George Kamel - Millionaires in Cars Getting Coffee with Andrei Jikh

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

💵 Sign up for EveryDollar today. Create a free budget! Today, personal finance YouTube legend Andrei Jikh is joining me for coffee, conversation and cruising the Las Vegas Strip. Next Steps 💵 EveryDollar budget deal: I’ll hook you up with a 14-day free trial and $15 off your first year of the premium version of EveryDollar. 📗 Order George Kamel’s new book, Breaking Free From Broke.   Offers from Today's Sponsors  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month of therapy! https://www.betterhelp.com/george This episode is also sponsored by DeleteMe. Remove your personal information from the web at https://www.joindeleteme.com/George George for 20% off. 🙌   🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys, George Camel here. Listen, I had to travel over 1,700 miles to make today's episode happen. But let me tell you, it was worth it, every single mile. And that's because I got to buy the one, the only, Andre Jick, a cup of Las Vegas's finest boiled bean water. Now, if you don't know him yet, Andre is a world-class magician specializing in cardistry. Yes, that is a thing I learned.

Now, that's not really why I'm having them on the channel today. It's just a fun fact to delight your inner child, reminding you to stop taking life so seriously, and for Dumbledore's sake, believe in magic. It's pronounced Dumbledore. Dumbledore. No, the real reason I'm stoked to talk to Andre is because, in addition to moonlighting as a sorcerer,

the man is a personal finance YouTube legend with over 2.5 million subscribers. And if you want a free magic trick to kick things off, I got one for you. If you hit the like and subscribe buttons, they'll improve your life and my day. And while you're at it, make a Friends Day too by sharing this video with them.

Maybe it'll help them believe in magic. How do you do that? Oh, magic. All right, let's get to it. Millionaires and Cars Getting Coffee with my friend, Andre Chick. Andre. Hey, welcome. Thank you for having me.

This is exciting. You kind of started as a magician in cardistry. Like, how did that come about? So my dad took me to a Houdini's magic shop when I was like 10 years old. So I loved magic tricks. I got into that. And at the same year, I picked up a video camera. And so I started filming my cardistry videos and magic.

So I started running a magic company where we were basically, teaching people how to do magic tricks. We'd fly artists from all over the world. We would film their magic trick and then we would package it into a DVD that people could buy and then they could learn from zero to 60 essentially. Sort of like what Dave Ramsey does for finance. We did for magic. We revolutionized that industry. But after 10 years of doing that, I sort of topped out of my salary. I think I was making like $75,000 a year at the time. And it was nice. It was good money, especially for Vegas at the time. But I didn't know if I wanted to be defined there forever. So you've always enjoyed the finance side.

I've always been obsessed because my parents were immigrants. We came from Russia. My dad's actually Ukrainian. My mom's Russian. And when they came to the U.S., they didn't know what credit cards were, how they worked. And it was so easy for them to be like, oh, I can buy this giant TV for $20 a month. And then just pay it off for the next 50 years, sign me up. And then before you know it, they were so much in debt.

And then because we lived in Las Vegas, we had all these casinos. And my parents developed a gambling addiction. Oh, wow. They started gambling entire paycheck. away in just a single day. Oh, man. And so I saw just about every financial mistake a person can make by the age of like 12. And I would constantly ask myself, like, how did my parents get into the situation?

And what can I do to not be in this situation ever? I'm not going to let that happen. When did you hit $100,000 in investments? And how'd you do it? So I saved about 50% of my, at the time, $50,000 a year income. And I invested it all into the S&P 500, into dividends, and I want to say from age 19 or 20 to 25, it took me about five years to save up to $100,000.

Wow. And by the age 27, 28, I was getting to that point in my career where I had about $200,000 and invested. So did you have debt at that time when you were putting away 50% of your income? I had zero debt my entire life. Would you say that was a huge part

of being able to put away 50%? Because I think a lot of people would love that, but they also have the car payment, the credit cards, the student loans, all of this hanging, you know, draining their bank accounts. Oh, a thousand percent. I was so scared to go to college because everyone's like, oh, I'm like $30,000, $40,000 in debt. And for some reason, all my friends just didn't understand the gravity of what $40,000 meant.

