The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Go from in Debt to Millionaire in 10 Years with George Kamel

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna talk to George Campbell on how he got out of $40,000 in debt and became a millionaire in 10 years. How Andrew Can Help You:  Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining  Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest!  Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel!  Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course  Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here.  Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Ka’Chava For Sponsoring the show! Go to kachava.com/pfp and get 10% off on your first order.  Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at  shopify.com/pfp Policygenius: This is where I got my term life insurance. Policygenius is made so easy. To get your term policy go to policygenius.com and make sure your loved ones are safe. Delete Me: Use Promo Code PFP20 for 20% off! Connect with George Kamel Website Twitter Instagram Youtube Facebook Podcast Connect With Andrew on Social Media:  Instagram  TikTok Twitter  Master Money Website  Master Money Youtube Channel   Free Guides:   The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money  How to Negotiate Your Salary  The 75 Day Money Challenge  Get out Of Debt Fast  Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk to George Camel on how he got out of $40,000 in debt and became a millionaire in 10 years. Welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.com. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking to George Camel about his debt-free journey and how he built wealth from being in debt to becoming a millionaire. 10 years. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram or Twitter at Master Money Co and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player, you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five star rating and reviews. We truly, truly appreciate it. Now, today I am really excited to talk

to George Camel because he is one of the Ramsey personalities. You're going to see him a lot on Dave Ramsey's show. He is one of the folks that appears in that show all the time. And George has a really cool story because George started off being in debt and went from being an over $40,000 of debt to becoming a millionaire in 10 years. So we're going to talk about his story. We're going to talk about how he did that and how you can save more on your debt-free journey as well. Then in addition, we dive into income and how to increase your income and some of the main money traps that are out there that most people don't realize are causing them to go into debt. And so, you know, and or reduce their net worth.

And then lastly, we're going to ask him a bunch of additional questions about money, including his biggest money, fear, and of course, what wealth means to George. So we are really excited to share this episode with you. So without further ado, let's welcome George to the Personal Finance Podcast. So George, welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. Andrew, thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. We are so incredibly excited to have you here because we just talked to our audience about

some of the biggest pain points, and you and I were kind of talking off air before this. And one of the biggest pain points that they have is learning how to get out of debt. And then once they get out of debt, they want to learn how to build wealth. And this is a massive thing that we want to help as many people as possible get out of debt because we know how difficult it is. We know how hard that can be to be in that pit and trying to figure out how to get out of debt. And I think you are the perfect person to talk about this because you have an amazing debt-free journey that we'll talk through here in this episode today.

And then we'll talk about how we can kind of figure out some ways to build wealth along that journey as we go through this. So before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? and what you do? Absolutely. So I work here at Ramsey Solutions, Dave Ramsey's company, and I've been on the team now for 10 years, which is insane. I think it's the longest held job by a millennial, so I'm honored to hold that award. And for the last few years, I've been a Ramsey personality, which means I'm speaking on stages and hosting shows and really helping our fans, being that touch point, that personal connection to help them impact their finances,

help them build wealth, avoid the traps out there and get out of debt. And so it's been an incredible journey here. And what I get to do now is host shows like Smart Money Happy Hour with Dave's daughter, Rachel Cruz, host the Ramsey Show, and I just launched a brand new YouTube channel. And so we're having a blast, just making content that hopefully connects with people out there. And your content is absolutely amazing. If you guys haven't listened to any of George's content, he's on Dave's show a lot. He's one of the co-hosts on Dave's show. And then his show with him and Rachel is amazing. I love the way that you have that casual conversation, but it's still something that really, really is helpful for a lot of people. So it's very cool. Some of the stuff that you are doing,

and then your new YouTube channel, I saw the first episode of that as well, and it looks awesome. So I'm really excited to dive into some of that as we go through this today. So first thing I want to talk about is getting out of debt, because you in 10 years went from a negative net worth to a debt-free millionaire. And that's an amazing accomplishment to go through that process within 10 years. So how did you get into debt? And what was the light-balled moment when you realize I have to turn my money around? Well, I consider myself average.

