George Kamel - Reacting To Steve Harvey's Money Advice (He Said What!?)

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

In today's video, I talk about the one and only Broderick Steven Harvey Sr—AKA the TV personality we all know and love, Steve Harvey.  More specifically the 3 billion views he has gotten on his financial content. Estate planning guide Start Your EveryDollar Budget Now! Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys, George Camel here, and today I want to talk about the one or only Broderick, Stephen Harvey, Sr., aka America's favorite game show host, Steve Harvey. Now, this man is way more than just the hardest working mustache and show business. And aside from the viral family feud clips, he's been getting a lot of attention lately for his advice on motivation, relationships, and of course, money. I mean, the man's got lots of it, and when Steve talks, the people listen. He's become a TikTok sensation now with billions of views on his money advice. So today we're going to look at some of those clips and see if you should give these hot takes to cold shoulder,

or see if there's any financial gems hidden up his suit sleeve. What's you got in them sleevy, Stevie, people want to know. But before we see what's up, Stevie Sleeves, make sure to hit that like and subscribe button so we can keep the lights on over here. It is way less fun to make these videos in the dark. See, hit the like button, please. All right, let's get to the clips. Every couple should have four bank accounts. You have the one bank account where both of you put your...

check in and that's your joint account, it pays bills, light, car notes, everything that's the necessity to live. The second account has a savings account where you both agree to put X amount of dollars of that money in it and it takes two signatures to move it. The third and fourth account, she should have her own bank account and you should have your own bank account. And you decide what money comes out of the pot to go that way. She can do it. whatever she want to do, she ain't got to check with you and ask, and you can do whatever you want to do and you ain't got to check with her and ask. And that way, guess what? The bills are paid, you have a roof over your head and a car to drive. You all are trying to save a little

bit of money, and you got, you got to have your own life. Can we talk about the somber piano overlay? I mean, I was feeling some spiritual conviction watching, and I'm not even sure why. It's waiting for the altar call. As you can tell from that clip, the people agree, the ladies featured here, are deeply convinced about Steve's four bank accounts theory, which I get what he's getting out of here, okay? He wants to make sure the couples cover their necessities, they're saving,

and then provides a solution so that you and your spouse have some autonomy to spend on what you want to. And the thinking behind this, I can understand, but the execution, very wrong. Missed it by that much. You see, zero visibility into what your spouse is spending doesn't get rid of your marriage problems.

It just sweeps him under the rug for a little while. And let's face it, there's already too much stuff under the rug. Dust, old pennies, crumbs from a Nature Valley granola bar. Accountability actually makes your marriage stronger, not worse. Plus, it helps you stay away from things like financial infidelity that can start to creep in when your finances are separate. And I get it.

You want to be your own person, you want to be Mr. and Mrs. Independent, but you and your spouse should share everything and work through disagreements and compromise together. I would, however, make an exception for toothbrushes. Please do not share toothbrushes or lufas and falafels. If you need personal falafels that you're not obligated to share, I completely understand. Check out this personal DM, a follower sent me, regarding my stance on combined finances.

We kept our finances separate, and I am 100% convinced that's ultimately what destroyed our marriage. We had no goals together, no accountability to each other, but his poor choices could still hurt us collectively, and I got no opinion about it. I was such a planner, he was such a spender. I bought an entire separate vacation home without even discussing it with him, because it was my money. I now live in that paid-for home debt-free and comfortable, while he's still a little. broke and struggling. So here's my take on Steve's advice. Instead of having four separate bank accounts, here's a simpler idea. Just build your personal spending into a shared budget with your spouse from that joint checking account. And that can be as easy as creating a separate line item in your

budget for each of you. So if you and your spouse disagree on how your spending, instead of turning a blind eye to it and then developing an eye twitch every time they ask you to pick up almond milk at the store, actually have a real life conversation about it. Like married adults. All right, I'm done there. Let's roll the next one. grocery store, if I give you 100 and your change is, you give me change. Whoever's traveling with me, I give them all the change. If it's 20s, 10s, if it's $80 a change, I give it away. I don't want nothing except hundreds because it's the law of attraction. I only want hundreds. That's the largest denomination bill. That's what I attract. So I attract hundreds because I don't want nothing else.

Okay. Law of attraction. Only care. $300 bills and you'll only have $100 bills. Love that. There's something beautiful about this, and it's not just a plum shirt and tie combo, which looks great, Steve, crushing it. But it's the idea of generosity here. It reminds me of an illustration Dave Ramsey uses. He talks about how a closed might hold that money tight and keep it near. But because it's closed, it's not open to receive anymore. And the point both of these guys are making is that a key to financial success is generosity. And I'm all about that. But stay away from my falafels. I'll be generous in other ways. But I'm sure about Steve's approach here in reality. You see, only holding on to $100 bills may be fine

and a great goal if you're already super wealthy. Because for people who have a yacht and a couple homes in Martha's Vineyard, $100 is nothing. But to the rest of us, peons, $100 is a lot of money. That's like 60 hot dog combos at Costco, or any other three items at Costco. Plus, just because you only want hundreds doesn't mean you can put out the vibes and start just stacking Benjamins and they'll start magically appearing in your wallet. I mean, I would love for my lawn to look nice, but simply wishing for fescue is not going to get rid of the dirt patches and the dog poop. There is some work involved. Just ask any dad.

So if you want to start practicing generosity, make it a habit to be a great tipper, giving to nonprofits and organizations you're passionate about, and if you're a person of faith, tithing to your local church. I love to put giving at the very top of my budget. It's the first thing that comes out because it reminds me that money is a tool, and it's not just all about me. It's about serving others. Enough of that.