It was like, oh, it was just $40,000. We get the call on the Ramsey show, but you're like, I only have a little bit of debt. I'm like, what is it? Like, I have $30,000 in student loans. I'm like, that's a little bit of debt, too. It's insane. I can't breathe thinking about that. Unbelievable.

I probably made $10,000. in 2018, the year before my YouTube started. Whoa. And I lived off of $10,000 because I Airbnb'd part of my house out. And I was living minimally. So I feel like the one thing that I learned forever, that's the most invaluable thing that I know how to do,

is survive on almost nothing. Because you've done it. Because I've done it. On your YouTube channel, I don't know if this still rings true, but you call yourself a financial minimalist. Yeah. What do you mean by that?

When I say financial minimalist, I try not to own a lot of stuff, because it makes me think of all that stuff constantly. It complicates your life. It does. and I feel like life's more enjoyable when you have less stuff in it. And a huge portion of that mindset was developed because of dividend investing. That taught me how to think about what money ultimately means and what it's supposed to buy you.

First, the freedom. After you buy your freedom, then you can buy all the toys that you want. But that's the ultimate thing money could buy. And I started thinking of everything in terms of 4%. Not how many hours I had to spend to earn something, but what is that thing in terms of 4%. So if something is, let's say $100, right, how much of my portfolio has to be allocated to make $100 at 4%. Oh. So that's a very philosophical slash nerdy equation there.

It's easier to plan for retirement because I don't have to plan on selling my stocks. I can just live off of the interest of my portfolio. And at the time from $200,000 that I had invested, I was making maybe like $12,000 a year or $10,000, which was just enough that I thought worst case scenario, this thing fails. Okay, maybe I can move in with my parents. If my parents don't want me, I'll find something. But at least I have some small base of income, and that really set me on that path.

Wow. And then in 2019, I flipped my first video. And it just went. Didn't get any views. I actually gave myself a year. I was like, Andre, no matter what happens, you have to give yourself a year, and even if it fails, even if you don't want to do it, you have to do it for a year. I remember getting monetized six months into it.

But that first six months that I was working, which I was working at least 80-hour weeks, In the first six months, if you amortize and calculate hourly how much money I was spending, I was making roughly $2 an hour. Woo! Get into YouTube, guys! That's right. What's up, YouTubers? I think you have to kind of be insane to do something like YouTube.

Most people aren't willing to do what you did and stick it out for a year and just get better at content. Yes. But that's what it takes. That's most people's story. Right. Wow. And it took off after that year. It did. The last three months of the year.

I made like 90% of the income for that year. Wow. Just the last three months. That's amazing. Well, part of the segment is getting coffee and I hope you enjoy coffee. We're here at one of my favorites, Dutch brothers. I love Dutch bros, if you will. Dutch brothers.

They're always very friendly here. Do you know what to get here? I do. I do. I have to see the picture of it. I don't know their name. I feel like a lot of this is like a child getting a really sugary, like, oh, me and how do you?

It's got that vibe to it with some of these drinks. So I try to see. Just keep it as low sugar, low dairy as possible. Yeah, I'm cutting back on sugar too. It's part of getting old. Part of your physique. Hello. How are you?

How are you? Pretty good. What can be you? Well, let's see what my friend Andre wants. Uh, the white chocolate one? Perfect. The frost? Yeah.

Yeah. And then what size did you want that? A small, please. Perfect. Do you want whipped cream on it? Sure. Perfect. I'm treating myself. Go for it.

Do you just have like a straight up cold, like a nitro cold brew or something? Do you want the can or do you want it? Do you want it like over ice? Or do you want a hot? Oh, hot nitro cold brew? How is that a cold brew? That hurts my brain. It's disgusting.

