George Kamel - I Asked Strangers Their Worst Financial Mistakes (It Got Wild)

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

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What is your all-time biggest money mistake? Oh, God, there's been a few. I spent $60,000 on a Mercedes. Do you still have the cars? I have another one now. I have another Mercedes now. We've all made mistakes when it comes to money. Some small, some huge, and some hilarious. So today we're hitting the streets of Nashville

to find out people's biggest money mistakes, and hopefully we can learn a few valuable lessons along the way. But first, click that like button, click that subscribe button, and share this with your friend, Brian, who cashed out his 401k last week to buy a meme coin that doesn't exist this week. Sorrows. Sorrows, prayers. All right, let's hit the streets.

What is your all-time biggest money mistake? Oh, God, there's been a few. Paying $100,000 for my bachelor's degree. Are you currently using the degree? Yes. Are the loans paid off? I got 40K left. Okay, that's progress.

My ex-wife. What'd that cost you? A couple million. All-time pay. biggest money mistake is probably not paying my car bill in time. And I actually got a repoed at one time. No. Yes. It was definitely a humbling experience and it was experience that I learned a lot about financial management. And it was an opportunity to really just be a better steward of myself with money. Beautifully said. I spent $60,000 on a Mercedes. Do you still have the cars?

I have another one now. I have another Mercedes now. You didn't learn the lesson. Is it a Is it paid for? The other one is paid for. Here's the issue. You kept the other one? I had an issue going on. I didn't want to put a claim in because I didn't want it to deem my record and bring my premiums up for my insurance.

So I ended up just paying that off and getting another one. And so now I have two Mercedes. And how much total car debt do you have? As of right now, since the other one's paid off, I'm going to say $45,000. What other debt do you have hanging around? A $12,000 American Express bill. I kind of stopped paying my bills for a little bit. Times got tough.

What happened? Times got tough, and then I just stopped wanting to work, and I thought that I could just live off my credit card. And I didn't work that way. So now I'm, like, trying to, like... You're cleaning it up now. Pay it up. Yeah. By taking this trip to Nashville.

And, you know, that wasn't the best choice. At least you're honest. Student loans. How much in student loans? So my schooling was $90,000. I'm close to $200,000 in debt with interest. How long has it been? Almost 20 years ago.

I'll die with student loan debt. You can't get out of it. I'm gonna try to help with that. We'll get to that in a little bit. What's the dumbest thing you've spent money on? Spending money on Fortnite? On skins? Yeah.

And that's, you do that. I never met someone who does it. Yeah. I haven't done it in a while. I'm clean. I'm clean about two years. All right. He's Fortnite sober for two years now.

I'm proud of you. Good job. Well done. Way to go. I bought a pickup truck. How much was the pickup truck? Like $80,000. It was used, $80,000.

And my plan was also to put it on Turro, right? So other people can use it as well. Heard about this scheme before. And then I had friends that were like, no, let me just lease it from you. And then I've gone f***ed over. And who pays for the truck? Instantly regretted, maybe a car. You went to debt for the car?

Yeah. It was a lease. It was a Honda Civic at 2021. And I believe it started off at like 25. Dang. What'd you end up doing after the lease was up? Initially, I bought out the lease. And then after watching a couple of Dave's videos,

I actually just traded it in for an older car, lesser value sell to finance a little. But closer to paying it off than I was that car. Love it. Have you ever lost money in like a sketchy investment or a scam? Oh my God. So a guy called me out of no way. and said that my dad was in jail because of a car accident.

And if we don't pay him $1,000, then we won't see and hear from him again. And I wired the money. And then all of a sudden, my dad came home. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Oh, hell yeah, at the poker table. Oh, gambling in a way. Yeah. How much you lose?

A couple hundred grand. Are you still a gambling man? Absolutely. That's exactly what we don't want. All right. Have you ever hidden a purchase from your spouse? Probably the fast food. My gambling.

That's a big one. How do you hide spending hundreds of thousands gambling? You have separate accounts. Have you ever had a subscription you forgot about and paid for it for way too long? 100%. What was it? You know, television, like Netflix, Disney Plus, all those things, they just get carried away. He's looking right now.

He's like, what do I have that I forgot I had? I do have, I even have a subscription to You Need a Budget, which is a financing app. You know, it's a one-time fee, and it sounds great, but I don't even utilize it. So it's like, you're not even budget. Yeah. What if I turned you on to the best budgeting app out there and I paid for it? Let's do it, brother. It's called every dollar.

We'll get your email. We'll hook you up with it after we're done. I appreciate it. You ever loan money to someone and they didn't pay you back? I've loaned money to my parents next-door neighbors. Oh. Yeah, he's a piece of garbage. How much do you loan?

