Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruze and George Kamel - Blind Ranking the Internet’s WILDEST Investment Stories

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

🎟️ Get your ticket for Investing Essentials today! When it comes to money, is boring always best? From everyday internet scams to rare lottery success stories, today we’re blind ranking the good, the bad and the just plain dumb of investing. Next Steps: ·   🎙️ Catch our episode Roasting the Latest Financial and Social Fads (Here to Stay?)! ·   🍸 Follow Smart Money Happy Hour on TikTok: @smartmoneyhappyhour ·   📱 Submit a Guilty As Charged question for Rachel and George! Send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it.  ·   💵 Create a free budget and find more margin with EveryDollar.   Connect With Our Sponsors: ·   Check out the FAIRWINDS Credit Union exclusive account bundle. ·   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. ·   Get up to 40% off the exclusive bundles with code SMARTMONEY at Cozy Earth.   Today’s Happy Hour Special: 🍾 French Blonde Recipe By: Join Jules 2 ounces fresh grapefruit juice 2 ounces  Lillet Blanc 1 ounce gin  1/2 ounce elderflower liqueur 3 dashes lemon bitters   Instructions: In a cocktail shaker, add all ingredients. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a chilled coupe or Nick and Nora. Garnish with a grapefruit slice!       Explore More From Ramsey Network: 💰 George Kamel 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to money, is boring always best? Today, we're blind ranking the good, bad, and just plain dumb of investing. Now, you couldn't have done it yourself. I could have learned. I know chemicals. My life is flashing before my eyes. This is going to trigger Jonathan. It's about my pool.

Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz. I'm George Camel. And this is Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers, George. Cheers. It's delightful. Well, this is the show. show we're two friends who happen to be money experts talk about what you're talking about.

So everything from pop culture, current events, and money. And today, before we get to the content, let's talk about what we're sipping on. It's a French blonde. Yeah, it's delicious, actually. Didn't come up with the name. It's not a blonde drink by any stretch, but... Could be. It's tasty, refreshing, delicate, much like me.

Stick around to the end. We'll give you our rating and reveal the cost per glass at the end of the episode. I like that we reveal it. Like, it's something people are waiting with baited breath. reveal the cost of credit. Tell me, is it $3 or $4? I know that. Okay, so I know you're not on Reddit, Rachel. I know. I like to go on there. I find it to be the most honest, anonymous, worst people of the internet. My question is, I've been on it before. Okay. And I got on it recently to look up something. I can't remember what it was. And I kept asking about the app. Do you have the Reddit app?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. So you are committed. I'm committed. Okay. But here's what I like about it. It's people being brutally honest because they're anonymous. Yeah, but isn't it just kind of like I get to be mean to feel good about myself? They're not always mean. I mean, there's subreddits of things people enjoy. So I'll go on there like, I'll search a coffee maker followed by Reddit

to see people's real thoughts about it. Okay, that's fair. Because I can't trust Google and Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that's fair. Yeah. But I once saw someone tell Reddit, their investing strategy was based on the phases of the moon. Oh gosh, well.

It about sent me out of orbit on that one. That's not good. Yeah. Out of orbit, face of the moon? I got you. Not into orbit. Not into orbit. Out of orbit.

Already in orbit. That's how the Earth works. Yeah. If your retirement investing is around because you're a Capricorn, probably not. Great. Isn't the Horscope where you're born,

when you're born, but also like there's like deeper levels? Like we're a tortoise, I think. Yeah, we are. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what that means. Because it's like,

you're stubborn and handsome. I'm like, okay, sure. Whatever. Yeah, I don't know it well, but teach it so. I just think anyone that says it's based on the phases of the moon, I just,

you know, I got questions. I'm not making financial decisions based on a waning crescent. I'm not either. Don't you love a waning crescent? It's been a long time since I said that out loud. I'm more in the clouds these days. Cumulus, you know what I mean?

Like these like... What about a nimbo cumulus? Often forgotten. Oh. Yeah. That's a... Yeah, we're deep in it. Well done, George.

I once got a shout out by my local meteorologist. No, you did it. Kevin Lamanowitz, Fox 25 News, dead of Massachusetts. Because you wrote into him? like send in your tweets and I was like, I want to get on air. And I sent it in. I said, shout out to cumulus clouds and he read it on air. Oh my gosh. It was one of the greatest days of my life. I love it. That's the original influencers was local meteorologists. Okay, you know what's funny. We had a local meteorologist come to the kids' school before they broke out for summer,

right? So they were like still in school. And she taught the kindergartners all about tornadoes. So my son now is educating me on like what EF3s are and all this stuff. And he thinks that, yeah, he said, I don't want to live in Texas. There are too many tornadoes there. He's got a good point. Don't worry, Charles. We're not moving to Texas. Yeah, local meteorologists, they have a pool with the heart.

And they can always be wrong. It's what I wanted to be growing up because I was like, I can be wrong and get to keep my job all the time. Great. Yeah. Sign me up. I'll take it. Pointed at a green screen and go, yeah, looking like some cumulus clouds today. The cumulus clouds are coming in.

