George Kamel - Money Expert Reacts to Infuriating Financial Takes

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

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This will come as no shock to you, but I spend a lot of time on the internet. And not just watching American Idol Best of Clips. I'm also watching metal detecting videos, my boy Ken Coleman, and of course, viral money content that I can't help but have a few choice words for. So today I'm reacting to the latest batch of viral money TikToks that will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you question everything, including the state of our great nation. But before we get started, do me a favor.

Hit that like button, hit the subscribe button, and share this with that special someone in your life who genuinely thinks Lionel Richie would send them To Hollywood. We've all got one. Are you going to cry because you've seen Lionel Richie? All right, let's get to it. Tell me that you live in America without telling me that you live in America. I'll go first.

Okay. When I was 18 years old, seven years ago, I took out a loan for my dorm for $14,000. For the first five years, I paid $25 a month towards that loan, then made a $5,000 payment, and since then, the last two years, I've paid $250 a month towards that loan. The loan is currently at $15,000. Okay, here's the TLDR. got a $14,000 loan, made payments on it, and somehow now it's a bigger loan at $15,000. And that is a grim reality for people who didn't crunch the numbers and didn't do the math,

which is most of us at 18 years old when we take out a bunch of loans. So here's the deal. That's because of interest. She was saying she was making a $25 payment every month, which is not enough to even cover the interest on this loan, which is why the loan grew over time. And let's be real. This happens with all types of consumer debt where the interest grows faster than most can repay, and it makes you postpone wealth-building opportunities like home ownership or investing or doing the

job you actually want to do. Now, student loans make me especially angry because of how skeezy these student loan companies actually are. And also, graduates think they're going to earn $100,000 and they end up earning $40 or $50 while their student loan debt is sitting at $80, $90, $100, who knows. And listen, I've been there. I graduated with about $36,000 in student loan debt, and it stunted my professional and financial growth. Maybe physical growth. We don't know. Who knows how tall I could have been had I remained dead free. Get it out of your life, ASAP. Stop making Tic-Tops about it and get about the business of paying it off. Dead Snowball Method all the way. Strong start. Let's see what's next. Mark Zuckerberg wore a $900,000 watch to announce the end of meta fact checks. He did not come to play.

Or did he, because like, remember Mark is a billionaire? So like, how much does a $900,000 watch even mean to him? So Marky's net worth is, $209 billion. It means $1 to the average American. I don't even want to tell you guys. Okay, fine. $1 to the average American is the same as $0.007 dollars to Mark Zuckerberg. Which means, relatively speaking, he spent $6 on that watch. It's honestly like super cheap. Like a swatch is $60. He couldn't have even splurge for a swatch. I feel like it was a big announcement. I don't know that the video was helpful. I guess it was just meant to rile people up

that rich people should not exist. I don't know. But let's acknowledge Mark's glow-up, okay? What did he tell his stylist he was going for with this new look he's got going on? Definitely went from, like, lizard next door to youth conference headliner vibes that maybe also has a new rap album.

I have feelings about it. Why do you care so much? But the math ear is impressive, and it's true. And ratios are important. It's easy to get mad. Oh my gosh, can you believe someone spent a $900,000 on a watch? Well, like she pointed out, that's like $6 in his world. And we've made much stupider purchases with our incomes.

So here's what I want to say. You don't need to make a billion dollars. You don't need to get mad at billionaires because they have nice things. Don't compare yourself to billionaires. That's insane. It will make you spiral. I don't care if my dollar is worth 0.000-0-07 to Mark Zuckerberg, because I don't care what he thinks about my life.

My goal is to hit my financial goals. My goal is not to become a billionaire. I just want to have a great life, have good relationships, have enough money in the bank that I'm not stressing out. So props to Mrs. Dow Jones for breaking it down and showing us that really your spending is relative to your net worth and how much money you have. So it's easy to judge him for buying this very expensive watch that is such a tiny part of his world. It's ridiculous.

So I laugh and I move on and I stick to my, I don't know, $150 Apple Watch that's 19 years old. I'll live. Moving on to the next anger-inducing video, because that's what the internet is for. Let's see if it can make me feel something or make me stop feeling things. Did you guys see this hot take? I love a hot take. What? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about tipping. In fact, I believe in tipping well, especially for exceptional service. But these people have actually said that if you can't afford to tip 30%, then you can't afford to eat out. I'm trying to figure out who these people are actually

trying to help because if millions of people actually took this advice and stopped eating out, I'm willing to bet that would have a negative impact on servers. Yeah, yeah. This is the sort of video that gets made by people whose self-righteousness far outpaces any understanding of basic I'm roasted. I didn't catch the mug, but it said bearded wisdom. I'm here for it. That's good, Nick. Yeah, no, 30% tip as a standard is insane. Now, are there times where it's reasonable to tip 30% for great service? Absolutely. And if you want to do that, that's fine. But don't make it some weird societal requirement that if you're not tipping 30% you shouldn't go out to eat. And by the way, if I'm in front of an iPad, get out of here with this 30. Get out,

no. Don't show me 20% 25. Starting at 20% is wild at a kiosk. If I'm not sitting down or lying down, I'm not giving you a 30%, bud. That being said, I think you should be a cheerful giver. That's what the Bible says to do. But it doesn't say be a pure pre-prose. pressured giver. All right, doesn't say follow TikTok advice. Give out of the goodness of your heart. And if you just want to be an extra generous person everywhere you go, that's great. But don't feel guilted by idiotic videos. Just like Jesus taught us. All right, next up. If you don't have a cell phone, swipe away. This video is not for you. But if you do have a cell phone, let's talk about the top three worst things about cell phones. Number one, not silencing group texts. What are we doing there? Number two,

inspirational wallpaper. What are we doing there? Number three, spending way too much on your cell phone bill. That one's not okay. And that's why I recommend to switch to Tello. Tello gets you the same great coverage as other providers, but plans are as low as five bucks a month, up to 25 bucks a month for the Unlimited Everything plan. And right now, you can get five bucks off the first month of Unlimited Everything by going to tello.com slash George or click the link in the description below. Bye. Wow. Eight and left no crumbs, no notes. Except that handsome guy's wrong about one thing, because this wallpaper has been your boy's saving grace. Okay? On a hard day, This is what I need to see.

