George Kamel - Judging Other Frugal People's Money Habits (It Got WEIRD)

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

📙 Order my book, Breaking Free From Broke, or listen on audiobook. Would you drive two states away to save $20 on Facebook Marketplace? In this episode, I react to frugal tips—some of which are genius and others . . . not so much.  Next Steps: • 🎥 Watch my video 12 Rules for (a Frugal) Life. • 📈 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

I'm on a mission from Dave Ramsey and your mom to help you live your best frugal life. So today we'll be diving deep into the bowels of the internet to sift through a list of frugal tips from the strange folks over at BuzzFeed. I'm gonna tell you which ones are actually helpful and which ones belong in the garbage alongside every insane clown posse album ever made. Hey, insane clown posse if you're watching, maybe spend less time with the face paint, more time writing, you know, good songs. Let's try that out for a change.

Well, that's no fun. All right, so the article we're looking at here is called Frugal People are sharing which money-saving tips actually work and which are a complete waste of time. Only 18 words BuzzFeed, you can do better, all right? Step it up. I want 20 minimum. We're going to hit the highlights of the list today, and for each entry, we're going to play a new game called Just a Tease or Worth a Squeeze. Perfect. Nailed it. Very uncomfortable. Let's dive in, shall we?

Tip number one. Worth it. Packing my lunch every day. My colleagues spend 10 to 15 bucks a day purchasing lunch. I bring leftovers in a microwave dish with some snacks. like Greek yogurt, hummus and crackers, and fruit. It's so much cheaper. Thank you for that username. Username here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I assume you're a real person, but you're not doing yourself any favors with that username.

And if you watch this channel for more than 3 seconds, you'll know how I feel about eating out. It is a luxury, it's entertainment, and it's hugely expensive, especially because restaurants mark up their prices by nearly 300% in order to make a profit and cover all of their overhead. So, make your freaking lunch

and bring it to work if you're trying to get to your money goals. This one is 1,000% worth a squeeze. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. All right, next tip. My wife and I drove two states over to pick up a brand new stove and microwave that we found on Facebook Marketplace for what seemed like a good deal. Of course, neither one of us had a truck big enough, so he had to rent a U-Haul and pay for the gas and lose a day. When we arrived, it wasn't quite the model we were expecting from the listing, but we had come too far at this point, literally. So we took it.

Later, I found that exact model on eBay. it would have cost about the same to have it delivered. Ouchy. Sorry, Nick. This one, I can already tell you, is an absolute just a tease. Total waste of time. As you can see, he has regrets here. And personally, I don't blame Facebook Marketplace for this as much as I blame Nick for not doing his due diligence.

How do you not know the exact model that you're purchasing? Do you not ask for questions? You not ask for further photography to verify said model? That's what I would be doing. But I think he's right. You've got to think about the gas, the U-Haul, you're taking a day off work to make all of this happen. Is it worth it to buy used?

A lot of the time, yes. But if you have to drive across state lines and take a day off work to make it happen, all to get a subpar product that you weren't expecting? Absolutely not. So the key here is do the research and see if it's worth the savings for all of the time and energy and money that you're putting into making this happen. So Nick, I'm sorry you wasted your time and the jury's in on this one. It's absolutely just a tease.

Don't tease me. I tease you first. Tease me once. Shame on you. Moving on the list, we're going to go to this one. It's a juicy one. Making homemade laundry detergent. I saved a dollar, but I spent 15 minutes hand-grating a feast naphtha bar into tiny pieces.

My laundry felt slimy and smelled funny. Or did you smell funny and felt slimy? Yikes on this one. This is a yikes all around. I don't understand why we are harkening back to Little House on the Prairie and trying to live like the Amish. They have figured it out. Do not try to attempt it. Do not cosplay as an Amish.

Number one, it's cultural appropriation, I think. Mildly offensive. Maybe a hate crime in certain states. I think in certain parts of Pennsylvania. And laundry detergent is not the biggest budget buster out there. So if you're trying to shave money, I wouldn't start with laundry detergent, okay? Personally, you want to know my personal take? Because you asked, I go with Mollies and I go with the powder.

No slime. You know what they say. You do the crime. That's it. Do crime is what I'm encouraging here. If you say so. If it wasn't clear by now, this one. This one is absolutely just a tease.

Next tip on the list, learning to fix my own car. Uh, this one feels very specific to your skill set and comfort level. I don't DIY carburetors. That's not who I am as a person. You know what I mean? Like, if I have to deal with a clutch pack piston, my day is ruined. Every real street racer knows that you need a hood scoop on your car to make it legit. So for most people, 99.9% of the population, if you're going to make things worse and potentially get hurt and or destroy your car.