The moon shape. Anyways, we're not basing our investments on the weather, the moon, or gravity, all on just knowledge. Knowledge is helpful. That's the key. And investing, it's full of high, highs, low lows. You've got to ride the roller coaster, as we say. But remember the Martha Stewart scandal of the early 2000s? Is that ringing any bells for you?

Yes, it does. Yeah, and I think there was a documentary recently about I kind of want to watch it. But it was like insider trading stuff. Yes. Right? Is that what she went into doing for? None of us had heard of that, really, until Martha. I feel like she popularized it for better and worse.

Yes. Wasn't there like a big Ponzi scheme, though? I guess that's not insider trading. Let's see. I got the deeps here. In late 2001, Martha sold nearly 4,000 shares of Mclone Systems, which was a biotech company at the advice of her broker. And her broker noticed the company's CEO had suspiciously sold all of his shares.

So that's a tell. Something's going down. So the next day, the company announced that its cancer medication was not granted FDA approval. and Martha avoided $45,000 in losses. In 2004, she ended up serving five months in prison and five months of house arrest, which $45,000. For $45,000? I was like, no offense, Martha, but do better.

If you're going to go to prison, it's go like seven figures. Yeah. I'm surprised they put her in prison for $45,000. I don't know why. I feel like they'd have bigger fish to fry. Yeah, I mean, I feel like Nancy Pelosi hasn't gone to prison and she's done far worse. So what's while, George, about our job is we hear

the most unhinged financial stories when it comes to investing specifically. Some real dumpster fires in there. Some scams and everything. And you're like, what is going on? We also hear some success stories that are kind of out there too, right? We hear kind of the run in the mill, if you will, ones. Then you hear some. You're like, wow, that's out of left field.

But it worked for them. That's great. So we're going to go through all of them. We're going to go through the dumpster fires and a couple of... From the boring to the exciting. Yeah. And then some good examples. Yeah.

And sadly, there's far more ways to do it badly. than there are to do it well. Yeah. Doing it well is actually really simple, but you're often distracted by all the noise, the glitz, the glamour, the trends. Of everything else going on. Okay, so we're going to do a little blind ranking

and with some real life investing stories from the internet. One being the best, five being the worst. Okay, so we have to just rank it as soon as we hear it. Yeah, when we hear it, we're going to just, and I guess we have to agree. We've got to be on the same team, George. All right.

We got our little board here. Oh, I thought you were going to like a hands-in kind of thing. Oh, yeah, team. Go team. Well, for 99% of Americans, the boring, simple way of investing is the way to go. So later, we're going to do a round of sort of an explain investing like I'm 5 to show you what we mean. So stick around for that. Yep, absolutely.

But when it comes to your money, you do want your money placed somewhere that you trust, right? And there's banks and credit unions all over the place. But as we narrowed it down at Ramsey, we found that Fair One's credit union is the best. Not only the people that run it, that started it, I mean, they are incredible. George was actually a smart bundle for our listeners. You get a no fee checking account, up to 10 high yield savings accounts, and the debt as normal beware debit card, which we love all together for our listeners. So again, I think there's like a passiveness to our banking. Like it's like sometimes you get comfortable. You've had the same bank for a decade. Yes. So add fair ones to the mix and see

the difference. Get that smart bundle. You got the high yield, which is far more than you get in the average savings account, which is like less than half a percent. Absolutely. You can do better with your money. So go check it out. Fairwins.org slash Ramsey is the place to go. All right. First up, we got a Bitcoin scam, George. So. I remember it well. Oh, this was a call in the Ramsey show. Yep. To you and Jade were hosting the Ramsey show about her husband's Bitcoin investments. So it was a $250,000 in business loans, $100,000 in credit card debt and $274,000 in a heat lock. So that is $624,000 in debt trying to mine his business.

Yeah, it was a crypto mining business. And I think it was this. Oh, that was the business, was that? Yeah. This is what she said. It was kind of a game of telephone. She's like, he told me that it was all because of this crypto mining business. I think he fell for some sort of like scam where it was a mining business opportunity to mine new bitcoins, which is, you know, how you can make a lot of money.

money, but it takes a lot of effort, know-how, energy. And so he kind of scammed his wife in the process, because she found out about all this. Yeah, $624,000 in debt in order to do this. I feel like you've defrauded your wife at that point. Oh my gosh. Could you imagine $100,000 in credit card debt? Come on, dude. The question is, like, do you think your marriage could move forward after something of that scale? I wasn't sure theirs could. Like, it wasn't my decision. but I was like that is a gigantic, you know, loss of trust. A breach of trust. It could bankrupt them.

Like, there's just a lot there that I was like, yeah, that's hard. This is beyond just, and I'm sorry. Right. No, yeah. That upends your entire life. That's like we're losing the house. Yeah, because of the mining.

