George Kamel - How People Felt About Money in the ’90s

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

💰 Get Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Investing for free.   Today, we’re throwing it back to see how Americans felt about money in the ’90s. In this episode, I react to a 1994 documentary about personal finance and what lessons we can still apply today.   Next Steps: 🎥 Watch my video The Biggest Losers (and Winners) in Trump’s Stock Market Dip. 🎥 Watch David Hoffman’s documentary, What Americans Thought About Their Money. 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.  💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!    Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Learn more about opening a high-yield savings account with Laurel Road. Get up to 40% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE.   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 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ah, the 90s. A simpler time. Back when banking actually meant standing in line at the bank, and investing meant buying beanie babies in bulk. Today, we're cracking open a vintage treasure of that bygone era, and I'm not talking about a Save by the Bell rerun or a Blockbuster training video. Instead, I'll be reacting to a real 1994 documentary from filmmaker David Hoffman that shows us how Americans felt about money over 30 years ago. That's an old joke.

So are you. We're going to fact-check their predictions and pull. out some key lessons that will help you win with money in the present day where things are better but also worse in a very real way let's hop in shall we okay we're going to get there wait for it hey wake up are you in there let's not lose our cool then we're no better than the machine the people in this presentation are on actors have not been paid for their statements opinions i love this already we've had this amazing combination of our Not only do we think we're nepped, we think we're lazy.

The average American works a lot more hours than average German, works more average hours than the average Japanese. We work more hours than our parents did. We're very hardworking people. The 80s was a very special decade. The 80s were terrific. I just wish they'd come back. Everybody won who invested in anything. But now it's a home a ball game.

The kind of returns people generated in the 80s are not going to happen in the 90s. All right guys, I'm not going to lie. All right, guys, I'm not going to lie. I thought that was Bill Clinton at first in the very first scene. Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't. Now, the 80s were a very special time. And we know that, in hindsight, more than anything, when you're in it, it's hard to tell. You're like, these are the good old days, but you're too busy thinking about the future and what's going to happen. And what about computers? And while I love the music, the vintage vibe, I got to talk about this thing he said. Americans work more hours than other countries. I had to look into this to see if that's true.

It sounds not true, just by looking at, you know, America. That's mean. And it turns out, as the data stands today, he's not wrong. The average American works 37.6 hours per week. And for comparison, Germany is at 33.2, and Japan is at 36.6. Now, there are other countries who are working a lot harder than we are, or at least longer hours. India is at 45.7, and China is just edging them out at 46.1. What are you doing, China?

Who are you trying to impress? Your father will never be impressed. He will not uphill both ways to work, 50 hours a week. By the time I was your age, by the time I'm your age, the sun will have exploded. Now let's talk about our friend Bob, the fund manager at Fidelity. He said the kind of returns people generated in the 80s are not going to happen in the 90s. Way to be a glass, half-empty kind of guy, Bob. Let's see if Bob was right.

I looked it up. And here's what the S&P 500 did in the 90s, which is the overall U.S. stock market. And as you can see, the market grew just as much in the 90s. as it did in the 80s, both about 18% growth over those decades. So take that, Bob! Things were better than you expected. I'm sure Bob's still alive. I don't know why I'm acting like he's rolling in his grave.

I assume Bob is now a 58-year-old man, just about to retire. I'm sure he's been investing well as a fund manager. Let's continue with this video, shall we? I make a dollar, I save 25 cents. Already love this guy. Which I never did before. Before I made a dollar. I spend free.

I think this is a major transition that's occurred in the economy and among the American public, and I don't think it's over. I think, in fact, we're just into the beginning of this long-term savings boom. I've never been a good saving person. I don't like to save money. I don't have banked. I'm horrible at saving money. If you look at savings rates on a worldwide basis,

Germans, I think, save more money to it than Americans. U.S. has always had a very low savings rate. We think they spend too much money in U.S. on junk, I think. I'm really living beyond my means for years now. In Sweden, the idea is that we should have one year income in the bank in case something happens to us. In Canada, only three months.

All right, guys, there was a lot going on there, and I'm into it. All right, God bless the Europeans for calling out the U.S. For their overspending, their lack of savings. And you can see in the video, the Americans are going, hey, I struggle to save. And then all the Europeans are like, we save so much money. Americans, no good at savings. All right. That accent encapsulated, I think, all of Europe perfectly.

So this is funny, then, yeah? Yeah, yeah. This is funny, yeah. So our Hispanic Bob Ross friend here going, I don't have a bank account. I'm like, that is incredible. The man is living off the grid. He just wants to paint.

Why does he need retirement? All he needs is an easel and a few brushes. And then you have the horse lady. No shocker, if you know how I feel about horse people. She's going, oh, I got nothing saved. This horse is my entire retirement plan. And then you have these Germans in these vests. Where are they going with these weird suede vests?