Okay. What do you recommend? I feel like over ice is tasteful. You could just do like a hazelnut nitrogen. That one's pretty good. I like the hazelnut. Okay. Yeah, you want to do that?

Sure. It's going to be 11-0-5 today. I got it. No, it's just on us today, yes. Is this Ramsey Solutions? It is on my business debit. All right? There you go.

No credit cards here, man. We literally don't have them. See, I thought I was going to make a video like exposing George. I wish you could. I wish there was some secret cabal or like we all have deeply in credit card debt. All right. Speaking of credit cards, how many do you own? Are you one of the, like a Graham Stephan who's like maximized, strategize, I'm getting these points here?

Yeah, I would say that. Maybe not to that meticulous degree, but enough to know which card is best for which one. Like I'll use my gold Amex for restaurants. I'll do my platinum for traveling. I'll do something like the Amazon Prime for when I'm overseas with no foreign transaction fees. Oh. I'll do... I found a debit card that doesn't have foreign transaction fees.

Are there really? Charles Schwab. Oh, that's nice. Yep. This is not sponsored, by the way. We're not sponsored. Not sponsored. I don't have to tell people that because I know I'm not sponsored by a credit card company.

What would happen if you just switch to just debit card only? I don't think I'd feel a difference. Because you're so disciplined in the way, like, it's not going to change. It's on autopilot. My habits are so. set in stone now. Yeah. I don't think I would change it. What's like a splurge for you financially? Because obviously you could do whatever you want. Yeah. But there's still like with Graham, there's things emotionally. He's like, ah, it just hurts to spend money on that. I think my biggest

splurge, like flex, is Fiji water. Oh, like that's all we have at the house is Fiji. I love Fiji water bottle. That's legit. Yeah. What was like a big purchase lately? That was like this was a big purchase for me. My watch, which I don't have. It was this 1980s watch. It was a tribute to Salvador DoorDali. It's called a soft watch. And it's from the 80s and it cost me $1,200. Wow. That was like my Christmas present. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listen, I love a good relationship and the only thing I love more is a great relationship. But great relationships, that takes work. It takes effort. There's challenges. And one of the best ways to approach that is with therapy. And that's why I love BetterHelp. It's online. It's flexible. You answer a few short

questions and you're matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no cost. So get started today by going to betterhelp.com slash George to get 10% off your first month. Let's get to work. Can we do a little lightning round here? Yeah. Okay, so I know you recently, fairly recently got into crypto. I notoriously have thoughts about it. Yeah. Could you explain crypto to me in under a minute? No. Is it possible? I can't explain it in under a minute. Because I can't explain crypto. I can explain crypto. I can explain Bitcoin. So crypto, I feel like, is I don't know how to explain it. How do you explain?

Well, that's the thing. Here's my beef. Everyone is, they come at me saying, this city just doesn't understand it. I'm like, you're telling you fully understand all the intricacies and technology? No, nobody does. Okay, that's all I, thank you for being honest. I think you're the first person in this, in that world.

Oh, for sure. Tell me straight up. I don't really get it. Bitcoin, I think, is separate from crypto. Crypto is sort of like attached to Bitcoin and it's everyone else's desperate move who's not, I, and I don't want to be. condescending, but maybe who doesn't quite fully understand how investing in personal finance works, it's sort of like their moonshot to be like, this is my chance to sort of skip the line and

become a millionaire. And some people do. Put another way, it's kind of a get rich quick mentality. It is. Like, I don't want to wait 30 years for the SMB 500 to do its thing. I want to get rich in a year or three. Exactly. Which is a very quick way to lose money. It is. That's a very fast route to going broke. Most people do. But it's interesting because in 2021, in 2022, I figured out when I was making videos that was warning people, I would do these crypto coin videos where I would review them and I would try to do it objectively. Like, here's the good, here's the bad, here's my opinion. My opinion is probably not the best thing to do. I think you're, I mean, how often are you right? That's the real question. Well, the point

that I'm trying to say is that when I was discouraging people not to get into it, we were in a bull market. So I was the only sane person in an insane world. So I was insane effectively. You're like swimming upstream then. Right. So when all these kids were making millions of dollars, I got shredded to pieces over these YouTube channels that were like, we're the Dogecoin army and how dare you stop us from becoming millionaires? And very quickly, I realized, okay, don't stand in the way between a bear and his food. Just don't do that. The Dogecoin army is also the least intimidating army I can think of.