But you know what doesn't inspire me? These crappy interest rates you get with a regular old savings account. And that's why I recommend switching to a high-yield savings account, like the one offered by Online Bank Laurel Road, another sponsor of today's video. They've got top-tier APY plus a whole bunch of other perks, like no minimum balance required, FDIC insured, and no hidden fees. So get your money working harder for you by going to this website. Ready? Get ready to type it out.

Laurelroad.com slash George. or if you want to make it easy on yourself, just click the link in the description below. All right, back to anger-inducing videos. Let's see what we got next. Using your debit card that's tied to your bank account might be one of the most ridiculous things you can do. And I'm going to tell you why. Let's dive into the details.

Let's assume you start the month with $5,000 in your bank account. You have two choices. You can choose to charge everything onto your debit card or you can choose to put that all on a credit card. Now, let's assume that your credit card has a billing cycle that goes to. from the first of the month to the first of the next month, and then that payment is due by the 15th of the following months. You have that 45-day period there where you can charge,

and then you've got to pay that bill in full. There's this common misconception that if you put something on credit, you're going to be charged interest, and it's just not true. As long as everything you charge in those 30 days is paid off by the end of your billing cycle or the end when your payment is due on the 15th, you will never be charged a penny in interest. There's other reasons here. You can get cash back, up to 1.5% cash back.

You can get airline points. You can get various rewards with different credit card companies. And you have fraud protection. That $5,000 that's sitting in your bank account will not be touched. Your debit card is not out there for hackers to take and clone and drain your bank account. And then you have one bill. One bill that's due on the 15th of the next month. You transfer that money from your bank account to $5,000 to pay that credit card off in full.

And you're never charged a penny. in interest. Stop using your debit card. I'm going to say stop listening to Steve. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I like the glasses. I like the tie. I like his buttery smooth voice. I don't like what he's saying here. And I understand, yes, if you pay off your credit card every month, you won't pay interest. But that doesn't matter. And here's why. You spend way more on a credit card than you would with your own money, with a debit card, or especially with cash. And he's overinflating the risks of using a debit card. I'm not some all-American bad boy out there swiping my debit card. I'm a normal everyday guy. So here's the deal. Using that credit card could trigger 25% APR for the potential

reward of one and a half percent cashback. And if Steve's advice was so true, then we wouldn't be in $1.2 trillion of credit card debt as a nation. And yes, people know you should pay it off before the month. We all know, Steve, but here's the deal. Humans are going to human. We are emotional beings. We are not Elon's robots. And therefore, I'm going to take the risk out of my life and you use my debit card, which by the way, has fraud protection. Look it up, EFTA, Electronic Funds Transfer Act. And if it has a MasterCard or Visa logo, it's covered by their zero liability policy.

Mic drop. Conversation over, Steve. And that's how it's done. Okay, I'm done with that. That one was anger-inducing. You guys got me on that one. Good job, producers. Serenity now.

Here we go. I make good money, but I don't have money. Does that make sense? Oh. I'm at the gas pump right now. And I never look at the cost of gas, but I know that I can't always afford a full tank of gas. Another example. My wife and I both have cars, but when the check engine light comes on, it might need to wait a week or two to get the oil changed.

Or if a bill comes in the mail, I cannot pay the full amount. but I can probably set up a payment plan so that it never goes to collections. I'm no longer poor. I make enough money that I am no longer feeling poor. We're never hungry. But it's like I'm just another level of broke.

I'm at a convenient level of broke. All right, this one I have a lot of empathy for. This is living paycheck to paycheck. This is the average middle class person who's getting by, but they're not getting ahead. They're just surviving instead of thriving. And so there's a way out of this paycheck-to-paycheck cycle,

but it's going to take a little bit of oomf. You need to be angry at your situation enough to do something about it. Most people that are saying they're living this way have some level of consumer debt in their life. And once you get rid of those debt payments, it frees up that margin to where you can breathe. You can save up that fully funded emergency fund to cover the car repair

or have the sinking fund ready to get that oil change done. and save up and get higher quality things and do the maintenance on those things so that you're not in a constant state of emergencies. So I feel for this person, there is a way out, and it's the reason I wrote my book, Breaking Free from Broke. So if you guys want to check it out,

I'm telling you this is the path out of that paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. I'll drop a link in the description below. I think you're going to find it very helpful. We'd love to end these videos with a little surprise clip that producer Alex has chosen for me, and this is all I know. He said, this should be your new mouse. Let's find out what the heck he's talking.

about. A horse mouse? No way. It's got a little scroll bar. Wow. I gotta know where this, did he make this mouse? And what's up with the cowboy head? And is that a grass mouse pad with a white picket fence around it? All I got to say is that is that's one horse you should not sell. That's one horse I'm looking to buy, my friend. Worth every penny, bro? Okay, that's enough brain rot for one day. So until next time, if you see any, Any good videos out there, send them my way and maybe I can include it in a future video. Like this one, where I shed light on viral money-saving hacks, or click the link in the description to keep watching it.

Thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time.