George Kamel - Millionaires in Cars Getting Coffee with Dave Ramsey

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

On today’s show, Dave Ramsey is joining me in the Tesla for an amazing conversation about life, money and what he’s doing with his millions in 2024. Check out The Ramsey Show: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRamseyShow DROP EVERYTHING: Last day for $100 in freebies when you preorder Breaking Free From Broke! EveryDollar budget deal: I love a good deal, and when you sign up using this link, I’ll hook you up with a 14-day free trial and $15 off your first year of the premium version of EveryDollar.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys? Today is the day a lot of us, myself included, have been waiting for. No, I'm not talking about the release of Mean Girls, the Musical, in theaters. That happened Friday, and I'm still processing, so please respect my privacy at this time. Thank you. I'm okay. No, I'm not. I'm talking about something much, much better, and that's having the one, the only, the goat, Dave Ramsey on the show today. He's America's favorite financial expert, best-selling author, world-traveling grandpa, skydiving survival.

not to mention my favorite boss and CEO. And I thought, what's the least I could do to treat the man who's helped millions of people over the last 30 years? Get him a decent cup of coffee. That's literally the least I could do. You're fired. So Dave is joining me in a special installment

of millionaires and cars getting coffee for some conversation about life, money, and what he's doing with his millions in 2024. Now, let's give Dave a warm welcome by hitting that like and subscribe button. Maybe if we can get to 150,000 subscribers, he'll let us take his Aston Martin next time. A boy can dream.

Keep dreaming. And while you're at it, share this with your friends who have always wondered, how does Dave Ramsey take his coffee? Let's get to it. Well, Dave, thanks for joining us for millionaires and cars getting coffee. It's an honor. I'm in a Tesla. I am taking my life in my own hands.

What's that smell, George? What's that smell? Is that burning already? Yeah, you've done skydiving in Tullahoma. You've been shot at, apparently. But this, you think, is the risk. This is pretty serious cutting-edge X-games right here. Wow.

Well, next time we'll take your truck. I feel safer in your truck, to be honest. Oh, my goodness. Well, people have been asking for this specific episode. When we say, hey, who else do you want to see on Millionaires and Cars? You are the number one choice. I don't know why. Oh, my gosh.

They don't get enough of me on the other stuff. I was like, we're hanging out on the Ramsey show together, but they like the casual environment of the car. Okay. So obviously we have to get coffee. and I thought, what better place to go than your new barn? Yeah, Dalhousie Farms. Yes, so I thought you have a fancy coffee machine in there that apparently makes excellent coffee.

You know what, we do. And I thought, well, share the profits because that's free coffee, for me at least. There we go. You know, we're not going to accompany money here. Save, well, save the expense line on the shoot. Yeah, and people like the behind the scenes. So I thought if you're willing to show us inside the beautiful new barn you built out there, well, let's take a little trip.

Just down a few miles away from the Ramsey headquarters here. There we go. So let's get to it, Dave. We're on the cusp of the launch of my new book, Breaking Free from Broke. And thank you. There we go. You wrote the foreword to it, and I really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you.

You're like Van der White over here. We're going to give away a copy at the end, which will be fun too, and I'm going to have you sign it. But in the foreword, you ended it saying that this book is like financial piece for the next generation. What did you mean by that? Financial Peace was, of course, my first book, my first number one, bestseller. It was also my first book. What year was that? I wrote it in 94, but it hit number one

when we took it with a publisher in 97. Wow. Yeah, when the dinosaurs were on the earth. But that book was, you know, here's a handbook of here's how you're supposed to handle money. Here's the subjects. And it also had the consumer advocate mindset to it. Watching out for them. Watching out for the people who don't know they're getting screwed by all these money companies. have this suspicion we're getting screwed and tattooed by all these people, but we just don't know. We don't fully understand it. I mean, you kind of know this is not good, but no, well, everybody does it, so I got to have it and don't even know what it is and I pay money for it. And there's a lot of that stuff in the financial world. And so this book was kind of a...