Okay, that's pretty bad. Where would I rank that? Should we do number four? I think there could be something worse in here. I don't know what could be worse based on the dollar amount and the financial infidelity that occurred within the marriage. And the fact that's Bitcoin. So I don't know what's coming, but...

What would you go? Four or five? I feel like it could be a five. You think it's the worst in here when it comes to? I'm willing to go four to make you happy. Nothing matters. So let's just... We'll make it a four.

How about that? It's not really stressed about this. I would like to see your handwriting. I have terrible handwriting. That's why I want to see it. That's exactly why. My gosh. If you had good handwriting,

then it's just a brag. I have bad handwriting. But mine is also terrible, so. I'm putting it at four. Okay. Next up, we have, woman loses life savings in crypto scam. Oh, another crypto.

I'm seeing a trend here. Tell me about it. The FBI identified 33 total victims of investment fraud scam. So far, the confirmed victims have lost a combined total of nearly $4.9 million. Worse.

Number five. This is number five. That's across 33 people. So if you did the math, Per person. It's still a lower amount. One woman responded to an unknown number in November of 2023. First mistake, ladies, and gentlemen.

They're calling. I'm glad to go to voicemail. Her new friend, quote, unquote, convinced her to share her personal info and open an account at crypto.com. Oh, no. Thanks, Matt Damon. She lost more than $663,000 in total savings. So on a dollar amount, she lost more. Okay, did they say hold she was? Sorry. My guess is...

Elderly, which is worse. some crypto bro whatever make your stupid decisions in your 40s and 50s but when you're an elderly person that is a victim that's elder abuse I know it's rude to say anyone past 60 is an elder

but that's just what it's called that's not my words is that I was 65 is there a difference because Dave Ramsey is 65 would you call him an elder is he elderly to you? No

that took you way too long to answer you can't Can't have a five-second gap. You know, it's funny, though. It hit me the other day. I think I was on the show with him when I realized, like, he could be pulling money out of his 401k right now.

Oh, yeah. Because he's past 59 and a half. I forgot about that. But I was like, you could start pulling money. He's almost at full retirement age for Social Security. As if he's going to need it, but still. My gosh, when he gets his Social Security check, I cannot wait. What's he going to do with it?

I think we should just take a picture and put it on the Internet. That would be fun. Dave Ramsey's first Social Security check. Like first day of school pick? That would be hilarious. I'm sure he'll be cool with that. Yeah, I think this is number five. Don't you?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about dollar amount so far, but just the sadness of it. That's a pretty wild scenario, though, to answer a call from an unknown number, give all of your personal info, and hand over three quarters of a million dollars. Let's don't do that, people. Let's don't do that. Not good. Yeah, but also your personal information being online,

George, is not a good thing either. That's another path to fraud, scam, spam, fishing attempts, all of that. And that's why we love Delete Me Around Here. They're a service that actually goes in to these data broker websites. They'll remove your info and keep it gone. And there's hundreds of these data broker sites they'll look out for to make sure that your info stays safe. Yeah, and it's actually real people in their security department doing this, which is what I love. And they're doing it over and over and over.

So you don't have to go back and keep checking these websites. like they are scanning it constantly. It is worth it in 2026 because of how much we use the internet and how much our information is online. So Delete Me is wonderful. And your family's information. Now I've got young kids too. I'm worried about them and their digital footprint.

So it's a great way to stay safe. Old home addresses are out there. Phone numbers. Your relatives' names. Like all of it. There's so much out there. So getting it wiped clean, so key. Very helpful.

So go check it out for yourself and get 20% off their annual plans at join deleteme.com slash smart money. All right. Next up is a lottery success story. You don't hear those two words together. Lottery and success. Yeah, we're going success here. All right. So Tim Schultz won the $28 million power ball in 1999.

He retired a multimillionaire at age 21. Whoa. He was like a kid, Tim. And he claims that one choice paved the way for his success. Dada-da-da-da, his financial advisor. That was the choice that paved the way. Okay, got it. Perfect. Because he said, I had no idea what to do with this money, right? $28 million just landed in a 21-year-old's lap. Wow.

And his financial advisor, yeah, helped pave the way to actually it being a success story. The most shocking part is a 21-year-old went, I'm going to reach out to a financial advisor instead of how many Lamborghinis can I get? Can I buy? What kind of houses and vacations can I take. I know. Wow. What a legend. I want to know where he's at today. Okay, if he was 21 and 99, if you're doing the math at home, that puts them at, let's see, 78. 88, no, he was 21. No, sorry, 78, 78. He was born in 1978.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's what I was getting at. I'm so sorry, yes, yes. I was trying to think of how old he is now, like a where are they now situation. The dude's almost 50. 40, yeah, I was going to say 40, what would that be 47? 47 years old. And he said, and I quote,

I had no idea what to do with that kind of money. I didn't want to become another lottery winner statistic. Good for you, Tim. We love to hear that. We love that. Oh my gosh, $28 million in the positive. Where do we rank that one? You got to wonder how much wealth he has now.