Was that fashion back then in Germany? Is it still today? Is it a Bavarian thing? I don't know what's going on there. But my favorite that I have already forgotten about is the guy in the beginning. This very Jersey, I don't know, Long Island accent. I apologize.

They all blend together. I make a doll I save 25 cents. Before I made a doll, I spent free. You spent free dollars? Really? I love the honesty there. He's saying, how you used to overspend, now I'm trying to put some money away, 25% savings rate, that's incredible. So the data back then was clear. Americans didn't feel great about savings. They weren't good at it. They weren't making it a habit. And the same is true

today. We know that four in 10 Americans have zero dollars in savings, which is frightening. Most of them have to turn to credit cards and debt to cover an emergency. So the Europeans have it right on this one. You should have at least three months of expenses, not income, but expenses. in an emergency fund, and ideally closer to six, especially if you've got a family or your life has more variability to it. So once you're out of debt, focus on getting that fully funded emergency fund in place ASAP.

This is the one case where I tell you, be like the Europeans. But shave your armpits, you stinky French. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king? Let's keep going. Have you got enough to retire on? Have you got enough to last your lives, do you think?

We hope so. And just one thing after another, you, them savings that you had laid back seemed to disappear. Every day I have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning I'm ready to retire. In 20 or 30 or 40 years, depending on when they retire, they are going to have to have enough money to retire on because they're not going to work. I realize that I can't live on Social Security. It's not going to be enough there, enough the style of life that I want. Social Security is not going to be enough, and so they're going to have enough invested on their own. A life has a 401k.

We each have a key old. You have IRA, right? We both have IRAs. But to have enough money down the road, if you just invested in CDs, you're going to have basically what you have now, because inflation will just eat away all the gains. I used to save using bank CDs. CDs are very low. And I just don't think that that's going to get me where I want to be. Mary Rich, I don't know.

My own financial strategy is based on a day-to-day, a very existentialist type of existence. You know, you plan for work. Okay. Well, I just got it. The last guy is really burned in my brain. I live day today, very existential. I get cigarette, I get baguette, what more do you need? You live to fight another day.

Leave a la France. That's that guy. Overall, I love the takes here, and not much has changed. Social Security is definitely not enough to retire on. In April of 2025, as it stands, the average Social Security retirement check was just under $2,000. That's approaching the poverty line. And so these people had it right. And let's talk about these CDs for a second.

You heard those referenced a lot. These are certificates of deposit. And it's basically like a savings account that's locked in for a certain amount of time until it reaches maturity. Which many of you have not, as I can tell by the comments section, very immature comments. But the national deposit rate for a 12-month CD today is about 1.77%. So our friend Bob is right. You're not going to even outpace inflation if you're keeping your money in a CD. You have to invest it into the market in a fund, like a mutual fund or an index fund.

so it beats inflation by a long shot you actually have enough to retire on. And here's some sad stats for you. 53% of millennials have more debt than they do retirement savings, over half. And 46% of boomers are living on less than $100,000 in retirement. And then, to add insult to injury, one third of people expect to keep working past retirement age because they'll have to, not because they want to. So to my French friend here, day to day, very existentialist. Who is going to cover you in retirement?

Do you have a family? What's going on here? You've just had a bunch of papers. My own financial strategy is based on a day-to-day, a very existentialist type of existence. You know, you plan for what? Okay, I think my French friend is reading an encyclopedia while running a restaurant.

I think those are a stack of menus. Not sure what's going on there, but I bet the food is exquisite. Let's continue. Real estate, real estate. That's what I love is real estate. We have money in real estate, in stock. I guess real estate, maybe we're not as diversified as I thought we were.

I collect old cars. I have money in inventory. Some stocks, some collectibles. People spend more time, you know, they'll spend two hours trying to save $50 in a round-trip air ticket to Hawaii. They spend no time planning their next 30 years finances. True. It's not that complicated. I mean, you just have to sit down and say, this is where we are.

We've got plenty of life insurance. if something goes wrong now, now I have to say, what are we going to do with the incremental dollar, the incremental $1,000, the incremental $5,000? Where should we put that this year? Okay, thank you, Vice Chairman.

