let's go, baby. That's incredible. Current investments, you said like $500 in retirement accounts? Yes, yes. Between the two of us. Okay, $500,000. You're doing $4,700 a month. We're going to go with a 10% rate of return. agree or disagree. Yes. All right.

Crunch the numbers. You can say it. $18.5 million is what will be in there if they continue at this pace until 65. If I don't shop. Okay, we'll take it down. Can you shop with a million? Does that work? We'll take it out of 17.5.

That'll work. Now, let's even make it more realistic if he wants to retire early. RV40. Okay. So let's say, yeah, let's say 46, 10 more years. All right, he's behind his goal, and yet he's doing better than almost anyone in America. Let's see where we're at. Crunch the numbers on that.

2.3 million. That's not bad. And that will continue to grow if you're not, like, drawing it down too hard. That's right. Wow, you guys are an inspiration. Tell your husband I'm impressed and inspired by him, and I want to hang out with him. Would he hang out with me? I think you would.

Is you looking for friends? Do you play tennis? I can learn. You can play pickleball. I've been forced into playing pickleball. Like, it's like an MLM, you know what I mean? At some point, someone made you play pickleball. Yeah, yeah, he'll play pickleball with you.

All right. I'm going to be an athlete, guys. Well, I got to say, I have left feeling hopeful about the future of America based on the people I've talked to. Now, some of them are starting from nothing, but they still have time on their side if they're in their 20s, 30s, 40s, even early 50s, to make up for lost time and still retire with dignity.

And I talk to some people who have been doing it right for a long period of time, like over a decade, and now they have a half a million or more sitting their nest egg in their 30s. That is what really inspires me. And I want to encourage you guys if you're not investing, start today. And if you are investing, keep going. Don't fall for the traps out there, slow and steady, wins the race. Now, if you enjoyed this video, you're going to love this next one where I go to downtown

Nashville and ask people and tourists how much they have in their retirement. Click here to watch you next next next or click the link in the description. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.