Okay, I feel like this has got to be a number one for me based on the level of wealth he is built. Age and what he did with it. I mean, that was 27 years ago. Yeah, and I bet he's doing great. Which, if it doubles every seven years, if it's just been in the stock market, I can't imagine how much it is.

Nobody's living on some of it, though. Maybe. But how much you really need to live off of? Yeah. You take some of it by a house and invest the rest. But even if he lives off a million a year, which is a pretty insane salary, he still has 27 million invested. Yeah, that's crazy. That has doubled every seven years.

I love that. Well, for those of you who want to learn more about investing, we actually have a virtual event that Dave Ramsey and I are doing called Investing Essentials, happening September 1st and 2nd of 2026. So if you're watching before then, join us. it's going to be a good time. You can watch from anywhere. Dave is going to unpack his playbook for investing in wealth building. We're going to drop a link in the description and a QR code as well. This is a first for us, I think.

Should we do a Vanna White QR code? Oh, take your phone out. Do a little snap. I don't know where it's going to be, so don't make me look bad. A lot of snap. Over the screen. I'm going to point everywhere just in case. Where it's going to be?

That don't tell me these things. So good. Okay. Yeah, lottery success story. What do we say? I'm going number one for this. I don't know. And you love the.

I like extremes. You do. Okay, do it. Do you feel bad about that? No. Okay. I think that's good. I don't think there's going to be a lot of success here.

Tim Lodry. What do you think about my handwriting? Yeah, let's see. Oh, yeah. We're about the same. Okay. I heard of some mms in the crowd. I know my girls in their yearbook at the end of the school year.

A lot of their teachers and old teachers, you know, library. Everyone, like, wrote in it. That's sweet. They all have beautiful handwriting. Oh, the teachers do? Yes. I, like, looked, I was like, man. That's one thing I never got, George.

It's one of those random things that, like, it's not like that helpful in life, but it's, I wish I had beautiful handwriting. When I wrote, like, thank you know, you're just like, oh, it's just sad. Yeah, nobody wants a thank you note from a major. And it looks like I rushed it, and I really didn't. It's just bad handwriting.

Yeah, well, the size just kind of just moves and ebbs and flows. You go from very large font to very small font, and the kerning, just the spacing between the letters is bothersome. Not a care in the world. elderly takes up most of it and then woman just sort of squeezed in there if you want to just zoom into that with a sad face

I have good spacing visual spacing it's very hard yes you went to public school do you know how many poster board projects I did were that's the case it was on this and I was like oh crap

poor Dave and Sharon how many poster boards do they have to buy before you could get it right I can't imagine I'm very have an abundance mentality at the beginning. And then it just... We got plenty of space.

We're good. I imagine there's a lot of late-night CVS funds for poster board. And the Ramsey household. And the Ani Oakley Project in third grade is fine. Bless it. It's fine. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Next up is investment property fail. Okay, you ready for this? A guy called The Ramsey Show and purchased a short-term rental property in 2024. And he said we were trying to build generational wealth, get tax write-offs, all the things. but now he's bleeding $3,000 a month because he's upside down on the property. And so he had a five-year pre-payment penalty on his DSCR loan.

I was on that call. I said, avoiding taxes is a terrible way to, quote-unquote, build wealth. So it was like, just because you can write off taxes doesn't mean you should make this monumental financial decision where you bleed money. And it was because his tax pro was like, dude, you should get a rental property.

Because you can write out this tax is and do all this, yeah. Not thinking, can he actually ROI on this decision? And he couldn't. So we told him to sell it, and I don't think he was super into that advice. He didn't like it. I think he was happier to take the $3,000 a month loss on it than to sell it. That's a great line, though, George, of just do not base your investing on saving taxes, right? Yes.

And we talk about that even with paying off the mortgage. where we're like, hey, pay off your mortgage, but a lot of people are like, yeah, but if I keep it, I get the right off and all this stuff. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, people like, they try to use the tax system to like make money. Don't make your money, pay the taxes,

and like just keep on moving. Just keep on moving with life. But when you try to co-mingle them and like play the game, you get stuck in this crap. And don't listen to your tax pro for investment advice. Like use him for tax advice. Yes. But then go to an investment professional to say,

hey, is this a good investment my tax guy said to do it for the write-off? That's right. And hopefully if you have a good investment professional, they would be like, that's a very short-sighted way of looking at it. Yes. That's right. That's right.

That's so good. So, yeah. That one hurts. I mean, you're bleeding $36,000 a year. Just because of the stupidity, I may go three. Right? It's got to be the next worst thing on the list. I think you should write it down.

I want to see where this goes. Let's see if you can use your spacing more wisely. I'm so nervous. That's a lot of words. I just asked you to write. I know. Yeah. Okay.

Did better. That's really nice. It's a little up and to the right, but that's optimistic. Yeah, and you know, I like when I kind of like bring in a little cursive. Yeah, you do have a weird... At the end. When do you weave it in? I don't know.

