George Kamel - Reacting to Financial Horror Stories

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

You can learn a few things from a good scary story, like never run UP stairs when being chased, avoid red balloons, and whatever you do, don’t “split up and look for clues.” Today we look at a few clips from TikTokers who shared how they mishandled money to see what we can learn from these frightening feats of fiscal failure! Links: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/george and get on your way to being your best self. High-Yield Savings Accounts Video (5 Worst Places to Keep Your Money) EveryDollar Budget Deal: I love a good deal, 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

Don't play with us. Don't play with us, Danny. Ever, ever. Nope, not doing it. Not playing around, not a fan of horror movies. Or creepy TV shows or scary campfire stories. Or those giant animatronic werewolf Halloween decorations at Home Depot? Don't like them either.

All right, they give me the willies, the creeps, the hebees, and the Gbies, all four at once. Plus, we have a newborn at home, okay? The last thing I need is something else keeping me up at night. But love them or hate them, you can learn a few lessons from a good, scary story. Like if a guy in a mask is chasing you, don't run upstairs, okay? You see a red balloon floating above a sewer grate. Move to a new town, never go back.

Not worth it. And whatever you do, please, don't split up and look for clues. That never ends well, especially if your cell phone is dead, which it 100% will be, because if it worked, the movie would be over. Hello, 911, yeah, there's a murderer here. Thanks, we'll see you soon. Case closed. And the same goes for financial horror stories.

Okay, there's always something you can learn from someone else's stupid money mistakes, So let's learn, okay? Let's live, laugh, learn, and avoid those. So today we're going to look at a few clips from TikTokers who shared how they mishandled money and we'll see what we can learn from these frightening feats of fiscal failure. All right, that was a bit much.

They're not really that scary, to be honest. But you know what is scary? How easy it is to click that like, subscribe, and share button trio. Seriously, try it. Before your cell phone dies, my phone's dead. Okay, let's get to it. Our first financial horror story comes from Miss Money Martin on TikTok.

Put a finger down if 15 years ago you were really young, dumb, millennial, and you went to Mexico, and you went to a really remote place, and then you ran out of money, but you had an ATM, like an American ATM card, but there was only one really specific bank that took that card. So you had to use your broken Spanish to get a taxi to take you to that place, and you got to that place, and you got the money, and you thought you were all set, and then you went back to the really remote place, And then when you got back there, you realized that you had left your card in the ATM. But the card was still there when I got back there. I wanted to tell that story because Gen Z, you would never know the pain of drunkenly leaving your card in an ATM in a foreign country.

Was I drunk? Did I say that? We'll never know. But anyways, most large banks these days, Chase Bank of America, Wells Fargo, offer cardless withdrawals. So I think that's amazing. And I literally just learned this today. Did you know that this exists? Okay, that's a real one. Okay, traveling can be disorienting, especially if you are under the influence.

So one recommendation, maybe don't travel and unknown parts while inebriated. That's for starters. Number two, don't go over budget, which she clearly did. She did not prepare financially for this trip and having enough cash on hand, had to go to this weird ATM. So plan ahead, do your research, get the cash you need.

And I'm glad to know about this, cardless ATM situation. Thank you for that financial horror story. We will all try to avoid it. And I hope you had a nice time in Mexico 15 years ago. All right. It's 2023. Hot girls don't gatekeep. So I want to share with you guys the biggest financial mistake that I made last year. So up until last year, I had a Bank of America savings account. I was always taught, you know, put away a chunk of money from every paycheck into a savings account for emergencies, yada, yada. But no one tells you that Bank of America, a regular bank savings account, sucks. You get 10 cents of interest, and, you know, I just thought that's how it was until I saw actually another TikTok talking

about a high interest savings account. I already have a Capital One credit card. So I was like, oh, this will be easy. I'll just open up a high interest savings account with them as well and kind of keep it all together. You guys, the interest rate on these. savings accounts compared to just a traditional savings account is crazy. I used to get like, I don't know, five cents of interest every month from my Bank of America. And now I'm getting like $40 of interest every month. And if I would have known this sooner, I would have had so much more money. Okay, not quite the horror story you are all hoping for.