Let's get to the next one. I'm going to show you how to become a million. now. All you need is to have one thing that you can get $10 for. I don't care if it's cutting hair, cutting grass, painting, babysitting. Just get somebody to give you $10. All I want you to do is do it 10 more times. That's all. You have $100. I want you to do it 10 more times. You're going to have $1,000. What I want you to do is do it 10 more times. You'll now have $10,000, 10 more times. Just whatever you did to make the 10,000, do it 10 more times. You're going to have $100,000.

Here's the trick of tricks. Once you make $100,000, you're going to have to hire a few people. Same thing you did to make the $100,000. I just want you to do it 10 more times. Congratulations. You are a millionaire. Huh? That escalated quickly.

I went from mowing lawns for $10,000 to become a millionaire. After mowing 100,000 lawns. Love the concept here, but basic math might be a good start. I mean, if you think about this, it just doesn't make sense mathematically. So what if it takes you 10 years to make $100,000? Well, if you want to be a millionaire and do that 10 more times, you'd officially be the oldest person alive at 1,000 years old, beating the previous record of 9169.

Shout out to my man with Uzziola. Heck of a run. Heck of a run. Now, I think Steve's sentiment here is great, breaking down big wealth into simple steps. It's just not quite that simple. The real way to build wealth and keep it is to make more and spend less so you have margin to invest and to save. And utilizing the power of compound interest with the stock market and mutual funds and index funds, you absolutely can become a millionaire in your lifetime.

But doing it at $10 a loan, though, that's going to take a lot of years. And next. I told my kids the other day, I said, Let me explain something to y'all. If something happened to me and mama, I want you all to understand. Y'all are going to be around the casket crying because I'm not leaving you everything. I'm just not. I'm going to spend 85% of my income on me and your mama.

You're right. Yeah. Right, right. I'm going to leave about 5, 10%. That's it. The rest of the money, me and your mama going somewhere. We can't go on vacation. No, no, I want to be just with your mother.

It is not what you leave to them that makes them great. It's what you leave in them. If you leave more to them than you leave in them, they will run through everything you left to them. Yeah. But if you leave enough in them, you don't have to leave so much to them because they can go out there and make their own way in life.

Cool. I'm glad you said that. Because now they ain't getting nothing. That's some classic Steve right there, with some wisdom getting dropped by TD. That was good. Now, Steve is spot on here. You don't have to leave all of your money to your kids when you go.

When you, you know, hit the old dusty trail, cross over into that rainbow horizon. I don't know what they call it. Taking Alaska and Cruise. Buy an RV. Expand your shower. Maybe add some handrails on a seat while you're at it. You'll thank yourself later. If you do leave something to your kids, that's great.

I believe that we should be leaving an inheritance to our children's children, as the Bible says. And I'm not just talking about money. It goes way beyond that into character. And the most important thing you can do today for your legacy is to make a legally binding will if you don't already have one. Seriously, please, if you're an adult, you need a will, regardless of what your life situation is. This is just part of the package of being a grown-up.

If you care about your family, you don't want to leave them to fight over your old Beanie Baby collection and the rest of your 401K. Let me make it real simple. I've got a free estate planning guide that will help you cut through the legal mumbo-jumbo and help get you prepared. I'll link that for you below.

All right, we've saved the best for last people, And by best, it may be the worst. Give me a milestone people achieve they can be proud of. Well, one day, I would like to have no debt. That's not going to happen. Debt is okay. OPM, other people's money is how you get rich. You use other people's money, not yours.

That's how you get rich. Okay. First of all, the dude shableness. that kid's dreams. All he wanted was debt freedom, and Steve said, no, that's not a, that's not a dream you should have. You should always want to be in debt because that's somehow a path to wealth. This is part of why America is broke. Because I know, and you hopefully know by now, that debt is not some tool to be leveraged. Okay, the key to building wealth is not other people's money. It's your money. It's your income. That is your greatest wealth building tool. Using other

people's money makes you a slave to them. The Bible says the borrower is slave to the lender. So you've got to get control of that wealth-building tool, your income. And when you have to send chunks of your income out the door every month to make debt payments, you've completely lost control of that tool. I think this comment helps sum it up here. Oh, yeah, Steve is right. I used other people's money to pay for college, buy cars, by a house, by a business, by recreational land. All total, they cost me about a quarter million dollars in interest.

That was then. My wife and I saw the light about 20 years ago, and we have been debt-free since 2016. You see, I never want you to have to learn the hard lesson this guy did. I want you to avoid debt and don't rely on other people's money to fund your dreams. Go fund yourself. Say what? I'm telling you, when you become debt-free, there is no better feeling. You have peace in your life.

You have margin in your budget. You have freedom to do the things you want to do, to work the job you want to work, and it changes everything. Don't believe this lie that other people's money is the path to wealth. All right, listen, the point of all of this is not to bash Steve. I'm a big Steve fan. And clearly he's done a lot of things right in life, and he's super successful. He's a hilarious entertainer, and he's a great guy. But he's not a financial expert.

The way he made his money was by being really talented and hardworking, not by leveraging debt. Yeah, maybe once Steve already had his millions, he might have leveraged some of it to make more, but that doesn't work for most people. And I would never, ever tell someone to do it this way to get rich. The truth is, there's no shortcut to wealth. It's about taking control of your income to have more margin for saving and investing. But you've got to know how to get started and who to trust. So I'll go to Steve Harvey if I want to laugh

or if I want to learn how to grow and maintain a great mustache, which I could use some help. But I'll go elsewhere for solid financial advice. So even if there was a scenario where leveraging debt could help you get rich faster, consider the risk. Debt always equals risk. And more debt always equals more risk.

But when you pay cash for everything, you don't have to worry about that risk and you can sleep easier at night. As always, make sure to like and subscribe if you want to get more content like this. Plus, share this with a Steve Harvey fan in your life or someone who could use some help growing a mustache. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.