So I would trust a mechanic of my choosing to handle this and maybe get a few quotes if you're not sure. Sure, there's simple things you can YouTube, right? Like I've heard it's easy to change breaks. You can do your own oil, but that feels like a waste of time and very messy because you have to recycle the oil. I don't know. Who has the time? It's 30 bucks because you go down to the local jiffy loop and get it done. So this one absolutely is just a tease.

Next tip on the BuzzFeed list, coupon clipping. I spend less money when not shopping with coupons. The thing was, even if I had the coupon, there was always a cheaper option, so I didn't use them anyway. I stopped bothering with coupons a long time ago. Thank you, quirky spirit, 5498. This is an interesting one, because I'm a little halfway on this one. I think coupons can absolutely be worth it,

but to their point, think about this, who's doling out these coupons? It's the big companies, right? It's not the generic brands that are offering coupons. It's usually the big-name brands that are already, charging you way more and they offer you a little carrot dangling 25 cents off that are already overpriced product. So here's what you need to figure out. Is the coupon going to make it cheaper than the generic store brand that is equally as good?

Or is it worth it to use this coupon and take the time to find it? And is it going to cause me to buy something I didn't need just because it's a dollar off. So this is where doing a budget, having a meal plan and walking into only buy the things you needed is very, very important. So this one, ugh, I think for For most people, coupon clipping is a waste of time, and therefore, just a tease. But am I doing it? Absolutely, because your boy loves to coo. It's a, some people do sports, some people do golf, some people have hobbies. Mine is just the art of the deal, baby.

I'm not talking about DJT, talking about GPK, the OG deal clipper. You think Trump's couponing? He wouldn't know a coupon if it hit him in the face. He pays full price for that bronzer going into that Sephora. Can you imagine? Oh, my gosh. I want an S&L sketch of Trump walking into a Sephora and them doing a little...

Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts? Moving on, here's the next one. Making bread. We have a bread machine and our bread tastes better is astronomically less expensive, doesn't have questionable ingredients, and is easy with the machine. Absolute win.

Thank you, Sarah, for that one. Ooh, this one's a tough one. I feel like this is a hobbyist thing. You know, some people are into it. Sourdough became a, real hot after COVID. It became everyone's personality, just like Harry Potter. And as a gluten-free gladiator, we don't do a lot of bread at home. We definitely could be making gluten-free bread. I haven't tried it, so I can't verify that it's better than the store-bought bread. I'm sure it is

a lot cheaper because the ingredients of, you know, flour. I don't know what else is in it. Mostly just flour. I think yeast. Is that what we're using? Baking soda? Is that in there? Bread ingredients. Let's see. You're going to, oh my goodness. You'd be shocked at how difficult it is just to find a bread recipe on the internet. Oh, here we go, flour, yeast, salt, oil, sugar, water. Yeah, I think breadmakers are probably fairly inexpensive. I imagine you can get a decent one for like, I don't know, 50 bucks. Yeah, okay. Here's a $79 one. So you got ROI on the bread machine first, right? That's a lot of loaves of bread, especially if you're going to like Aldi and buying a bunch of loves of bread. That's not that expensive. So for me,

personally, not for my house. So this one, for me, is just the tease. But you do you, breadmakers. I'm not mad at you. I just don't think this is going to create a whole lot of margin in your budget, just based on bread alone. It's not just bread. It's sourdough.

Let's see what else you got, BuzzFeed. Hit me with your best shot. Unplugging my electric dryer during this heat wave from hell. Putting up a rotary clothes line I had in storage. My clothes dry outside, anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes, should have started this midwinter, never really got that cold. I'm not heating up my house with the dryer,

thus making the air conditioner work harder, my electric bill is lower, and I get a bit of exercise. Thank you, prudent, valuable, 603. I'm just, there's a lot going on here you just threw at us, expecting us to just take it in. You had a rotary clothesline and storage? Huh?

I thought they were just doing phones with the rotary. I didn't know they were into clothes lines now. And an hour and 12, okay, yeah, the clothes dry outside. If the weather's right, what if you do laundry on a rain day? Now you're screwed. You're going to have mills. do on those clothes. I don't think it's that expensive to dry clothes. In fact, I have my electric bill from last month, and I can tell you exactly how much was spent on laundry because somehow

the good people at Middle Tennessee Electric have figured it out, and they break it down. Laundry, $12. That includes washer and dryer. So let's say half of that is the dryer. Let's just spitball here. That's $6 in savings, and we do a lot of laundry with a baby and dogs and pee everywhere. And so therefore, I don't think it's worth doing all of this gyration and rotary clothesline business for $6 in savings. One man's take. So therefore, this one is... Just a tease. Move along.

We'll get back to talking about saving money in just a sec. But first, what should you do with all the money you save? Well, don't just let it collect dust in a traditional savings account. Instead, I recommend using a high-yield savings account like the one from online bank, Laurel Road, a sponsor of today's episode. They've got competitive APY that lets your savings collect interest much faster. Plus, there's no minimum balance required to open an account, and they never charge any sneaky fees, and of course, it's FDIC insured. So this one is absolutely worth the squeeze.