I have her. It's money. It was enough. It was enough for me to worry about it. I loan $500 to a friend and I definitely believed in her. But here's the thing. If I'm going to loan it, I'm okay with losing it. with losing it. So you're still friends to this day? No. And I'll spend the money again.

Before we get to the next question, you know what's another money mistake a lot of people make? Keeping their money in a regular old savings account earning dismal interest. And that's why I've loved partnering with a sponsor of today's video, Laurel Road. They offer top tier interest in their high yield savings account. And best of all, there's no hidden fees. There's no minimum balance required to open an account. And your deposits are FDIC insured, meaning they are safe and secure. So make the switch today. Go check them out. Go to Laurel Road.com slash George or click the link in the description to get started. And I'll get back to harassing strangers in just a second.

But first, let me tell you how to avoid having strangers use your personal info against you. All these data broker sites that are out there selling your info for a profit, causing all kinds of phishing messages and spam in your life. You can avoid that with another sponsor of today's video, delete me. They go in, they find and remove your info from hundreds of these data broker sites, and they send you a report showing you what they've done and how much time they've saved you. Currently, I'm at 86 hours of time saved, which is more time I can spend harassing strangers in the streets of Nashville. So go check them out and get 20% off any of their annual plans at join deleteme.com slash George or click the link in the description below.

All right, let's get back to it. What's a financial tip that you wish you knew sooner? Probably to like actually have a budget like in paper, like in writing. First of all, just don't use debt. Don't use debt. No one should be taking financial advice from me, but I would say living like you are in debt. or living below your means, just being prepared for when that happens. So, you know, because you could lose your job and be really scrambling.

So, yeah. So live on a lesson you make, have some emergency savings. Exactly, yeah. I love it. Stock market, man. Even if, like, lots of ups and downs, the early you get in, eventually it's going to keep going up. You're going to make your money. Don't sweat like the ups and downs.

Stick with it. I would say if you can go to school for free, go to school for free, because that student loan does not look pretty. Oh, that's a good one. Really invests in your 401K, or, And really in reality, find a company that has a great match. That way so you can utilize that and really invest for the future. Any other financial wisdom to share with the audience?

Not that I could think. Oh, don't buy a Mercedes. And don't buy another one. Don't buy two. Yeah. You know, that is really good advice. Before you go, we're going to play a little game we call dropping a deuce. Oh, God.

You tell me who is on this $2 bill and I would drop this deuce right in your hands. Am I allowed to look at it? No. Who is on the $2 bill? We got one shot. George Washington. Ah, I knew it. James Monroe.

James Monroe. One more time. James Monroe. Just want to hear you get it wrong three times. It was incorrect. Andrew Jackson? Incorrect. Oh.

Don't give me that face. You got me on this left. I'm an actor. What can I say? You tell me who's on the $2 bill. I'll drop this. Thomas Jefferson. Oh, he got it.

I'll give you a hint. Was Andrew Jackson on it? No. No. He's dead. That's not a good hint. Thomas Jefferson. You nailed it.

Second try. I'm going to give it to him. Try. Here comes the deuce. Consider the deuce drop. You're a big winner today, man. Don't spend it all one place. Save that as a bookmark.

In my book, which I'm about to give you. Give him the book, guys. We got the book. This is a really hot book. You start flaunting this around the school. Are you dating someone? I'm not dating anybody. Dude, you start wheeling this.

this book around, the ladies will be like, holy crap, this guy is fiscally responsible. Sign me up. Jefferson? Jefferson is the correct answer. Congratulations. She needed the money. Amazing. And you can't fit it in your purse, but this is my book.

It's going to help you get out of this debt before you die. Will you promise them that you're going to get out of debt before you die? Oh, yeah. Now we're talking. Well, if there's one thing we learned today, it's that we've all made a lot of dumb mistakes with money, some with more zeros on the end. But the key is, are we learning? Are we growing? Are we getting better? Are we not making the same mistake again? That's the key here. So it was a lot of fun to hear people's stories. I appreciate their vulnerability. But I hope they're taking the right next step to get out of that debt to never make the same mistake again and to build wealth the right way. And that's what I did. I was 40 grand in debt back in the day. I made a lot of mistakes with student loans and credit cards and trying to get fancy with investing before I should have. And the key is you got to do things the right way in the right order. And that's why I wrote the book. breaking free from broke.

And if you want to check it out, I'll drop a link in the description below. This is the key, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress. It's also available as an audiobook that'll also link in the description. So that's it.

And here's what I want to know next. What is your biggest money mistake? Let me know in the comments section no matter how weird. That's basically what the comment section exists for. And speaking of financial faux pause, this next video is all about five common money mistakes that a lot of people are making and how to avoid it.

So that's coming up next. Or click the link in the description. to go check it out. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.