You really did a great job. Carrying the torch of that. Yeah, you did a great job of unpacking the rip-offs that are out there and really destroying the mythology, the different lies that people believe about money, particularly money products. Yeah. Which usually is debt products, surprisingly. Well, it can be an insurance product like a life, or it can be the lie of the credit card is going to make you wealthy with your stupid airline miles or something like that, all that kind of stuff that builds into it.

But you did a great job of unpacking that, and you're great. I mean, my favorite thing is snark, and your snark is just, it comes off the pages. We had to get a new font just for your snark font. Yeah. Sarcasm. Snark. Wise cracks. So that released is January 16th.

We're in 2024 now. How do you plan to spend, save, and give in 2024? Do you have any certain goals or just things you're excited about doing in those areas? You know, it's kind of rinse and repeat for us. It's, you know, we've been doing this a long time. Nothing new under the sun. It's everything Ramsey solutions and all the Ramsey personalities and the products and the things we got coming out. So from a business perspective, it's all of that.

Well, a few years ago, you got to give away a million dollars in a day. We did. We did. That was a great personal goal. I don't know how you won up that. Yeah, I haven't since then. Yeah, but I would, you know, I'd like to do some stuff like that again. You know, God's leading is there.

And, you know, it's his money. What are we supposed to do with it? Yeah. You know, we've had a bunch of things under construction. The event center. The barn. The event center, the barn. The everything.

And we've been building on the campus for like six or seven consecutive years. Wow. So it's the first year that we've not. had money going into concrete bricks. And we, to make it clear, we pay cash for everything. Oh, yeah. We do things at the speed of cash. I mean, it's a lot of cash.

It takes longer, and it hurts to see, you know, millions of dollars a month disappearing, but it feels good when that thing's paid for. It's not disappearing. I mean, it's an investment. So now I've got to figure out, you know, what we do with this newfound margin that's there after that. That's exciting. That's a good problem to have.

Yeah, we'll pull together and make sure that we do that. And we'll increase the generosity and probably just, just start doing some other investing. Yeah. And on the first time in a long time, I don't have something under construction. That'll be nice. And then saving goals, do you have anything? I know you like to, if you get like a big check or something for royalties, you like to

sock that away in an investment account, maybe buy some property. Now, what are you thinking for 2024? Will you be purchasing any more real estate or anything big like that? We're starting to look because we've got that extra margin now at some additional real estate. First time in our life, we're not doing any residential. We're doing only commercial And we're probably going to start moving some of our houses That we've got

I don't know 1020 houses We're going to roll those into 1031s and move them towards commercial Over the next few years And is that now how do you talk about the difference Between residential versus commercial as far as You know what's involved and what the margins look like The biggest problem with it is it's a lot more money to buy it It's a bigger price tag

Typically But the commercial is a lot less hassle, tenant-wise. There's not hardly any drama comparatively. And... And... And... Offices in general? Yeah, in the return... Yeah, we've got offices. We've got strip centers. We've got office warehouses. We're looking at building a storage...

Oh, yeah. I don't know if we'll do it or not. But the margins on those things are incredible. They're really good, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. $1.15.15.15. $1.25. $1.15. This is an interesting thing. We both use an investment. pro. We encourage people to have an investment pro in your corner. What are your conversations like

at this stage of the game when you're meeting with your investment professional? Yeah, I mean, usually it's a timing thing of how long am I going to leave the money tied up with him? Because it's a mutual fund thing and am I going to move it out of that into real estate? So what's the, what's the investment horizon? And then based on that, if I'm going to leave it alone long enough, we can do some different things. But if I'm going to, you know, pop back out of it in three or four years and buy a piece of ground or something, then, you know, obviously we're going to choose a different mutual fund at that point. So that's what we're always looking at and looking at the mix. I don't spend a lot of time, you know, really nerding out on the returns or the numbers

because as we teach, we've discovered that really the wealth doesn't come from, you know, the fact that I'm some kind of investing genius. You're looking at every day moving things around. I'm somehow, you know, a day trader of mutual funders. I'm kind of crap like that. The wealth simply comes from putting money in there and leaving it alone and let it grow. There was a funny article I read that was saying the people who had the best returns were dead people because the investments just sat there and they didn't mess with it and they had the highest returns.