My debt-free story is not like, I went $400,000 into debt. I just kind of stumbled into it like many of my millennial friends and now Gen Z friends do. And so I was raised in a way where they went, hey, go to school, work hard, get good grades so you can get into the school of your dreams. We all have kind of heard that narrative. Well, it turns out the school of your dreams has a lot of zeros on the end. And I thought, like, well, my parents must be wealthy if they're just talking like this. And it turns out they didn't have the money to pay for it. But they just went, oh, we'll figure it out.

We'll make it work. And so making it work meant taking out student loans to cover the difference. So on top of that, I took out $36,000 in student loans. Then I took out credit cards because I was told, well, you got to build your credit score early. You got to get the credit card. And just put all your purchases on it and you'll build your score. It's going to pay dividends later in life. Well, there I stood $4,000 in credit card debt thinking this is how you win.

I'm building my score. I'm going to college. And then I was with $40,000 in consumer debt wondering, is this it? I was broke. I was anxious. I was kind of feeling hopeless. I was cynical towards the system. towards society, all these people that I felt lied to me about the path to success and happiness.

And that was in 2013. And I started at Ramsey and I went through Financial Peace University. And it kind of just opened my eyes to this whole other world where I was like, oh, this isn't normal. We've just made it normal as a society to be drowning in payments and go like, we're doing great, guys. This is the path. And so going through that course and working here, I decided I'm going to pay this off intensely. And so I did it in 18 months through side jobs. I was making an entry level salary. And so I was like, I got to get some extra income. I stopped eating out and going out with friends for a while. I was doing Uber and Lyft. I was doing freelance consulting. Anything I could do to get rid of this debt fast. And 40 grand and 18 months, I was completely debt free.

That is an incredible story. And kind of the extra things that you did and what is really, really powerful. And what I love about your story is that what a lot of people fall into, a lot of people don't fall into the trap of $300,000, $400,000. I'm sure on your show you hear people talk about that all the time. You guys have to figure out that situation. But for most people, they just get into maybe $10, $20, $30,000 $40,000 worth of debt. And they have to figure a way to climb out of that. And so you have a millionaire by year 10, which is so incredibly powerful. So you use the baby steps as a roadmap. And we have never talked about the baby steps on this podcast. It is a big question that we actually get from a lot of our listeners on talking through the baby sticks. We haven't done an episode on that

But I think for those looking to get out of debt, it is a very powerful way to learn how to get out of debt and then go on to building wealth. So can you explain the baby steps and how they work? Absolutely. So the baby steps have been around now for decades. This is the proven plan that Dave has been using in every book, every product, every show, it's what we walk people through. And it's because we believe in it. And so baby step one is save $1,000 in a starter emergency fund. Then we move on to Baby Step 2, where we use the debt snowball method to pay off all of our consumer.

debt from smallest to largest. That's it. That's all we're doing in Baby Step 2. No investing, no saving, no eating. That's it. Super focused. Gazzle intense is what Dave calls it. Once we pay off our consumer debt, we go back to the emergency fund in Baby Step 3, and we fully fund it with three to six months of expenses. Now, we have no debt and a fully funded emergency fund, which means we have margin in our life to start investing. So Baby Step 4 is to start investing 15% of your household income into retirement. And once you got that plate spinning, we're going to do the next few at the same time, which is Baby Step 5, save for college for our kids if you have that. If you don't have kids, you can leapfrog to Baby Step 6, which is pay off your home early. So we've got 15% to retirement.

Anything extra that we can throw towards the mortgage on top of the principal helps us pay off the mortgage early so that we can be 35 with no mortgage, 45 with no mortgage. And then we're at the pinnacle. Baby Step 7 is the mountaintop where we can just build wealth and and give outrageously. And that's really the goal. The goal is not to just pile up money to pile up the money. The goal is so that we can be others focused so that we can have our eyes upward,

looking for opportunities to give and to serve and to leave an inheritance to our children's children, as the Bible says, and just live our best life at that point. And a lot of listeners know that we talk about giving on this podcast all the time too, and we talk about giving at least 10% of your income and kind of going through that whole process.