But there is some horror and pain and shame and guilt when you realize, oh my gosh, I was making five cents a month. I could have been making a hundred bucks a month in the savings account. So that one is legitimate, and I wholeheartedly agree with the savings part. Don't love the fact that she had a Capital One credit card. Not a fan of credit card. Not a fan of any savings accounts tied to a credit card company. But I like the fact that she's telling y'all, hey, these savings accounts, it ain't it.

And the point of a savings account is not to make money. It's not an investment. But I want you to do as well as you can if you're going to store your money there. And so think about this. As of this recording, I'm getting over 5% on my savings right now, which, you know, let's say, let's dream big, $100,000 in savings. Let's say you're saving for a down payment. Well, that's $5,000 in interest you're going to make in a year for doing nothing.

I did a whole video on my favorite high-yield savings accounts. I will link that video below if you want to check that out. All right, before we get to our next video, I want to give a shout out for our sponsor for today's video, BetterHelp. Listen, sometimes we know what's good for us, but it feels like. like we just can't make ourselves do it. Like, I should just go to bed, but I'm a new dad, and my baby just got a diaper rash, and it looks really red. And sometimes my brain convinces me to check WebMD, and then I click another article and another article, and suddenly it's three in the

morning. If your brain tends to work like that, therapy could help. So your brain works with you, not against you. And sometimes it's just as simple as talking things through and learning strategies to be intentional about doing the things you know you should. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. BetterHelp is flexible because it's 100% online, so it fits your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra charge. Make your brain your friend with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash george today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash George, or click the link in the description. All right, back to the episode we go.

All right, the next TikTok is from at stupid.money. See how stupid it is. So in my last video, I referenced a credit mistake that I made. That was probably my biggest money mistake I've made to date. So here's what it was. So senior year of college, I was living with five girls, and I was in charge of the electric bill. Every month, I would pay it, and, you know, they would Venmo me and whatever. It wasn't a big deal.

Well, the last month, I Venmoed everyone, and some people didn't pay me. And so I only paid part of the bill. And I was like, I'm not going to be held accountable. I'm not going to put in my own money to pay for it. Ha ha, ha, well. So I left college thinking, bye. And only months and months and months later after getting, starting to get collection calls and then not paying that and like ignoring them, did I realize, oh, then my credit score went down and then now it's like stuck there for seven years. So I screwed myself over.

And that was a pretty pricey lesson to learn. All right. The accountant checks out. That is, that's pretty stupid. But a lot of people would find themselves in this situation. They're going, hey, the roommate's got to pay. I'm not going to foot the bill for them. So I'm just not going to pay.

Yes, it can't hurt you financially. Collections can come after you. You can get sued. It's going to affect your credit score. And I'm not one for credit scores, but I don't want you to have a really bad credit score because you mismanage money and missed payments. So what would I do in her situation?

Number one, I would hound those roommates for that money. Money, please. And probably have them send them. ahead of time. As soon as I know what that bill is, which you get this ahead of time in an email saying, hey, your electric bill this month's going to be $111. All right, I'm immediately getting that out there. I'm going to hit that Remind button on Venmo. I'm going to go to Stacey's face and be like, you're going to ventmo me that $24 you owe for your share right now while I'm sitting here. Because if you're going to take on that responsibility, you've got to take on the full responsibility of collecting

payment. All right, next up. These are the worst personal finance mistakes that I made in my 20. Starting first with my college major. Even though I don't regret going to college, I do regret what I majored in because I really didn't do a lot of research about the career opportunities for this major and I didn't really think too hard about what type of careers I'd be interested in

after college ended. I think digging deeper can really help you make sure that the amount of money you're paying for college really gives you a good return. The next regret I have is buying cryptocurrency because I'd already gotten pretty good investing advice before making this decision I never put in more than I was able to lose, but I got got.