Now, I agree with him, but I think he might be a little out of touch with what's really going on in America, as it stood in the 80s. My guess is, if it's anything like today, people were collecting some debt, not really living with a plan, and going, I guess I'll just float by,

and hopefully Social Security will be enough to cover me. But he's right. People think more about their vacations than they do their own retirement. And you can see people have their money in all kinds of things, inventory, old cars, collectibles, some real estate, some stocks. And here's what we found. If you want to know how actual millionaires built their net worth, eight out of ten net worth millionaires in the Ramsey study invested in their employer-sponsored retirement plan

as a primary vehicle for reaching millionaire status. So here's what that means. They didn't do all this fancy stuff and collectibles and old cars. They just invested into their company retirement plan, into these growth stock mutual funds over a long period of time. That's all you really need. Now, real estate's great. You can do it smart and dabble in that,

and that can also help you build wealth, but all the average American needs is a 401K to build wealth. Okay, we'll get back to the late 1900s in just a second. But first, you know it's even more cozy than 90s nostalgia? The bed sheets made by Cozy Earth, one of the sponsors of today's video. Look, I live in the South, where the summertime feels like someone turned up the voltage a little too high on the YMCA sauna.

So Cozy Earth sheets are how I stay cool and comfortable every single night. And that's because they're made from premium viscos from bamboo. And the same goes for their joggers, hoodies and socks, oh my! My! Which are equally comfy and have become my go-to-athleisure. And best of all, right now, Cozy Earth is offering my audience a 40% off discount on all of their products. So go to CozyEarth.com slash George and enter the promo code George or click the link in the description below. Stay cozy. And speaking of saving money, allow me to tell you where I keep my savings, a high-yield savings account with online bank Laurel Road. Another sponsor of today's video. A typical savings account with 10,000 bucks in it at a brick-and-mortar bank will earn you about 40 bucks

over the course of a whole year, which sucks. Loral Road, on the other hand, offers competitive APY that lets your money grow a whole lot faster. They'll also never charge you any monthly maintenance fees, and your deposits are FDIC insured. Plus, there's no minimum balance required to open an account, which you can go do by going to Laurelroad.com slash George, or just click the link in the description below. Let's get back to that beautiful bean footage. We need outside help. You'd have to be very very knowledgeable to do it successfully I think I would prefer to do is have somebody else take responsibility for that investment advisors some just want to sell you the investment and move on to the next thing other people are

very committed to it and those are the kind of people you have to look for when I say the word stock market you what comes to mind confusion I don't even know how to read the too much of a gamble for me it's the only way I've ever been able to make money is by capital gains on the stock market. It's risky for those who don't know it. But if you have some experience, some knowledge of the stock market, you can make a lot of money, that for sure.

I firmly believe that over any five-year period, I will make money in my growth funds. Over a long period of time, there's very little risk in stocks. This is 10, 15, 20, 30 years. If you own a group of stocks, if you buy one stock, that's like throwing a dart. But if you know something about the stock market, you understand that owning a diversified group of companies, you're going to participate in the growth of America. Slow clap for the vice chairman. That man is spot on.

So let's talk about the beginning section where they were saying, hey, investing professionals, investment advisors, they can be sketchy. They might just be trying to push you into certain investments and make some money, or they might be committed and actually want to help you. And I wholeheartedly agree. There's a lot of good ones out there, and there's some bad apples. And so I work with an investing pro, and you want to find one that has the heart of a teacher who will actually help explain to you what's going on,

who makes sure that you're in the driver's seat. that you're making decisions and isn't just pressuring you into buying a certain fund or a certain product. And before we move on, I got to give a shout out to that sweet older lady. It's the only way I've been able to make money in my capital gains in the stock market. Love her, and she is spot on. That is how you do it. And the other guy also said, hey, in a five-year period of time, it's going to go up into the right. And so stay invested.

You've got to think long-term as an investor. And for the ladies who said, hey, it's too confusing. It's complicated. It doesn't have to be that way. you can learn in a few minutes to help you understand what's actually going on so you can feel confident when you invest. And if you want more on this, I'll drop a link to a free investing guide in the description below to check out. All right, let's do one more section for kicks. To figure out the highs and the lows, that's virtually impossible unless you have a crystal ball.

People forget that if they get out, if they try to time the market, they get out and they think they're going to get back in at a higher price, at a lower price, You know, they're making the assumption that the stock market has this trend over the long run. This is the trend of the stock market over the long run. I love that guy so much. What a perfect way to end. I mean, this is, like, explain it to me like I'm five. This guy did it. This is the stock market, not this, so don't jump in and out.

Okay, trying to time the market is like trying to find the lasting committed relationship by going on The Bachelor. It usually doesn't work out. And this guy's spot on. The data shows that over a long run. period of time, we're always going to see growth in the stock market, exponential growth. So if you remember nothing else from this video, remember this. Time in the market beats timing the market. And if you don't believe me, keep watching to check out this video where I broke down the

entire history of the market and explain why you should always have confidence as an investor. I'll also drop a link in the description below if you want to watch it. That's it for today. Be sure to hit the like button. Hit subscribe if you enjoyed this. And shout out to David Hoffman for this dope documentary. Be sure to check out all of his stuff on YouTube as well. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.