George Kamel - How I Manage My Finances As A Millionaire

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!  In this episode, I’ll share the dirty deets on how my wife and I manage our money and how easily you can start building wealth too.  Next Steps:  🎥 Watch my video “7 Steps That Can Make You a Millionaire”  🛡️Protect what’s most important with Zander Insurance   Connect With Our Sponsors:  🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  💸 Learn more about opening a high-yield savings account with Laurel Road.  📱 Visit Tello for more details.  Explore More From Ramsey Network:  🎙️ The Ramsey Show  🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show  📈 EntreLeadership    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My job is to help people learn how to manage their money, but I rarely talk about how I manage my money. And as a guy who went from broke to millionaire, I don't want to gatekeep any longer. So what's the secret to success with money? Well, it's not crypto, it's not a large inheritance, and it's definitely not the lottery. Duh. You think a guy like me is buying scratch-offs? I can barely scratch things off my to-do list, which is extensive, and it's hard to get it all done. And that's why two birds, one stone, make people angry while telling you vaping is dumb.

Stop baby. You're gonna end your life. You keep doing that. The real secret is... In today's video, I'm gonna show you exactly how the camels manage their money, where we spend, where we save, and where we give. Watch out, they spin. And the hope is that maybe you glean some tips and tricks,

and maybe you'll see what life could be like if you live it debt-free, and if you follow the principles on this channel. Now, before we jump in, hit those like and subscribe button, so you can finally scratch that off your to-do list. So I've been doing this Ramsey plan. Ramsey plan for 11 years now, and I am living proof that it works, and you're about to see that reflected in this budget. Now, my wife and I are in a very different place than we were when we started, even then when we got married. We have so much more margin now, so we're able to pay

for luxuries in life, like unlimited car wash and doggy daycare and non-slip pet ramps, which are shockingly expensive. Now, if we were still trying to pay off dead or get the emergency fund in place, our budget would look a lot different, but we have worked the plan, and now we're able to afford more of the things that we want. So here's my huge tiny caveat. I don't need you jump into the comments going, I can't believe they spend that much on Sour Patch Kids every month. Save it, Bucco. You don't pay my bills and you don't get a vote.

So truthfully, I don't care what you think about what we spend because the key is we spend less than we make and we plan for every dollar. That's it. And that's how you should budget too. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to it. We do our monthly budget using the every dollar app and it makes it super easy because we're both logged in

and we have accountability and transparency every single month all the time. Now, 90% of our budget will stay the same month to month. There's going to be some slight variability with utility bills or seasonal expenses or annual insurance payments, but we're not making a brand new budget from scratch every month. One of the great things about every dollar is that you can just duplicate last month's budget and then go in and make your adjustments. Super easy, very convenient. Now, the key with every dollar is that it's a zero-based budget, meaning your income

minus your expenses equals zero. And for obvious reasons, I'm not going to put my business out there telling you my income. but what you will see is our actual expenses. So for this example, I'm going to list my income the same as my expenses so that it equals zero perfectly. Now, one thing to note is that your every dollar budget should be based on your take-home pay. The number you see after taxes and other deductions are taken out. So before the money ever hits my bank account, here's what's taken out of my gross pay. Number one, retirement investing in my Roth 401K, 15%.

Next, federal withholding. This is the big one. We don't pay state income taxes in Tennessee, but we do always have to pay. federal taxes. Next up, you've got Medicare tax, Social Security tax, and because my health insurance is through my employer, the health insurance premiums for my family are taken out before I ever see a dollar. Now the amount I'm left with after those deductions, that's what I'm working with in this budget. Now, one of the excuses people give me for not budgeting is they say, well, George, I don't have an exact number I make every single month. It's variable. I'm on

commission, it's irregular, it's seasonal, what have you. And this is one of the most common excuses I hear for not budgeting. But here's the deal. If you have an irregular income, you need a budget more than anyone. And the truth is, you're probably not making zero dollars in a given month. So you can use the average or the lowest you think you'll make and then make an intentional prioritized spending plan from there. So you've got to know, well, the rent and food needs to get covered. And then if there's more money, we'll cover that. You can also have a peaks and valleys fund where you put money away and savings on a great month to cover the leaner months. So there you go. All right, let's get into it. So while these aren't very real expenses for