This was a really good lesson for me because it taught me that any investing strategy that's promising you that you'll get rich immediately, you need to run to the hills because it's not possible. And just stick to the time-tested investments of index funds and of real estate. Another financial regret was not learning how to budget. So honestly, I just didn't really know anything about budgeting. I had no idea what I was making. I had no idea where my money was being spent. I wasn't tracking at all.

And this left me living paycheck to paycheck, but it also made me feel not in control of my money. So now I don't really meticulously budget anymore, but I definitely make sure every single year I have a plan for how I'm going to spend my money and how I'm going to invest my money and what I estimate will come in. The final bad decision about money that I have

is not paying money into my retirement account. I had no idea what retirement accounts were until I was like 21. But now that I'm older and a little bit wiser, I know the value of investing when you're really young because you really get to take advantage of compound interests. And I feel like if your company offers a company match, you're literally leaving money on the table by not at least investing a little bit into your retirement accounts. And of course, the tax benefits are really nice as well. That was nice. I mostly agree with all of those

financial mistakes. So number one, get a good degree. Don't just choose a degree and stumble into college because it's the next step. Okay, do it because this is what you want to do for. at least a good while because you want to get some ROI on that degree. And one of the ways to get that ROI is to not go into debt for the degree. So get the degree that you can cash flow from the school that you can afford, even if that means starting at community college for two years, transferring into a four-year school to finish in-state wherever. Get the scholarships, do it the right way. Crypto, wholeheartedly agree. I saw this a million miles away and I tried to warn you all about it saying, if you follow the trends, you'll fall for the traps. This is borderline scam. And all of

like, you don't understand the blockchain. I'm like, bro. Truthfully, no one really fully understands it. And we always tell people, don't invest in things you don't understand. Stick to the tried and true methods, just invest in your 401K into IRAs, into real estate, brokerage accounts, you name it. But don't mess with crypto, NFTs, single stocks, all that jazz. The other one, budgeting.

I love that she said not budgeting, but then I didn't love that she said I've stopped budgeting, and now I just planned for the year. I can't even plan for, like, what's happening next weekend. How is she planning a full year ahead with her money? You got to do a budget every single month on paper. I use the every dollar app because I don't like paper, and it makes it super easy to make a plan for what's coming up next month and to stick to my financial goals.

Retirement. That's a big one. A lot of people go, well, I'll just invest up to the match. And even then, that sucks. So here's what I tell people to do, and it works. Get out of debt, get an emergency fund before you invest. Then once you're investing, invest 15% into retirement, into that 401k, that IRA, that will help you become a multi-millionaire.

Now, you'll notice that all of these TikTok videos were from women. And I want to call out that apparently men don't admit money mistakes on social media, because I know they make them. They're just not admitting it and being vulnerable. They're too busy. I don't know what guys are doing posting fishing picks and videos. Be better, guys. We can be vulnerable.

Okay, I'll go first. I once bought a pet ramp on purpose. Yes, I bought an incline plane for my French bulldog, and then I tried to return it to Amazon, and they were like, nah, bro, just keep it. You're in a bad place.

And I went, thank you, Amazon. And that's just really sad. All right, so those were a nice mix of sad, funny, and helpful, which happened to be three of the four words on my family crest. The fourth one is hummus. But it's always nice when you can learn from other people's failures

rather than your own. So I want to say thanks to these TikTokers for being honest and sharing their money mistakes and going first. So here's what I want to know. Post in the comments if you have a financial horror story, a mistake that you want to share

that we can all learn from. Listen, if you tried to count your Sour Patch kids as dependence on your tax return, the world needs to know about it, and also the IRS, because it's not a thing you should do. Not that I would know, okay? We know they're not real kids.

As always, don't forget to like this video, subscribe to this channel, and share it with all the people in your life who are scary bad with money, or scary good, or scary spice. Seriously, if you know her, it would mean the world if you would send this to her.

Thanks for watching. Stay spooky. We'll see you next time.