I thought that was such a brilliant analogy. That's what I hope to be. Invest like dead people. Yeah. I hope to leave it alone like dead people. Yeah. Keep your hands off of it. That's the plan.

So you've been a baby step seven now for decades, which is what we call build wealth and give. You have no debt, of course, paid for property. after maxing out, you know, your basic retirement accounts, your 401K, what are some other options for people who have done that? What do you do with the rest of your income? Well, we take always a percentage, as you said, and allocate all of our increase in income to additional generosity and additional investing and a little bit to additional lifestyle. It doesn't take much to cover lifestyle. You know, with us, we buy mutual funds, good growth stock mutual funds, and we by real estate. I've got a lot and low turnover mutual funds, so there's no tax implications

because the tax is, the stocks don't sell every year. So it's basically capital gains growth. And that's because you love real estate. But I've been in real estate business my whole life. Some people that are, they're not a fan. My parents owned a company when I was a kid. And so I got my license when I turned 18. So I got my degree in real estate for God's sake. So I love it. It's like the back of your hand. Yeah. And I love, you know, doing things. And I have grown to love building stuff, these buildings, and even this barn and things, and what it does to the value of property when we can improve it with infrastructure and with stuff. So we may do some of that. We may do a little bit of developing, but it's nothing big. I'm not going to get distracted. I love what we

do at Ramsey, and I'm not going to, I'm not trying to become a real stake out. You're not in the weeds like you used to be, and you've got property managers and you're still doing the Ramsey show every day. Every day. Is that the last thing you think you'll keep hanging on to long after you're in the business? The good news is the, you know, the ratings are great when I'm not there. So, you know, we can always do that. Was that a comforting piece when you were like, all right, that's good. If Dave's not there, the show will stay afloat with us personalities. Yeah. Well, it's always been a caller-driven show, which is nice. The callers really create the content, and hopefully we can give them good advice. Let's hope this Tesla makes it up to the barn, Dave.

Oh, yeah, you're really rough. A real gravel-d- driveway in the country. I don't know. You're roughing it now. This is fun. So when did you finish this barn? It was done in March of last year. Well, it looks like Chip and Joanna designed it. It's been beautifully done. I assume you had a little to do with it with the design. Yeah, I mean, there was an architect. But this is impressive.

We were meeting with him and putting it. It's a toy that got out of control. Yeah, but it's worth it. Oh, this is epic. Ooh, I forgot this thing makes some crazy drinks. It's just like an Americana. What do you usually have? You drink a black? Yeah.

That's how we roll. Whoa, that's so cool, bro. There it is. Boo-ya. We have coffee. We have coffee. Thank God for coffee. There's a new breakthrough.

How many cups of coffee a day do you have? One. Just one in the morning? No, I'll drink one on the air. Does this count as two then? This would be three. I have one on the air when I'm doing the show. Tune into the Ramsey show, bro.

Dave's going to be wired up. The day brands will be extra spicy today. That'll be fun. That's good coffee. I don't know how else to say it. That's hitting. Well, thank you for this day. I appreciate the free coffee.

Before we leave the barn, we gotta talk about this place, because it is so gorgeous. It's fun. We ended up naming the farm, Dalhousie Farms, which the Dalhousie Castle is in Edinburgh, Scotland, and that's the Ramsey Castle, just to tie back into that Scottish heritage. That's amazing.

And got the old antique flag to get the heritage going. We've collected, got a huge flag collection from working with the military over the years. Oh, they'll give you as gifts. So flags that have flown over this or flown over that, they send them to us because we worked with the Chappellee and some of the other lead command people, particularly when they're, you know, in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were, you know, we were teaching financial peace university in there. So we had all these flags and these neat, their battalion flags and things like that that the people sent us. And so we framed all those and we put the flag collection. All around this place.