Just an example. They're going to stay in the comment section. That's true. They're too scared to leave their house. Here we go. Hello. Hi. My chocolate cross in the Haysina Nitrofoam.

Yes. Thank you. much. That's for you, my friend. Thank you, thank you. Are you a straw guy? I am, yeah. Thank you. All right. You know what's really fun? Dave Ramsey bought you that. I think that's a really cool way to think about it. That's so cool.

Like, make that, that's your next video. Dave Ramsey bought me. That's actually really cool. A cold brew. I love that. Way to go, hero. All right. Cheers.

Oh, cheers. To a blooming friendship. Hopefully these are good. Hopefully I got a good one for you. This is the hazelnut cold brew. That's really good. It's not too sweet. I'm always worried it's going to be like a sugar bomb.

How's yours? That looks like a sugar bomb. It's a diabetes in a cup. Diabetes. But sometimes you deserve that. Sometimes you deserve diabetes. You'll make that very clear. Diabetes.

You deserve a little treato. Because you work hard for the money. Diabetes. So I love this quote I saw from you from some article, but you said money should be boring. I wanted you to elaborate on that for the audience at large. Yeah, it's such a contrary. of my YouTube channel because YouTube's supposed to be fun and exciting. Yes.

But money isn't. I didn't talk about complex things. Yeah. You're doing macroeconomics and crypto. Try to make it fun. You're like, money should be boring. It should. It should.

Because it's one of those things that should be something you set it and forget it. You just figure out your strategy, dollar cost average into the S&P 500 and just set and forget it for 20 years. That's it. 20, 30 years. Whatever your investing horizon is? What is your best advice for someone who's out there living paycheck to paycheck in 2024 who's like, who's like, all right, I need to get ahead. What are the first things I need to do?

Take the baby steps. Follow the Ramsey baby steps? I mean, I'd say so, right? Wow. I mean, I would. I didn't think that's what you would say. I think so. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

That's the headline, Andre Jix says, follow the baby steps. That's right. I'm endorsing it here, guys. Well, what are your thoughts on Dave? Because you mentioned him, this is how it all started. You mentioned Dave in a video, and you had a really funny clip where you, like,

edited yourself into a call. That's right. I love doing that by the way. That's your version of magic tricks on YouTube. It's true. And they're like, I don't even think Dave Ramsey knows me. And I'm watching this and I'm like, Dave may not, but I do. So I reached out to you and that's how this all happened.

That's right. But how did you get, you know, acclimated to Dave and find his content? Well, I've seen his stuff around forever. Like even before YouTube, I feel like I've known who he was. I followed his work. And then I remember Graham was a huge fan and I learned a lot through Graham just based on how much of a fan he was. He had a cardboard cutout, I believe, of Dave in his house. And his cat named Ramsey.

That's right. Right. I mean, that's pretty cool. What are your thoughts on consumer debt at this point? I think so much of personal finance success is being able to ask the right questions early on. And unfortunately, most people don't wake up to ask the right questions until they're in their 30s or 40s and their neck deep in debt. And it's too far. And I just was lucky enough to ask the right question early enough. I think through my videos and through your guys' podcasts, it makes people.

wake up. It's that shock factor. For me, sometimes I'll integrate magic or comedy and humor, and you guys will integrate your own techniques, but it's like the shock of like, wait a minute, I do need to wake up. I do need to ask the right question about money and my financial situation, my debt, and what I think is okay and what's not okay. And that's ultimately what we can do is just bring attention to the question. And the rest, people can figure out for themselves. You mentioned you're a very curious person. And I think there's a theme with all of the successful, wealthy people out there, especially in the content creator world, they're very curious. They're lifelong learners. So where do you go to actually learn this information? Let's say you're like,