No. Just that, well, let's end with a little... Oh, man. That's good. Well, one investment that I do make is when it comes to good quality products that I use almost every day. Pajamas. That's a non-traditional investment. Robs.

Yes, loungewear, all of it. And cozier. Just the cream of the crop, George, so good. And it's worth the investment pieces. Like there's some things I'll go cheap. I will, always. And you guys know that about me. And then some things like, no,

it is worth buying quality products because I use them day in and day out and I love them. And so, yeah, man, everything with cozy earth, I do. Everything I've bought from them, I love. Yeah, I mean, a lot of clothing in the past I've bought, and then I'm like, I'm not going to wear this. The quality's lost.

It went to the wash one time and it's toast. And cozy earth, everything is helpful. up from the sheets to the PJ sets. I wear the clogs every day, as you know. I can't stop to. I've never used the word clog in my life and now I use it all the time. And it's in your bundle because we have bundles now, you guys, like we made within cozy earth and you actually get 40% off if you choose the Rachel bundle or the George bundle. So I have Lux bath sheets, which are basically large towels. Gigantic. Wonderful. The bamboo knit pajamas that I was talking about and the bamboo stretch neck kimono robe that I wore today this morning getting ready love it love it

and I've got the clog the PJs you know short sleeve tea and short set and the calf sock four pack so go check it all out at cozy earth.com slash smart money and you'll get 40% off those bundles and this is a limited time offer so get yours while they last I imagine they're getting bought up because everybody wants to be like Rachel I imagine you're winning if it was a competition we should see more Rachel bundles winning come on ladies it's like QVC Help me. Right? He's like,

we're sold out of the Rachel bundles. I don't know. I don't know. We're sold out. That's great. All right, George. The boring 401k success story. All right.

We love these. We hurt these. These are our favorite. We love a boring success story because usually success stories are the boring ones. You rarely get the flash in the pan, even though our number one is a lot of winner, which for sure is a flash in the pan. The numbers are bigger on that one, I'm sure. Yep. But this actually came from credit.

Should you read this? I feel like I should. This is like your world. I guess I represent. the Reddit community at large now for better and worse. One Reddit user says, quote, I started investing last year, 10 years later than I should have. I make less than the median household income from my region doing something I am passionate about. I'm up $50,000 from zero dollars across my retirement portfolio since May of 2024. The best time to start investing is years ago. Second best time is now.

Oh, I like that. Yep. I love this. You know, I mean, the progress that he has made is a Yeah, modest income, supporting a family. And he says, I know I'll thank myself later for making some sacrifices now. That's what it's all about. It is so true. When you think like a 20, 30, 40-year decision, it's really hard to have the discipline and delay gratification to put a dollar away knowing you're not going to touch it for decades. You're not going to see it. Remember those old time capsules?

Yes. You do in like school? For sure. When you did those, you were like, well, I guess I'll be long gone by the time someone digs this up. It does feel like it goes into a black hole. Like when we do fund our retirement and stuff, I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah. I feel like we're not going to see it for forever.

Well, it's wild, George, you and I. I mean, we're about to hit 40 here soon. Don't remind me. I mean, and so, our life is flashing before my eyes. It's going to be quick. Like, I do think time goes faster and faster and faster. So we're going to see it soon. And you've been investing longer than me.

You got the stuff earlier being, you know, a Ramsey child. I didn't get it until, what, 20? I started here when I was 23. I started investing by 24, 25. That's really good, though, George. That's great. So 25 around there. So it's been over a decade.

12 years now I've been investing in the Ramsey 401K and into IRAs and all these things. And it's really cool to see like a decade into it where you're at. I know, the progress. Getting to that first like six figures, like getting to $100,000 invested is really difficult. But getting to the next $100,000, you're like, oh. It goes so much faster. You start to watch it all compound. Like it starts to work.

Yeah, compound growth. Crazy. Wild. I love it. So it is. But that's the boring stuff, you guys. Those Roth IRAs, 401Ks, the consistency.

I feel like our ranking is great. That feels like a solid number two. The lot of winner, we loved him. I mean, you gave it, you make 20. And dollar amount, if he's got hundreds of millions, that's a number one slot. I'm trying really hard to write this. I'm going to see like what real effort for you was.

I wouldn't say it's like amazing. That's better. That's better than your top one. Thank you. A little less rush this time. We're getting better. Okay, so let's go over our rankings here. We have number one slot the lotta winner who,

28 million back in 99 and used a financial advisor. The person with the boring 401K, the numbers are less impressive, but the fact that they've been able to do this on a modest income, see steady gains, that's awesome. Then we have the investment property failure. He's losing $3,000 a month. That one hurts, but you can sell it and sort of get out of that.

Then you have the Bitcoin scam, where this woman's husband was over $600 grand in debt because of some mining opportunity. And finally, our elderly friend. Our elderly woman. And 23 other people were 33. What did it say on there? Yeah, it was like $4.9 million lost among 33 people.