the camel family, this is a sample budget with a sample income that matches the expenses perfectly. So we're working with $6750 in the month of November, and we're going to kick it off with giving. Now, that's the top line item for a reason. It should be a priority in your budget. Now, as a person of faith, I give 10% to my local church. We give $100 every month to our missionary friends. And then we have a line item called Blessup. And this is just a fun money giving line item where if we see an opportunity to give, whether it's to a friend or a stranger, someone in need, we have the money ready to go. Now, beyond giving, you should cover your four walls. This is food, utilities, housing, transportation. Now you'll notice here that I have a little

smirk next to mortgage, and that's because we paid off her house a few years ago. So we have no mortgage payment, which is a huge blessing, and it's the reason we have a bunch of luxuries in the budget now that would have been replaced with a mortgage payment. So that one I've marked zero. We have groceries at 400, which is really just for my wife and I. We have eating out at 500 because we like to eat out. We have the Ramsey Cafe. That's where I eat lunch every day, right here in the cafeteria at Ramsey Solutions. I spent about $100 a month there. Then even though we don't have a mortgage payment, we still have to pay property taxes and homeowners insurance. So this is really a sinking fund where I put away $118 a month for homeowners insurance, $224 for property taxes, so I'm

ready to pay it 12 months from now. Utilities come in around $336 between gas, electric, water, trash and wastewater, you name it. Then there's the HOA fee of $85, internet at $80, $80, fuel for my wife's car. Premium gas, not cheap. That's about 100 bucks. She doesn't drive that much. Electric charging for me, that's about $30 at home. Otherwise, I charge at work for free. Thanks, Dave. Next up, we have shopping. Now, to make it easy for me and my household, I just list Amazon, Target and Costco as their own light items, because we spend a lot of money there, as you can see. And a lot of this stuff is not for me. It's for the baby. It's for the dogs. It's the organic formula. It's the diapers and wipes. So it's a lot of household stuff that gets wrapped in here.

And you'll notice I have a miscellaneous line item and I think that might be the best one in your budget because it becomes a little bit of a catch-all for all the little ankle biters so that your budget doesn't get completely thrown off when an extra $5 transaction comes in. Now, if you see a habit of something, you should find a home for it. But for this month, I like having $100 bucks a buffer for the just in case. Next up, we have subscriptions. So there's things like digital storage. My latest, Luxury lifestyle item here is a car wash subscription that's right down the road from the Ramsey office. And it's great to just roll up there whenever I want and have a clean car.

Especially for millionaires and cars getting coffee. I love that show. Grocery delivery. Instacart shipped, which is now like Target Circle 360 or what have you. Those can be great conveniences for my wife when she's handling a baby. Next we have streaming and entertainment so things like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, YouTube, premium, you name it. It gets wrapped up in there. Nest Aware for all of my cameras and what have used. That's nice to be able to go back and look at the history.

So we have that. And finally, pest control, which I pay every month, so I'm calling it a subscription, but it's not the most exciting thing you could pay for. Followed by that, we have lifestyle. So this is things like our entertainment and date night, fun money for Whitney and I, which, by the way, you can have fun while doing a budget, and you can still be your own person. Just have your own line item for each spouse, and you'll have a great life.

And by the way, they don't have to be equal. I think Whitney should have more than me, but this month we have equal amounts. That's just how it landed. House cleaning, we get our house clean once a month, and that is a wonderful luxury and a privilege, and that's $160 bucks. The dogs, which includes twice a week daycare, they're grooming once a month, they're expensive, hypoallergenic dog food. That all adds up to about $500 a month. So that's a big part of our budget for our two French Bulldogs, and it's worth every penny. Boy, with the poodles already.