Man, that's so cool. Did you ever want to live out here? Like, man, I just want to live on the fat of the land. Was that a dream? I didn't want to live on the fat of land, but I wanted to build a house on it. But my wife wants to live in a neighborhood. She wants to live in a society.

If I want to live here, I'll be by myself. And so I needed to stay with her. I've seen worse man caves, to be fair. Yeah, if I need to, worst dog houses, if I need to escape, this is not a bad, not an escape mechanism. Well, thanks for giving us a little inside peek. This is what the people want, it's behind the scenes.

Well, this is about as behind the scenes as it gets. Me making coffee and me in the barn. There you go. Let's head back to the headquarters. We got work to do. All right. You want to drive, Dave? I think it would spontaneously combust.

Just based on your attitude towards them. That would cause the fire hazard to increase. I bet your adrenaline is just pumping right now. All right. That's the coffee. Let's do this. So let's get back to it. I love this quote I've heard you say.

You eat enough lobster. It eventually tastes like so. Is there stuff that you used to splurge on that now has gotten almost boring? You're just like, what are those things for you? You know, I don't know. I guess it's anything. Anything that we purchase these days that we think, oh, that's going to be a big difference. Yeah.

Like when you were younger, you'd get that thing for that nice car for the first time. There's a right of passage to it. And now it's like, it's just a car. It's just another nice meal, another nice barrow on, whatever it is. Yeah. I mean, our favorite sports fine dining. But so we're, you know, amateur foodies or whatever, but I don't know if we're even foodies, but we like eating it, right? So the first time you ever had a wonderful chef's tasting menu is, you know, more amazing, more amazing than the hundredth time you did, right?

Yeah. Now, on iced coffee hour with Graham Steffen, they asked you if you would borrow a billion dollars at zero percent interest. If you could guarantee the spread of, you know, five percent or something in treasury bonds. why, and you said emphatically and very quickly, no. No. No? No. What is, what, is, what,

Graham's spot. Why is it so easy for you to turn down opportunities involving leverage? Because you said, and with a lot of, you know, there was no question of like, well, it was just no. And they asked me the same thing. And I, obviously, I, I would never do it. I would just, it would hurt my soul to just have that amount of money sitting out there that I owed, you know? That's exactly what it. That's exactly what it is.

The borrower is slave to the lender. I'm not going to be locked in to where someone else is calling the shots in our life ever again. I've been there, and it wasn't fun. And I was a firm believer in borrowing all you could. I did it. I did everything the book says to do, you know. And it absolutely did not work. It did not bring joy.

It did not bring success. It brought temporary success, but it caught up and then brought failure. It does leverage is a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways. Well, like you mentioned, you've been doing this for decades now, and you don't have to work anymore. That hasn't been the case for many, many years. Why are you still at it? And what are your goals now?

I enjoy it. I love what we do. I love being on the air helping people. I love getting your new book out, helping people with that. I love doing the broadcast stuff. I'll leave this and go to the studio and sit down and start doing an audio book that I'm working on right now. You know, I enjoy the process and I enjoy the results of people's lives get changed. Yeah.

Well, you also run this business in 100% cash, which is mind-boggling to a lot of people that there is not a single credit card being used in this company. It's all business debit cards. We pay cash for buildings. We cash flow everything. It's allowed us to do things other businesses can't do. And even during downturns, like during COVID where people were laying folks off, we didn't do that. The risk is down.