And she was one of them, given her personal info, and almost three quarters of a million dollars. Yeah, don't do that. Even when the post office texts you, still, don't give out your info. I don't think they text people. They did. Oh, yeah, no, the real one doesn't. The real one.

The one that says it is. The fake ones. text you. Do you know my people I've saved because of that? I still get DMs that are like, thank you for sharing your story. And I'm like, you're welcome. You know what happened though? I got, uh, I'm not going to call it blackmailed by my local USPS, but they wouldn't, so I moved. I moved homes. Sure. And for some reason, I had a subscription box coming to the old house. Okay. And so they wouldn't deliver it, even though I had mail forwarding on. They said, no, you have to come get it at the post office and pay $12 in charges. No. No. No.

Yes. So I literally had to fork over my 12 bucks to get my own package. Why? Because they all like, because of the sorting. Yeah, the address was wrong and they're not like, we're not going to ship it for freed a couple miles down the road. Do you get cards from anyone in the mail? My wife's grandmother still says beautiful handwritten cards. She does. Just like cute greeting cards for no reason. For no reason, not for birthdays.

No. She'll do birthdays and Christmas, but also just like on a whim, she just loves sending a little greeting card. I love that. I love that. Like she thought of us. Saw a little cute dog on it and just wrote a little message. Winston's grandmother and his mom still send birthday cards. Wow.

And I get notes in them. Money? Yes. I do. Let's go. Are you going to be the grandparent that sends money? Well, if I go off the Ramsey side, no. They don't buy anything.

Oh, they don't get, oh yeah, I love my parents. Y'all are wonderful. But they don't get their birthday gifts now. I mean. Okay. Yeah. For the kids and stuff, I don't know. It's just not a thing, not a big thing.

Winston's family, very much so. It is like very... It's a big deal to them. Yes, yes. So I don't know what side. I am more non-sentimental. I lean more on the Ramsey side, naturally on things.

I want to be more sentimental. Wow. So I don't know. Who knows? What do you think you'll be? I take my grand girls to, like, get their nails done. More experience-based versus just straight cash. do? I just think a kid loves cash. Yeah. Yeah. I just saw comedian John Mullaney for his kid's birthday

party, like a four-year-old. He put a dollar. He did these like, you know, the little goodie bags for each kid, 30 kids. He got all this random stuff, but then added a dollar bill into each one. Kids went ballistic over a dollar bill. And I went, you know what? I'm going to start doing that in my kids' goodie bags. And the parents are going to like, where did this come from? Sput a dollar in. Like I put a dollar in your goody bag? Yeah. I did. One up yourself parents. You're welcome. You're welcome. Wow. That was fun. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about investing, though, because all these examples were extreme, pretty much, except for our 401.

Our boring one. Yeah, so let's talk about investing like you're five, okay? I'll do that in chat, CBT sometimes. You're going to explain it like I'm five. Not investing four or five-year-old. We'll say to us to the listener or watcher right now. Okay. Don't be condescending. But this is my favorite thing in chat, GBT. If there's a very complicated subject matter, I love to say, talk to me like I'm in kindergarten.

and it like restates it and you're like, thank you. That makes sense now. Yes. I should try that more often. Oh, I love it. It's like my favorite feature. Especially for things I don't care about, like astrology.

I'm like, hey, explain like I'm five. 100%. If there's like some theological thing that I'm like, I'm like, okay, just explain it to me like I'm five. Like, let me see what this is. Explain egalitarianism like I'm five. There you go. Absolutely.

Perfect. And it will. Okay. So let's do investing like that. Okay? You just tapped it in chat, TBT. You know, like explain the Ramsey way of investing like I'm five. here we go.

How do we do this? Okay, think, think, think. Let me just say to start investing, we want you to be completely debt-free and have three to six months of expenses saved in the bank for your emergency fund, okay? Free requisite. Yes. And then you're going to start investing 15% of your income into retirement. So, good example. If you make, let's say, a household income of $100,000, gross income, 15,000, that's 15%, should be going into these retirement accounts.

The reason is there are great tax advantages when you invest into a retirement account, especially if it's a Roth account, which means you're using money after taxes, so you don't get a tax deduction come tax time, but that money then grows tax-free with compound growth, and you can take the money out tax-free once you're actually retired. Which is amazing because like we were saying earlier, so much that's going to be in that retirement, especially if you start early, is going to be mostly growth in that account.