And it's one of the most powerful things that you can do with your wealth. And that's what I absolutely love. Imagine if everybody in this world built wealth and they were able to give how much more we could do by doing that. So it's one of the coolest things. And one thing I think a lot of people get wrong with the baby steps is that, you know, I think a lot of people think you have to pay off your mortgage early on and in that debt-free process instead of doing it before you're actually starting to invest. And actually,

what the real baby steps talk through is you can do that later on. A lot of people panic through that process. Say, I have this $200,000 mortgage. I got to pay it off before I can start investing. But really, it's a process that you have later on in the baby steps. So I think that's another cool thing that you're talking through there as well. Now, eventually, you did pay off your house. So what did it feel like to send in that final payment? Oh my gosh. So this was a crazy goal my wife and I had, which I met my wife here at Ramsey. And so we both had drank the Kool-A. We were debt-free when we started off our marriage. We both had some savings coming into it. It wasn't my first home. And so this really helped us and propelled us to go, what if we put a massive down payment down

on a super modest home so that we could pay it off early? And so we pre-decided that we were going to do this. This was not like we overbought too much house because the bank said we could take a half million dollar loan and then we decided. We pre-decided. So we put out down a huge down payment. We bought a $300,000 house. We put down 45%. I was still hustling. I was still doing side hustles at that point. And so we were able to put down 45%, which left us with $165,000 on a mortgage. And so we just had a goal. Let's try to pay this off in under five years. Well, we're very goal-oriented. We're very driven people. And so we couldn't settle for that. And so we ended up doing it in 26 months. Wow.

And we did our debt-free scream on the Ramsey show back in January of 2022. That's incredible. That is one of the most difficult things, I think, that it really going through that process and learning how to do that is one of the toughest things. And setting that goal is the first step. And you guys had that goal set in place. Then you just pursued that goal and took the steps that you need to get there. So that's absolutely amazing.

I'm sure that's one of the coolest feelings. And it's interesting because we've had a couple of millionaires who became millionaires in their early 30s on this podcast. And almost all of them actually did that process. They went through paying off their mortgage very early on. on. And so it's a very cool way that you can increase that gap between your income and expenses and really take those extra dollars once it's paid off and build generational wealth over that time frame. So it's a very, very cool way that you can do it. You asked, what was the feeling like of sending

in that final payment? It was so funny to me because we went to the bank to do this. I thought I could just hit like a cool button and there's a confetti on the website. No, the mortgage company makes you request a payoff statement, which is snail mail to you. So you have to wait for that to come in to find out what you even owe them. And then I found out, oh, I can't even wire the money. I have to go to the bank. I can't do this online. And so as a millennial, I was like, this is so inconvenient. But I was like, it'll be a physical experience to go to the bank and do this. The banker's going to be cheering us on. The banker didn't give a rip. The banker was just like, okay, what do you need to do? A wire transfer? Okay, what's this for? Home payoff? Okay. That's the dream.

Exactly. I know those bankers are probably mad that they're losing out on their interest payments later later, too. Yeah, exactly. And so five minutes later, they're like, this transaction is complete, it will happen at some point today. So you're like at some point, and so when is this going to happen? So we just left there just kind of like, we need to go do our own celebration because that was the most depressing experience. But what wasn't depressing was having that paycheck hit the following cycle and it stays with us instead of having to go back out to a lender. And so there is such freedom in that. It's allowed us to do so many amazing things. And by the way, we lived at the same time we did this process. We still went on vacations. We still had to upgrade a car.

you're still doing all of these things. And so we say when you move from babysat three into four, five, six, you move from intensity to intentionality. We stayed intense because we're extra weird. If you're watching out there, you're going, that's unrealistic. It's okay. If you do it under 15 years, you're already doing so much better than most of America. But the key is to set a goal that works for you that feels like kind of a stretch goal that

pushes you a little bit. Absolutely. And that is one of the keys there is you still lived your life and you still spent money on things that bring you value, but at the same time, what you also valued was having that freedom and paying off that mortgage. So you had that balance there, which I absolutely love. And I think most people need to understand that you can do both. And that is one thing where a lot of people just get discouraged. And another piece of discouragement that people have is how long it can take to actually get out of debt, depending on how much debt they have.