I want to find out what's happening with the economy. You don't necessarily want to go to whatever news platform shows up. So how do you actually learn the right way? Chad, GBT. It doesn't have data from before 2020. It doesn't. You wouldn't stay very relevant that way. That's true. That's true. I attribute it to just being just dumb enough to ask every basic question ever and not ever feeling embarrassed enough to ask when economists talk about macroeconomics. And they're like, well, you know, the spread on the 10-year treasury yield. And I'm just like, what does that word mean? And why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about, like, why is this important in figuring this variable out?

And I will just Google and every single thing. And I'll try to map it out and connect the dots. and that's sort of my way of building a template of how to understand just the complexity of the economy. Well, that's your ministry for doing the hard work for us. Most of us, we don't wake up going like, hey, I'd love to study the macroeconomics of this right now. Right. It's true. But what's interesting is that despite how much I might know or understand it, I cannot predict it.

Which is what's so funny about finances. You want to control everything, but nothing's really in your control. I can't control anything. I can predict that. The thing we can control, and we talk about this, is your own, like, how you personally spent. Having the emergency funds, staying out of debt.

That's true. Those are in your control, investing consistently and regularly. Increasing your income, lowering your debt. Yes. Well, that's the thing is, you know, we talk about on the Ramsey show, Dave's big quote is,

your greatest wealth-building tool is your income. Mm-hmm. And to me, the folks out there, you and Graham, the way you guys really built wealth was having fabulous incomes and then doing the right things with it. Right.

And so for a lot of people that are making, you know, 30 grams. that's a tough thing to do to invest enough to retire dignity. But they also don't believe that making $100 grand is ever in the cards for them. Right. But even people of making $100K a year I'm seeing all the time are paycheck to paycheck. Because of lifestyle creep, which you somehow managed to avoid.

You have some nice things, but it's still a very small percentage of your world. It's a small part of my world. And I'm ready to give it up. He's giving it all up. He's becoming a true minimalist. It's all going to me. Having the maximum amount of minimalism is the key to being a good minimum. Did you know some bad people out there could get a hold of your data and order a thousand pizzas in your name and on your tab?

Rude. At least invite me to this epic pizza party. And guess what? This thievery happens all the time because data brokers sell your personal info. And that's why I use DeleteMe, which removes your info from hundreds of data broker websites. You can help keep your data secure on a one-year plan for less than $9 a month, less than a cost of a pizza. So get peace of mind and a great deal by going to join DeleteMe.com. slash George for 20% off.

And if you're going to throw an epic pizza party, just invite me. Just make sure a gluten-free Supreme is on the order. Thanks. What's the most expensive thing you currently own? Other than your home?

Other than my house? Either my Pokemon collection? What is that worth? I have no idea. I'm not selling it, though. It's not for sale, don't ask. But, Kway. If you could go back 10 years to tell yourself,

we'll be driving electric cars? Give yourself any kind of advice. What would you say to yourself? My life has not been a linear line, as most people is. Yours isn't. Sure. But if I just had known, it doesn't have to be a linear line. I feel like I would have just been so much more at peace and less anxious to get to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and instead just focus on the moment where I'm at and growing in that moment.

Versus, well, I'm not where I need to be, which is right over there. And then over there. And so the goalpost keeps moving. So stay the course and relax. Yeah. It would be the things I would tell myself. I think I would do. How about you?