So if you don't have to pay taxes on the growth, it's wonderful. after-tax money. And we have kind of a formula when you think about 401Ks and Roth IRAs or traditional IRAs, but all of that are the main buckets of retirement investing that people use. And so just remember the formula. Match beats Roth beats traditional. So in a perfect world, you're going to go up to the match and you're going to say, okay, if my company matches 3%, 4%, 5%, go up to the company match, whatever percentage is left of that, that 15% that we tell you to invest, go over to your Roth IRA, go ahead and fill it up. And if you haven't hit your 15%, you can go back to your 401k and put money in. But that formula is very helpful

as you're prioritizing what to invest in. Now, once you are doing that and your house is paid off and your kids college is funded, that's baby steps five and six, you're on the baby steps seven, which means at that point you just continue to invest and build wealth and be very generous. And that's where you can go beyond retirement investing, really at that point. After your house is paid off is the big thing. You might be investing 20, 30 percent of your income. And that might mean you max out your 401ks and IRAs. And you can move on to non-retirement investing, which is called a taxable brokerage account. What just means it's not a retirement account. You don't have the penalties that are involved with taking money out of a retirement account early. And then we haven't

talked about what to invest in because that's an important caveat. People always want to know, okay, just because you put money into the Roth IRA does not mean it's invested. That's right. You have to go the next step to invest it. It's usually just sitting in this sort of settlement fund. So it's just like a savings account basically until you actually invested into the stock market. And so there's a lot of things you can invest in in the stock market. The simplest way to think about it is you want something called a mutual fund or index fund, which is a giant group of stocks like 90 to 200 companies or more where you own partial ownership of each of these companies. That's called a share. Yes, versus the opposite of that would be a single stock, right? You put all your money in Apple stock,

or you put all your money in Tesla or whatever it is. These index funds and mutual funds have all the companies you've heard of. So massive companies all together. So if one of them kind goes down, that's okay because majority of them are probably up. Because over the course of the stock market, when you look at the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones, over the course of time, it looks like this is the chart. But it continues to go up over time. The American economy continues to grow. maybe some dips in the market, absolutely. But over time, it's going to grow. And that's what's important.

That's why we have the confidence that we do with investing. There's a lot of fear around it. People are scared of it. But here's the deal. It's like, I mean, even from the biggest life events in our time, right, of everything from the housing market crash, you know, in 08 or September 11th or COVID, like any of these big times. Yes, Y2K, all of that. You'll see some dips, but even past all of that.

it's surpassed it and people are making a lot you're making good money especially the last couple of years in the market yeah so investing is for the long term so if you're going to invest don't touch it leave it alone never jump out of the market and jump back in we always say that the only people who get hurt on the roller coaster are the ones who jump off early so do not do that and if you do that you'll see over the course of time you can use our investment calculator we'll drop a link in the description just type in hey i'm going to put in a hundred bucks a month from 35 to 65, what could happen? You will be shocked because it's not about the amount you contribute. It's about the time that money has to grow.

And that one example, George, that's just $1,200 a year. Yeah. Right? Which, again, we're telling you to invest 15% of your income. So it should be way more than that at that point. But you can see the power of it with just $100 a month. Like $1,200 bucks a year. It's amazing what it'll do.

But when you put even more in and more of that momentum, it's fabulous. The key is get started early. And early can just be today. If you're out of debt and you've got the emergency fund, don't feel bad because you're in your 40s now. Get started. It all matters. Yes, and we'll actually put a link down below for our investment calculator,

so you can do that. Plug in your numbers and see what the future holds for you. It's a beautiful thing. All right, before we spilled the tea on our guilty-st-charged segment, George, what's the details of the drink? This is the French blonde. It's got Lille Blanc. Lillet Blanc.

For my French viewers out there, I didn't want to mess up since it's called the French blonde. Lillet Blanc, which is like a wine liqueur, like 85% wine, about 15% citrus liqueurs in there. Very nice. And then it's got gin, elder flower liqueur, fresh grapefruit juice and three dashes of lemon bitters, no more, no less. Okay. You know what? I love to this drink.

It's a very elegant drink. I will say that. Well, it's crazy because I was drinking it, and I was like, I really like this drink. And everything you've listed out in the ingredients, I like. So I was like, well, that makes sense. it all together. I'm going nine out of ten. Wow.

I really liked it. That's great. I mean, I also like everything in here. What is missing is I'm not feeling the punch of these ingredients. Like, I can't tell you. That's where we're so opposite in drinks. That lemon one the other day that you loved. I love lemon.

Yeah. Where I'm like, I do like lemon, but I just want three dashes of lemon. I don't want to eat a lemon. Give me all the dashes. But I'm not tasting the gin. I'm not tasting the elder flower explicitly. I'm mostly tasting grapefruit juice, which is great. I'm a big fan of grapefruit juice,

but it kind of just tastes like a grapefruit. And because we have a hunk grapefruit there, too. Yeah. But I'm going to still go six and a half out of ten. Okay. Fair. I think if you made this at home and you punched it up a little bit, it would be a ten out of ten.

All right. It is a pricier one, though. $4.55 because it knows it's worth. Probably because all those ingredients are pricier. And much like the French. Very uppity. They're bujy. Very bujgy.