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And how did you stay motivated after you set that initial goal? Well, I think it starts with a deep why. If you don't really have a reason you're doing this, why would you go through all of the pain and sacrifice to do it if there's not really an underlying motive? And so the people you hear on our show who do their debt-free screams, they're always talking about the reason they did this. There was a pain in their life.

There was anxiety. There was a job loss. There was a divorce. There was a medical event. they were having a baby and they went, we're not okay. And until you feel that pain, you feel like you're doing fine. And so you actually need to kind of dig deep and go, what's the reason for this? Because if I don't have a good one, I'm going to let go of this goal as soon as a distraction comes my way. And so if you have a really deep why, you have really good accountability in your life,

which means if you're married, that's your spouse. And they have to be on the same page. They have to be on board. They have to be cheering you on when it's hard and you have to be cheering them on. And if you don't have a spouse, you need to find friends or people in your community that are on the same path as you. Because there's a lot of naysayers out there who go, why would you want to be debt-free? You should be doing this. You should be investing in crypto. Who cares about getting out of debt? And so then you're like, what is this all about?

You need people who understand the journey that you're on. And you can find that in Financial Peace University classes, which is so cool that you can just find other people on the journey in your community. And then the last thing you need is to celebrate the milestones. All the little wins, make it visual. put the chains up on the wall and cut them up as you start to pay off some of that debt. Have a tiny celebration and a little self-care day every time you pay off a certain amount or $1,000 or $5,000. And that keeps you going.

I kind of need a carrot dangled in front of me a little bit. That's just human psychology in order to keep going. So if you have the why, you have accountability, you have the little wins and the milestones, and you make it visual, those are the key components I've found to actually sticking through this. And I'm the same way I have to have kind of that carrot dangling in front of me. And one thing that my wife and I would do is we would meet weekly and kind of look over our big, big goals that we have and see how far are we progressing. And that would kind of help motivate us on both sides. And then in addition, just like you said, networking with people and listening to things that are going to help you motivate through this process so that you can actually get to that end goal. It's so incredibly important to do that. And a lot of people just miss that point. So I love that thought as well.

Now, I want to go through how you can save more on your debt-free journey. And that is one thing that I want to kind of shift to. And you have a viral video talking about the costs of eating out. And I don't think a lot of people know, how to think through how expensive it can be to eat out. And you go through the numbers and lay that out in that video on how this can actually help you get debt-free faster. So can you kind of talk through some of those numbers that you talk about in that video? Absolutely. So this went viral for the wrong reasons. This was one of those like hate watch type viral videos. And I said in the video, I was talking about how to find margin in your budget. And I went one of the biggest areas we overspend on is food. We're eating out constantly instead of eating at home. And I said,

The food right now is wildly expensive. The average meal, if you're going to eat out, is $13. The average meal at home is $4, which means you're spending 225% more by eating out. Hope you enjoy the meal. That was the entire clip. And there was just thousands of comments. It got millions of views. People have been like, when does this guy, was this filmed in 1992?

When's the last time this guy's been to a grocery store? It's so much cheaper to eat out than to go to the grocery store. And there was all these excuses going, what's my time worth? I got to go. I got to cook. I got to clean. I got to get the groceries. Acting like this was such an achievement and a feat to just make a meal.

And so it's one of the biggest areas I first look at. And when I started getting out of debt, I went, I'm going to do a budget for the first time in my life and actually look at where I'm spending. And most people aren't doing that. In their minds, they're spending so much less on food than is actual reality. And when I did the budget, I realized, oh my gosh, I'm a tiny person who was single. And I was spending $700 a month on food. because I was just kind of doing it out of emotion and impulse.

Whatever I felt like, I would just go eat out on the weekends. And if I didn't want to make a meal, I just wouldn't make a meal. And that caused me to way overspend. And so it's one of the first areas I help people look at is how can we shave this down? No, you don't have to spend three hours cooking a gourmet meal to save money. You just have to be intentional. You have to look at what's on sale at your grocery store, maybe switch your grocery store to somewhere cheaper like Aldi instead of Whole Foods or Publix,

and then start to actually make a plan. You don't have to be like a vegan crossfitter to do meal prep. You just have to go, I'm going to find stuff on sale. I'm going to find a carb, a veggie, and a protein. And I'm going to make that in one pot in five minutes and call it a day. That's all it takes. And just by doing that alone, you can save hundreds of dollars a month. Because restaurants aren't stupid.