So go check it out today. Go to Laurelroad.com slash George, or click the link in the description below. And before we get back to the list, did you know that even if you're doing everything right financially, your money can still be at risk? And that's because if your personal data is floating around online, you become an easier target for fishing attacks and other online scams. And that's why I personally use Delete Me, another sponsor of today's video. Delete Me helps to cut your risk by removing your info from hundreds of data broker websites. And they don't just set it and forget it.

They'll send you a personalized report every few months, giving you the scoop on exactly what they've removed and how much time they've saved you. And right now, you can get 20% off any DeleteMe plan by going to join DeleteMe.com slash George or just click the link in the description below. All right, back to our savings tips. Let's see what we got next. Trying to save money on moving. Hiring professional movers is always the right choice for me.

The stress of family, tempers, and fatigue is too much. Mammoth resist. Chef's kiss on this one. Thank you for this. Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. Okay? Stop getting your friends to help you move for some pizza. Like we're not 17 years old moving into a college dorm.

We have too much crap. We have too much crap. It's too heavy. Here's what happens. Your friends resent you, even if they do agree. They break your stuff. They're not gonna pay for it. They're already working for free.

Oh, I'm sorry. For a slice of cold pizza and a lukewarm beer if they're lucky. So here's the thing. deal. The average cost to hire professional movers is about $1,700. So if you know you're going to move, usually this is not like on a dime super urgent. So save up and hire movers if you can. I understand this is a luxury. A lot of people don't have this kind of money. And so they go and, you know, rent the giant truck for a few hundred bucks and get a bunch of friends and family to help out. But I'm telling you, I'm 36 years old. My back is breaking over here. Don't try to get me to

help you move. I'd rather support your go-fund me to hire movers than to actually lift anything that you own. my back. To this one absolutely is... Worth a squeeze. Worth a squeeze, correct. Good answer, good answer. Family feud, baby.

Next tip, let's hope they get better. I got a bidet. Feel way cleaner and toilet paper use is reduced by 90%. First question, how did you count the toilet paper? Are you counting the plies? Going, okay, we're down 20% 30%? 90% down in toilet paper usage. That's a waste of your time.

I will say I have never tried a bidet. I am bidet curious. I'll admit that. I think it's got a lot of fanfare lately. I don't know who's doing PR for bidets, but they're doing a bang-up job. They got all of us Americans interested. So, is it worth it?

I mean, I've heard bidets can range from, like, super cheap to wildly expensive if you wanted to, like, make you coffee and stuff. I don't know what they're doing in there. It's very fancy these days. So is this one worth it? I'm on the fence with this one, and therefore I'm creating a new category called On the Fence, maybe?

That's right. I can't be anti-Baday. Do you know the bidet community? Very passionate. I don't need them coming after me. I got a lot going on right now. I got a family. I'm not trying to get on their bad side.

But also, to just blankly say, bidays are worth it 100% as a cost-savings measure. That feels wild, too. So, I'm going right in the middle on this one, on the fence. All right, last tip we're going to cover today because you exhaust me, BuzzFeed. Cheap toilet paper. I can use the good charm and I love that does the job with much less,

or I can use two to three times as much cheap toilet paper. Ah, so they're saying this is not a good use of your money to try to save on the high-quality toilet paper by going cheap because then you just do this. We've all seen this one, right? One, mecca two, mega three, it's simply too much. And if you've ever dealt with cheap toilet paper, y'all, I just feel like life is too short and your butt is too sensitive.

That's my honest take. So if you want to know my take on this one, I'm a Charmin' Ultra Strong guy. That's the Camel Family Way. I go red, some go blue with ultra soft. That's your prerogative. I need strength, all right? America needs healing right now.

So final take on this one, it's absolutely... Totally worth a squeeze. Give me that two ply. We want to ply. Give me two plie. Stop singing! All right, we've laughed, we've cried, we've cringed, and we've learned that not all frugal tips are created equal.

Some are genuinely helpful, and some just aren't worth. the hassle. And at the end of the day, being frugal doesn't mean being cheap or going too outrageous lengths to save a couple of bucks. This is not, you know, extreme cheap skates. Okay, this is about being intentional with every dollar you have coming in so that you can hit your financial goals. And that's why I wrote the book, Breaking Free from Broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress. I've got even more tips in this book, and the best part is you don't have to read it. There's an audiobook version read by moi. Right here, me reading to you, to do less brain work, looking at words hard.

Feeling words in mind? Good. So, check it out with the link in the description below. And if you want my list of frugal tips, keep watching to see me break down 12 frugal rules that actually work. I'll also leave a link in the description. That's it for today.

If you learn something, be sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.