Very bujy. So get the recipe in the show notes. give it a try this weekend if you want to feel fancy and props if you use an actual grapefruit wedge slice in there with a little toothpick or you know piece of metal going through it i figure out they're called picks is that what they're called cocktail picks i don't know you can get some of i'm just a fancy toothpick yeah i like the the long metal ones do you have some of those at home no we don't have any of that i know what to get you for christmas now thank you josh christmas gift i always trying to think what would rachel want for christmas i'll get

you some stationary so you can write more. I appreciate that. All right, now it's time for guilty as charged. And this is where we ask each other a guilty as charged question every week. And if we're guilty, we take a sip. All right, George, are you guilty of outsourcing a job you could have done yourself and was it worth it? Okay. The part that says you could have done yourself, I think, is generous to assume that I could do most things myself.

That's a funny one. The most recent one, because yes, I do this all the time, whether, I mean, lawn care. Anything involving the outdoors? You outsource. I don't want to be out there in 100 degrees in Tennessee. Vitamin D, who needs it? No. So like pest control, lawn care.

Yep. All that kind of stuff. I'm outsourcing. Handyman stuff. The latest one, though, this is the first I've ever done, is a car sale. I did a consignment car sale. Okay. Tell me more.

So there's a, it's an auto broker. So what they do is I bought my car from him originally. Okay. He'll go find the car you want in your budget at auction. Okay. And then get it for your budget and just that plus sales tax. Oh, well, that's great. It's amazing.

Yeah. So he said, oh, I also sell cars. I mean, like, you pay a fee or something for him? No, he just makes like the spread. So let's say he buys it at an auction for $25,000. He gets it shipped. He cleans it up. He does all the work.

Okay. And your budget was $30. Great. He'll go, okay, it's yours for $30 plus tax. And then he'll take whatever margin was on it. Yeah. So it's very reasonable. And he's a Ramsey fan.

Okay. So I've used him in the past. And I found out he also will sell your car for. you for a fee. Oh, and that's what you did. So for like 700 bucks, I offloaded this entire thing. I left the car with him. He got it detailed. He'll deal with test drives, with Facebook marketplace messages, with the title, the finances, all of that with the negotiation. That's amazing. And so I didn't want to be a part of it. Okay, do you know how much you would save doing that, buying a car using someone like that? Do you save like $5,000? You can't save because buying it at auction

is that's where the money is made for people who are selling cars. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's when they buy it at auction. So, yeah, there's some cost savings there. It depends on what car, you know, and how new and what the desire and demand is for that car. But overall, I think it's a great business model. That's awesome. Well done. So, yeah, and he sold it this past week.

Sold it to a Ramsey team member. No. You could have done that yourself. Yeah, but I didn't want to have to deal with the test drives. How funny is that, though? The test drives, the paperwork. Does that guy live in our area? Like Nashville?

Yeah. Okay. He lives in Columbia. So it was my old Tesla. He's okay. I just need a commuter car. I thought this guy was like in Kansas City or something. I don't know.

And then it happened to be a local guy. Okay. Okay. Everything's local. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hope that helps. Oh my gosh.

Wow. But happy to, I would do it again. Yeah. I think that's a great one. Because when I thought about listing on Facebook and the messages I would get with my, if people found out that I have like a public persona and then they're coming after me. I don't want to deal with that. George.

Negotiating with me. You are so famous. I'm just saying, I don't need a guy. I don't want to be sitting in my car while someone else is test driving it and it's like 9 o'clock at night. I'm with you. I'm with you. I get it.

Do you want the car or not? I get it. I get it. Yeah, fair. How about you? I'm saying, mine's like way less exciting. This is going to trigger Jonathan. It's about my pool.

But we did like a contract when we built it to have someone come clean the pool. Oh, yeah. That's a major undertaking. And then at one point though, we kept saying, oh yeah, Winston can just do it. because he likes chemistry and like looking at the levels and chlorine yeah uh he likes chemistry but then it just gets really convenient when you don't have to think about it because

someone's just doing it so we kept it for another year wow kept your pool service we did yeah my friends just got they they bought a home that already had a pool okay and so i was finding out like how much does it cost to maintain a pool yeah and i'm going man i should be in the pool business i know they are making good money showing up for their weekly cleaning. And you know what? And I see them out there and I just assume they're doing great. He's checking the levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I don't really know. Gives you a thumbs up through the window.

I know. And I'm like, thanks. But it's nice. They're great. They're great guys though. But yeah, that is a, that's a luxury. Now, you couldn't have done it yourself, but Winston could have done it himself. I could have learned. I know chemicals. Yikes. And levels. I don't know. Oh, man.

Okay, well, I guess we're both guilty. Yep. Oh, my gosh. But outsourcing to get your time back as big. Are you drinking the French? Oh, my gosh. He's going to turn into a bonjour. He's going to say, bonjour.

Wee, monsieur. Yeah, there you go. Why did I sound like a character from beauty in the beach? I was going to say. It was like a caricature of the French. I apologize to any of our French listeners. Oh, my gosh. If you're French out there, hey, leave a comment.

I want to know. No. Well, if you have a guilty George question, make sure to DM us at Rachel Cruz and at George Camel. We love them.

We screenshot them and we send them to Jenna, our producer. Thank you for them. And if you love this episode, you're definitely going to love our episode. Roasting the latest

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Happy Alba.