They're not losing money here. They're making a profit. So they've increased their prices. On top of you having to tip, on top of all the appetizers and entrees going up in price, you're paying way more to eat out than you are making any meat. at home. And that is one of the biggest things that people don't realize how much they're spending money on. Every person that I talk to that we work through their budget, we look at where are you spending the most of your money. They think they spend way less on food and groceries. And then all

of a sudden they realize they're thinking they're spending $5, $600, and then they realize they're spending $1,300 a month on food and groceries. And so this is the biggest place to look first. If you've never set a budget before, it's looking at your food, transportation, and housing, obviously. But food is a big one that just kind of sneaks up on people. And they just don't realize how much are spinning because the transactions are small, but overall it becomes a very large transaction if you look at it over month to month. And one thing, if you want to cut back on eating out, for example, one thing we talk about on this podcast all the time is you can gradually reduce that. So say, for example, you spend $700 a month like George did. You can reduce that over the

course of three or four months so it doesn't hurt as bad. Maybe you want to spend $400 by the end of it. Then you reduce it by $100 a month. So you can kind of settle in and feel that difference and it's not as bad as just ripping the entire Band-Aid off. Then by four months, you're saving hundreds of dollars every single month, and you can actually put those towards your debt payments or whatever else you want to do when you're building well. So that is one cool thing that you definitely want to be looking at. I love that video.

And I know you get hateful comments on those videos all the time. Welcome to TikTok. Every viral video we've had on TikTok is just some of the worst comments we've ever gotten, for sure. And so one other cool thing that you talk about is you talk about money traps that many people fall prey to in the U.S. And I think this is a really, really big thing that we need to be. talking about a lot more. So what are some of those money traps that we need to avoid? Well, the big ones, of course, are all related to debt. And so when you look at across the

board, we have record levels of consumer debt in America today, from credit cards to car loans, to student loans, to personal loans. And these are things we're choosing to do. A lot of people go, well, hey, listen, they have to go into debt. They have no other choice. And the truth is, until you believe that there's another choice, you will always be in debt. And you'll always have payments. So those are the big ones I see across the board are auto loans, student loans, and credit cards. But the other traps, they're a little more nuanced. There's things that you wouldn't really think about. It's things like Apple Pay Later that just rolled out. Their Pay Later program where you can take out a loan of $50 to $1,000, no interest, no fees, and you can pay it off over six weeks,

and it creates some flexibility in your budget. That's what all of the marketing promises you. What actually happens is you have 17 transactions that you overspent on because in your brain, your brain tricked you and said, dude, you're getting 75% off. This is a killer deal. You should buy more. And so you overspend. You have 17 payments coming out. Then you overdraft and get hit with a bunch of fees from your bank. And so buy now, pay later is one of the biggest traps out there because these young generations think this is a great alternative to credit cards because I'm not paying 20% interest. But what you're doing to yourself is robbing your current self and future self by overspending and not having margin in your budget. And so if you have the cash for it, pay for it now. If you don't have the cash for it, you can't get it.

That's called delayed gratification in an instant gratification world. So that's another huge trap I see. And the other one is just advice on social media. I mean, I'm trying to swim against the grain here and go upstream. But there are so many traps on social media, people telling you, dude, you should just get an Airbnb and it cash flows, bro, and they pay off your mortgage for you. And oh, my gosh, you need to use a universal index whole life insurance to build wealth.

That's the key. and you need to get a life insurance policy for your kid because that is also another wealth building tool. You should buy a house for them when they're for and pay them as a baby model. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is insane. And it's leading people down these get rich quick traps that keep them broke. It doesn't help them build wealth. It holds them back from building wealth. And so there's so many traps out there.