Next up, babysitting. Again, for those nights where we want to get out, about $150 if you account for, I don't know, eight hours or so of babysitting across the month. And lastly, phone plan. Now, my phone plan is covered, but we budget for my wife's phone plan, and it's just $27. And if you're wondering, how the heck is it so cheap? Well, we use Telo, who happens to be a sponsor of today's episode. And you can get the same great deal as me for the Unlimited Everything Plan at just $25

plus tax. There's no hidden fees, no contracts, and you can upgrade, downgrade, change plans whenever you want. So if you want to live like a king and save like a camel, it's time to switch to Tello. And you can get an extra five bucks off the unlimited data plan for your first month of service by going to tello.com slash George or click the link below. And fun fact, I went to tello.com slash George and I save five bucks for our first month of service. Thanks, Tello. Our next category is sinking funds. And that's where you save a little bit of money each month to pay for something later on down the road. And a great place to store

that money is a high-yield savings account like the one offered by Laurel Road. One of the of today's video. This is a great place to save up for big purchases because you can earn some sweet interest while you do it. So no matter what you're saving up for, please do not leave it sitting in a regular old dumb savings account earning fractions of what it would earn in a high yield account. It should be working for you. And Laurel Road has you covered with an account balance earning a top tier APY. Plus there's no minimum balance required to open an account, your deposits are FDIC insured, and there's no hidden fees. Learn more by going to Laurel Road.com slash George or click the link in the description. So let's talk about these sinking funds. What am I saving up for here? Well, number one is an HSA. That is a health savings account. And because we have a family plan now through my high deductible health plan, we can save over $7,000 a year in this account. And the money goes in tax-free, it grows tax-free, and I can withdraw it tax-free for qualified medical expenses. So in our stage of life and baby step seven of the Ramsey plan, no mortgage, we aim to max out that HSA every single year. Next, we have things like dental care to cover, you know, know, cavities, the cleanings between my wife and I for the year. We have taxes and tax prep

because I work with a tax pro and I want to be ready to pay that bill when it comes due. Vet care for the pups, that's not cheap with French bulldogs, as you may know. Here's the vet bill from today. I'm not sure how you're going to pay that. Auto insurance and umbrella insurance, that gets added every single month and then I pay it annually to save some money. Again, life insurance for my wife, life insurance for me. That's a very important thing, term life. You want 10 to 12 times your annual income. And as you can see, it's very affordable. And it's a way you say, I love you to your family. Please, if you don't have it, get term life insurance in place today. Our friends at Zander can help you out. I'll drop a link below.

Next, we have car maintenance, which is more for my wife's car versus mine because I have less maintenance on electric car. Lawn care maintenance for things like, you know, seed, erration, you name it. I don't know what they do. They make it pretty. And I'm not doing that stuff myself. I got hobby. Sure, Jan. And lastly, vacation and travel. Now, we have a baby, so we're not doing a lot of, like, super fun travel. These are more like trips where you go see family. So we're not spending a ton.

It's largely on flights because then we're staying with family and they're feeding us. Thanks, Mom. Lastly, we have Mia's 529 plan. So I already told you I invest 15% of my income into my Roth 401K, aimed to max that out every year. But beyond that, I'm investing for my daughter's future through a 529 plan for her college. So we put away $250 every month, and hopefully one day, that will grow to be six figures and cover however much the heck college is going to cost should she choose to go.

So that is the Camel Family Budget for November. Again, this will change every month depending on what's going on. Oh, we got to get the Halloween candy, and we got to fly to Boston to see our family, and December's coming up, we got to get the gifts. All of that stuff will be taken into an account. But I hope this shows you that budgets don't have to be boring. They don't have to be exhausting or overwhelming. You can make the budget as simple as you'd like.

The key is that you are spending less than you make. That is the key. And if you're in debt, you have a very different goal with your budget. Your goal is to create as much margin as possible and throw it all at the debt or throw it all toward your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. But as you follow this plan like I have for 11 years now, and you get the debt paid off, you get the emergency fund in place, you invest for the future, you get the house paid off.

As you can see, the budget gets a lot more fun. And every dollar makes it super easy. So if you want to check it out for free, make your own budget, go to every dollar.com slash George or click the link in the description. And if you want me to review your every dollar budget in a future episode, DM it to me at George Camel on Instagram with screenshots of your every dollar budget, and maybe I'll review it on a future episode. That could be fun. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.