Just exactly that. Just relax. Everything's going to be all right. Life just has a way of working itself out, especially if these are the things you're interested in. Like, if you guys are still watching this video right now, and this is still something within your mindset and you're thinking about this stuff,

I promise you, in three to five years from now, even 10 years from, whatever it is, you're going to look back at this and be like, wow, this is the steps I took. Those are the right steps that I needed to take. Well, I've always, I love the quote. Most people overestimate what they can accomplish

in a year, they underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. And that's been my story. Going from broke to millionaire, took me 10 years, which is a short amount of time for a lot of people and too long for a lot of young people. Who are like, what do you mean 10? I can't wait 10 years. And so that's the hard part is telling people to have patience and delay gratification

and to live on lesson you make and avoid comparisons. That's hard to do in today's culture. It's true. It's true. I think something that helps me all the time, and this is just something I talked about in one of my videos. I said, somewhere out there in the future is a you that is, They're super happy, they're stress-free, they're financially free, they're debt-free. Whether that's 20 years from now, 30 years from now, they are out there.

They're retired, they're living in a good life. And they are grateful for the you that exist today, for the decisions that you made that led them there. And then I tell myself to work backwards. Reverest engineer it. Yes. What were the decisions that got me to that point? And that applies from everything as trivial as like, I'm anxious to go to the dentist or whatever

it is, to thinking about my life and money and investing. and it just helps me get through anything. That's beautiful. What a great way to end. Well, before we go, could you do a card trick for us? A card trick? Yeah. Can you impress the viewers?

Oh, my gosh. Can you do sleight of hand when you got all these cameras here? I could try. I haven't actually picked up a deck of cards in a while now. I'm so nervous about this. Because what if this doesn't go well? It's true, though. Does that mean your whole career has been a lie?

That is true. It might just be. Okay, that alone was impressive. That's called the spring. So there's two kinds of different disciplines. in magic. There's something called cardistry and magic. Cardistry is sort of like the pretty stuff that you see shuffling. Like, for example, this is called the Sible. It's a five-packet cut that looks like this. It was actually invented by a guy that's literally two houses behind me. He's the

executive producer David Copfield. It's called Sibble. Now, here's the thing. This was all sort of skill-based, right? Yeah. But magic is sort of based in deception. So here's kind of an interesting thing. So different places around the world shuffle cards in different ways. Like here in the U.S. We might shuffle cards like this, right? Overhand shuffle. In casinos, obviously, you've seen the waterfall shuffle. In India, you might see the Hindu shuffle, which looks like this. That's literally what it's called.

Now, I went to China one time, and I asked a kid how he shuffled cards, and he showed me this. He said that they kind of shuffle them like this, like all over. Some cards are all over the place, right? Mismatched. Mismatched everywhere. That stresses me out. I'm OCD. So now you have cards that are back to front and front to back.

and back to back front to front, right? How are you gonna fix that? It's just a snap. We can get all the cards. What? To face the same way. What? Tom Foolery is this.

It's sorcery. Now, obviously, it might be good with my hands, so I want you to pay attention to this one pretty close. This one's for you guys. Just watch how misdirection works. Check out, tell me when to stop. Stop. Right here?

Okay. Remember this card? Yep. You got it? Yep. Can the camera see it? Yeah? I think so. Okay. Tell me when to stop.

Stop. Right here? Yeah. Push it in for me. No. No. Stop it. I'm going to watch that in slow-mo later.

Will I even, will I figure it out? Oh, you'll totally figure it out. They figured it out. That's not fair. They have an unfair advantage as the YouTube viewer. This has been fun. Thanks for hanging with us. Thanks for being so hospitable to myself and our team.

Thank you. And cheers. Thank you. To building wealth. That's right. Appreciate it, you guys. How fun was that? I'm not going to lie, his financial wisdom, very impressive, but nothing compared to his cardistry.

So seriously, huge thanks to Andre for hanging out with us. Make sure you let me know the comments who else you want to see on this channel, or maybe even just someone you think would make a good friend. I'm in search of a noodling buddy. Comment below. Now, before we go, Andre taught me a trick or two, and I thought I'd try it out on you. So go ahead, pick any card, maybe one with a letter on it, maybe one that's in the shape of love. And, okay, you got it?

You got it? You got it in your mind. As always, thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Is this your card? How did you do that? Hey, hey. Andre, you wizard!