We could talk all day about investment traps, real estate traps, consumer traps. But the key is if you live a debt-free life, you only pay cash for things, and you read the fine print and you go, nope, if it sounds too good to be true, I'm running far, far away. If it looks hard and difficult, it's probably the right path. That's how you become a smart consumer. Exactly right. And I think two of them that you mentioned there are major soap boxes for me. It's the buy now, pay later one, which is a huge one because if you can't afford the total amount, especially on discretionary spending that you definitely should not be going through the buy now pay later section. And the IUL thing is one of the things that drives me crazy because it's almost borderline, you know,

a scam at this point in time, the way that they're promoting it. But that is the one that really, really is, if you break it down, and we've talked about in this podcast before, if you break it down, how much fees you're paying on those IULs, it is just one of the most important things to avoid at all costs or whole life insurance or any of those things that they talk through. So I'm so happy that you brought that up. So say, for example, we're looking at our food budget. We're looking at our housing budget. Maybe we're looking at some of these money traps. We're avoiding some of these money traps.

So what are some other things that people can look for in their budget to save money so that they can take those dollars and attack debt? So this all comes down to margin. My big talk at our Smart Conference event is all about how to find margin in your budget. It's called Show Me the Money. And there's only two ways to find margin. One is to spend less. So we talked about ways to cut in your budget subscriptions and food and shopping your insurance. The other side of the equation for margin is make more.

And a lot of people feel stuck. They go, well, I only make $40,000. How am I going to pay off $85,000? There's just not enough. I need a bigger shovel. And the truth is, income is largely in our control. And it may not be at a full-time job. I can't just go ask my boss for a raise because I want to pay off debt.

But what I can do is figure out what are the skills and talents and passions that I have? How much time do I have to devote to this? And how can I get my hourly rate at such a point where I feel the value of putting in the work at night and on weekends to make 15, 20, 25, 50 bucks an hour? And so that's what I did? I was in marketing at the time. So I can do marketing consulting. I can help people launch their books and podcasts and help them build websites.

and help them build websites. That's something I did as a side hustle, was just building websites and Squarespace for small businesses, for entrepreneurs, for authors and speakers. And then on top of that, I was like, there's things anyone can do. Anyone can deliver packages for Amazon Flex.

They can deliver food for Uber eats and DoorDash. They can drive for Uber and Lyft if they have a car. These are things they can easily add, you know, 15, 20, 25 bucks an hour. It adds up to 100, 200 bucks a week. That's $500, $600 a month. And you go, wow, I can feel the progress when it comes to paying off debt.

And so if you can do both of those, the budget audit, to go, where can we cut ruthlessly? And then on the other side, go, where can we add? Are we getting a big tax refund? Let's change our withholdings. That'll give us more money in our budget. And when you do that, it's addictive. You get super excited to find out where we're going to start searching the couch cushions for some coins at this point. So those are the two parts of the equation.

And I promise you if you do those things with intentionality, you will find hundreds of dollars. Exactly. It's growing the gap. The difference between your income and your expenses. And income is such a powerful motivator for a lot of. people and they miss that side of it because a lot of people just go to their expenses. They try to slash as much as they can. But if you're living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes it's hard to slash more than you already have slashed so far. So income side is where we have to kind of move towards to actually

work on growing our income. And you gave some great suggestions there on side hustles. And I love that you had the two sides of the spectrum on the side hustle as well, where you had one where you were building websites where you can maybe even turn that into a full-time business at some point in time. And the other side, you have your active income that you're kind of working towards when it comes to maybe delivering things for $15 an hour. And over time, between those two things, your income can truly, truly rise. And in addition, just negotiating your salary at your job. If you have a career or a day job, you can negotiate your salary there and learn how to do that negotiation is obviously a skill. And it's one of those things that if you do this the right way, you can make a lot more money

just by learning how to negotiate and by doing that over that time frame. So income is so important when it comes to your debt-free journey. So, George, I want to shift gears here. And I want to ask you some of the questions that we ask a lot of our guests here. And people love when we ask some of these questions because we get some great answers here. So what part of your work or life makes you come alive? Oh, that's a fun one. Truthfully, we work with so many amazing people here, Ramsey Solutions. We have a team of about a thousand people. And people ask me, like, what's your favorite part of your job? Is it the Ramsey show? Is it speaking at live events? And truthfully, it's the team. Anytime we're in a room with the team and we're brainstorming, I'm a creative