We've got a pile of cash. and no payments. And so the only strain that we had during COVID was if revenues went down far enough that it crossed over payroll, payroll is a big item because we've got a thousand folks we pay. Were there obstacles to building in cash and running a business with cash? What have been the hardest parts? You know, it was earlier. It hasn't been in a while because gross revenues are about $300 million. So if we need to do a $3 million attempt on something, which we did a while, back and it didn't work. We lost the $3 million. It was a bad product that didn't make it to market. And if we need to do something like that, we can afford it out of $300. But, you know, when you've got

revenues of $10 million and you want to do something that's $3 million, you can't do it. Because you could end up having to lay people off because you screwed up, you know, or something like that. And we don't do that. We're not going to put our team's head on the chopping block due to limited cash because we want to take a risk on something. We're okay to grow slow. I mean, it probably could have been 10 times as big, but it could have also been closed. You know, and that's okay. I'm very, very content with the process that we've used. I got to ask, because this is something America has been, they want to know.

Was it or is it a goal to become a billionaire? Now, with the property and all of that, is that something that you're still aiming toward, or is it just sort of a byproduct that could happen or has happened? I mean, it just depends on how you would value the Ramsey Solutions company. what kind of valuation you'd place on it. If you placed a reasonable value, we're probably over that. But it's not relevant because none of it's for sale. So it's not...

It's sort of a hypothetical. It's in real estate that's paid for, and it's in the company that we own and that's already being passed to the kids. So it's not a... It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's not an...

No, it was not a goal. No, it's not a goal. And no, it's not even a milestone I'm maybe yet. Because you can tell I've not even calculated it. So I'm fine. Yeah. Well, you're big on having a face to the brand and having faces because people change people. That's been a really important part for you that we're not just building a faceless product. Exactly. Yeah, we don't want block R, we call it, the Ramsey R talking to people.

We want George talking to people. You know, like when we're putting out a product that is as successful as every dollar, it still needs to have girls' faces associated with it. It still needs to be a person there that's doing that. Yeah. It doesn't need to be a faceless block R. We're not an aggregator of people that are freelancers writing articles. Everybody that writes the stuff, it works on our team, they're part of our family.

And they believe in it. They're part of the Ramsey family. They're living it. They're not. This isn't some guy out there who just thought I can get click. I love that. Well, Dave, before we go, I thought it'll be fun if we gave away a signed copy from you and I. Oh, there you go.

This will be the only copy, Dave, ever signs of this book. Potentially. I don't know. Potentially. Until somebody walks in and asks me to sign one So how about this? If you leave a comment with your money goal for 2024, I will choose one.

Leave your Instagram handle along with it and your goal for 2024 when it comes to money and I will choose one. Send them this book. That's fun. All right, let's do this thing. And you're big on, we do it on the title page here with the Bible verse.

I chose the fruits of the spirit because I think it's more than about money. This book will hopefully lead you toward a character and virtue that is, you know, a guiding principle for it. So I'll sign at the top here, and I'll have you sign underneath there. There you go. All right.

It will prove. We'll hold it up to show this is the exact copy you will get. And the book launches January 60. It has officially been defaced. There it is. Don't try to sell it on eBay. It's worth even less now. But Dave, I'm pumped for this book.

I chose the Vols Orange, very bright. Oh, yeah. Prison orange. It is very, it feels like I've, broke free from prison here, but I'm excited for this. I hope it helps a lot of people, and especially these younger generations falling for these traps, the people who never got financial industry growing up. I hope it helps them. Amen. Way to go, George. Thank you for being on. Millionaires and cars getting coffee, Dave. It was an honor.

And let us know who else you want to see on this segment. Maybe some of the other Ramsey personalities, maybe some baby steps millionaires, some everyday people who followed the plan and did it. So cheers to 2024 and hitting your money goals and building wealth and giving like no one else. Here. Huge thanks to Dave for taking the time to hang out with me today. Some call it a ministry. If you liked our conversation, be sure to check out the Ramsey Show where myself and other Ramsey personalities join Dave live on air to answer your questions about life and money.

I'll link to it in the description below. Make sure to let me know in the comments what other questions you have for Dave, and maybe we can convince him to come back. And be sure to share this video with the boomers in your life. You never know what you can learn from boomers, especially if they're smart with money. As always, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.