guy. And so if I'm not actively creating, I'm not being refueled. And so when it comes time to writing a script for the YouTube channel, and we're all digging for the joke in there and pulling up pop culture clips, that truly fuels me to create with people that I respect, people that I love, and to laugh while we do it. That is where I get the most fuel. The other side of the coin is connecting with our fans and hearing their stories. That is easily the best part of my job, is to see the life change. Most people, their job, you don't get to see the impact that you're making. You're sitting there, you're responding to emails, you're in meetings, you're like, what is this all for? I have the benefit of seeing the impact face to face.

You know, I get to hear it. I get messages from people sharing their debt-free journey. And it's such an honor and a privilege that they feel like I'm the guy they want to celebrate with. They want to tell because they don't have a lot of people in their life to tell. Because people get judgy. They're jealous. They don't understand. And I'm just a guy going way to go, man.

I'm so proud of you. You're building wealth. You're changing your family tree. Keep going. So those are the two sides. Working with the team, having fun, creating, and then getting to hear the stories. of our fans. That's definitely the most joy and impact I can hope for. It's incredible and it truly does resonate through all of your content, the way that you guys help people through their debt-free

journey and then beyond going out and building wealth. The second one is an interesting one. So what is your biggest fear when it comes to money? Oh, biggest fear when it comes to money is getting over the scarcity mentality and the like, well, what if it's not enough? So there is a fear of just like, we don't know what the future holds. And I'm a very future focused person. And so I have that anxiety, always bubbling beneath going like, what if, man, what if it all goes down? Like, what if when you comes time for you to retire, the market crashes and it all goes to zero. And so there is always that kind of paranoia in the back of your head of I want to have a great retirement. I don't want to have to go like, well, we can only spend this much this

month. We got to really watch the numbers. I want to have a ball of retirement where, yes, we're doing a budget, but we know the money's there. You have so many millions and so many zero's at the end that you can spend and you can give and you can do whatever you want, go on a vacation without worrying about it. And so there's always that worry with money, but what isn't there is the present worry with money. Now it's just kind of like, hope the future goes well. And part of it is just running out numbers and going like, on the conservative side, we'd have $3 million. If everything goes gangbusters, we'll have $12 million. And I go, oh, okay, I can sleep at night. We can make that work. So it's an unfounded fear,

but it's still there. I resonate with that as well because it feels like email the more wealth that I built and like once we hit millionaire status, you still keep running those numbers, but the more wealth that you build, I feel like the goalpost keeps moving. And I think in the back of my head, it's really, truly just that fear that what if it's not enough when you get to the retirement age? But it's one where if you run the numbers and you just look at the math, it is enough. It's just you got to kind of believe in your process and your plan that you're building out there. And it's one of the things that I definitely resonate with that as well. So this year, what are some of the plans that you have to level up some of your finances?

Now that you're maybe, you know, you're a millionaire now. You're debt free. What are some things that you want it do to level up your finances. So one of the big things is maximizing wealth and going like, oh, I don't know all the ins and outs of tax planning and estate planning and I don't have any, you know, real estate investments. So that's always something in the back of my mind. I go, that would be fun to do and do it all debt free. What would it look like to pay cash for an investment property years down the line? And so that's one thing I'm interested in is just getting more on the investing in real estate side. It's something that our fans want to know about. And truthfully, a lot of them aren't at the spot to do it. And so they want to get into real estate investing,

but they still have consumer debt and they're not even in a home yet. And so we go, hey, that's great. Let's put pause on that dream. You'll get there later and you'll get there faster if you do it this way. And so that's one big thing I want to level up with. The other piece is just we've been running and gunning so hard that I want to start to lean into the spending and enjoying more and being smart with that. And so I want to go on great vacations with my wife. We want to go to Europe. So that's a big savings goal we have is to save up for a great trip to Europe. We want to upgrade her car. She's driving a 2010 SUV and, you know, she deserves the best. And so we want to do that. We want to save up and pay cash for a used great car for her. And so those are some of the bigger

goals I have. And there's kind of the long term investing, continuing to build wealth and generosity goals where we go, how cool would it be to pay for someone's adoption? I mean, that would just blow my mind to get to be a part of that story and get to help someone who couldn't afford adoption, who has a heart for adoption. And that's the kind of stuff as a believer, as someone who goes to church Sunday, I'm looking at those stories going, I want to be a part of that. That is the most joy I'll ever feel. No vacation could ever match that. Nothing I could buy could ever match the joy I could feel from getting to give and being outrageously generous. And I love that you added the giving part because I think it's one thing that I have a line item in my budget, too, of some giving

goals that we have. And it just changes your life once you start to do some of this stuff and be able to give back to causes you believe in your church, your local church, everything else. So it's one of the coolest things that you can absolutely do. The next one is what is the best money advice you've ever received? Oh, the best money advice. have ever received. Okay, this one is, it's so simple, but it's so hard in today's world. And it's simply live on less than you make. That's it. And you hear that and you go like, okay, that's whatever. But when you truly do that, what you have is that gap that you mentioned, the gap between your income and your expenses. And when you have that, you have margin. You've got some options and you have

some freedom. And that can open the doors for you later in life and your present anxiety that we talked about is you're not as worried when you know you're not going to overdraft that. that month. And so living on less than you make is one of the most difficult things to do in today's culture when nothing is ever enough and we always need to make more and lifestyle creep is always causing us to spend more as we make more. But if you can just keep that number low with your expenses and keep that income going, that gap is what will cause you to build wealth. Living on less than you make truly gives you freedom. And it's one of the things that a lot of people think through where if you live on less than you make in the physical sense, then what's

happening there is you're going to get freedom with your time, your energy, all those things. And And then also mentally, you're going to be freedom with less stress, less anxiety, all those types of things as well. So I love that part of it. The last one is my favorite one. It is one that we ask all of our guests. We actually get different answers on this, which is interesting. But what does wealth mean to you?

Oh, that's a fun one. I believe wealth is beyond just money. I'm sure many guests have said that. But I truly think, you know, I've seen people with a lot of money and they don't necessarily all have great lives. It's a component, but we call it a flat tire. If you're missing the other areas of life and you're married. is suffering and your relationships are suffering, your health is suffering, but you make a million

dollars, you don't have a great life. It may look like that from the outside. And so one of the things I'm always kind of concerned about is making sure I don't have that flat tire when it comes to wealth. So wealth to me means I'm physically healthy. I'm emotionally healthy. I have strong relationships and deep connections that aren't all surface level. I have a strong marriage. My wife wants to hang out with me. We get to do the things that we want to do. And so on one hand, wealth is freedom. On the other hand, it's health in every area of life because I truly don't think you can have true wealth if all the other areas are falling short. And so if you have all those components, you have a pile of money and great relationships and you have your integrity and you have your

character and you're giving generously, which is one of the most important parts of giving, is that it causes us to be healthy, emotionally and mentally and have those relationships. I think that's the most beautiful picture of wealth. I think you sum that up perfectly. So George, thank you so much. This has been absolutely amazing and we truly appreciate you coming on. Where can people find out more about you and learn about what you have going on? Absolutely. So my last name is Camel with a K, like the animal. And I'm all over social media, Twitter, Instagram. But the big one, if you want to check out the brand new YouTube, you can search for my name, George Camel on YouTube. It's linked on my Instagram as well. If you want to follow me there, send me a message if you have questions or

comments. Love to hear from your listeners. And that's a great place. to connect. I'm probably the most social media guy out of all the personalities. So I'm always DMing people back. It's where I live. And so love to connect with you all. You're doing such a great job with this podcast, a great interviewer impacting so many people. And I'm proud of the work you're doing, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We will link all of George's links down below in the show notes as well. And I encourage all of you to check those out, especially his new YouTube channel, because it is one that I watched the first episode and I loved it. And you've got great backgrounds and all that stuff as well. So it's very, very cool. So George, thank you so much

again for coming on. Thank you. Appreciate it. You know,