The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Confronting George Kamel on credit cards, student loans, and financial infidelity

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

George and Whitney Kamel join Matt & Abby for an honest conversation about money, marriage, and what financial freedom actually looks like behind the scenes. Known from The Ramsey Show and Smart Money Happy Hour, George shares how he and Whitney followed the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps to pay off all their debt, eliminate their $165,000 mortgage in just 26 months, and reach millionaire status by age 32. They talk cutting up credit cards, renting vs. buying, why so many Americans feel stuck financially, and the real sacrifices required to become debt-free. We also answer listener questions about budgeting on one income, saving while paying off debt, and buying your first home, before putting George and Whitney to the test in a fun round of Agree to Disagree: Financial Edition. This episode is sponsored by Upwork, Little Spoon, Square, and Olipop. UPWORK: Visit https://Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. LITTLE SPOON: Give them meals + snacks that are actually right for where kids are developmentally—balanced, intentional and made to support real growth. Go to https://littlespoon.com/UNPLANNED30 and enter code UNPLANNED30 for 30% off your first order. SQUARE: Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/unplanned! #squarepod Chapters: 00:00 - George Kamel 02:17 - How we met 06:13 - Working for Dave Ramsey 07:42 - We got our wedding paid for 11:15 - Ramsey Solutions Baby Steps 22:08 - Getting out of debt 36:07 - Buying a house w/out a credit score 39:16 - Credit Cards 45:54 - Talking to our kids about finances 50:00 - How frugal are you really? 58:38 - Viewer questions 1:12:48 - Agree to Disagree Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you to Time for Learning for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Schooling is one of the most important decisions you make for your children, and I'm really excited about the option time for learning. We are coming to that point where our kids are getting ready to enter pre-K, and there's all these decisions to make. And I love that we're in this day and age where there are so many options, but I'm also very overwhelmed by it. But I'm really excited about Time for Learning because they have everything you need to teach pre-K through 12th grade at home, but with all the core and elective classes offered in a traditional brick-and-mortar school. I love that option because you get the structure that you would like with a traditional school format, but with the personalized intimate setting of homeschooling.

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You can get started with a monthly subscription to see just how much your kids enjoy learning on their own terms. I think you should be able to go in debt for Disney to take your kids to Disney. I didn't know I was talking to a Disney adult. I think it's the reason she had me on was to confront me. The reason people get divorced over money is because someone was hiding something, someone was controlling something. If you have total transparency, you have a shared bank account, it is so much harder to screw this out. Most people can knock out their consumer debt in 18 to 24 months if they get in tents.

No saving, no investing, no vacations. But what if I want to go on vacation? Well, you pay so much to live in your house. So just think about it that way and treat it like a hotel. Today on Unplanned, we sat down with George Camel and his wife Whitney to talk about money. I know. That's probably just made you uncomfortable saying that out loud. But I think it's really important that we talk about it. Through the day, Ramsey Baby Steps, George and Whitney were able to pay off all their debt,

including their house, and reach millionaire status by age 32. We talk about why you should cut up your credit cards, why so many Americans are broke, and why you shouldn't have a car payment all on today's episode. What's up, dudes? And welcome back to Unplanned. Yay! Sorry, I'm losing my voice right now, but today we're with George and Whitney Campbell. He was yelling at us right before this. You guys don't know. Excuse me. George and Whitney Campbell, welcome to unplanned.

It's an honor to be here. This is so fun. Do you need it? Do you need, I get some, you know what I have some vocal spray? It came on all of a sudden. I do. Honestly, I think this coffee right here and just this warm, fuzzy conversation we're out to have is going to let us in the idea. I'll have care of grab it in case. It's in the side pocket of my bag in there. It's called entertainer's secret. No way. Are you a singer, George? Do you sing? That was my past life. He has a Spotify album. You need to look at that. I don't know how to delete my album off of Spotify.

Don't delete it. I have music on Spotify too. No way. Wait, what kind of music? So I did like singer-songwriter stuff, pop. Me too. Should we collab? We should collab. Let's sing it. Should we sing a song right now? Just two grown men trying to relive the glory days?

You should tell I sing a song. What would you say your music was like? What artist? Oh man. Ben Rector. I took a lot of, yeah, Ben Rector. Yeah. We danced, too, a Ben Rector song on her wedding. Aw, sweet.

Yeah. But I want to talk about you guys, not us today. Okay, you guys are in the hot seat. From what I understand, you guys met working for Dave Ramsey, if I'm not mistaken. And, like, was it love at first sight? How did you guys meet? What's the story? Great question.

I wish. I mean, it was for me. I'll say that. I can't speak for her. Oh, okay. She said it wasn't. Let's see. Our story's a little tricky, so I'm like, where do we kick off?

I'll let you kind of tell your. a bridge version. Okay, sure. So I was friends with a guy named Michael here, and Whitney was his assistant at the time. Okay. And so I was hanging out with Michael and his wife, and they were like, hey, what do you think about Whitney? And I was kind of like, I mean, she'd never, no, me? She would, no, there's no way, no chance. And so I asked her out as a grown man over Snapchat. That's amazing. Like a text Snapchat message. And I had given him my number for a work thing before, so he had my number. I'm aloof, guys. You forgot that you had it in number.

Was that just the immediate ick? Was that a big turn off right away? I had just spoken up from a nap so I didn't have as much of a filter. And I was like, what did I say? I was like, I was going to church. I was like, I'll give you an answer after church. I was mad. Are you asking just to see what I would say?

Or is this a real question? He just threw it out there. So I was like, abort mission, delete, delete, delete. Do you remember what this picture was? Was it just like George? She said it was a message. Oh, just a text message. he thinks we should go on a date. That's all he said. He didn't say like, would you want to go on a date?

It was like, she thinks. It was a statement. George. Guys, it was a rough. It was a rough move. It was bad. It was a rough move on my soul. Zero risk. But I told him I'd go on one date, which is looking back on it. I mean, there's a lot of backstores that that I won't necessarily get into right now. But I said I'd go on one day and just thinking that we just have a good time and then we'd move on. But I ended up loving the date.

So I hated that I said just one. But we worked together at the time. And Ramsey then was a lot smaller. So it's like when you're dating, you kind of need to like know you like this person because all eyes are on you. Like they like watch you. You're the talk of this. If you're the couple that's dating in the company. Now it's so big.

No one even knows who's dating. And working for Dave Ramsey's not easy. I know because my cousin applied last year and he didn't get through, which I'm saying like I feel like you guys have a really high caliber of talent and people here. So like by the time you guys were working for Dave, did you guys not like have debt? Was that a conversation you guys had at first over your first date? Like tell me about your finances. Was that something you guys did or no?

Well, it's funny. It's so easy to talk about finances, I guess, because it's like in our everyday talk. So like, it's not weird for someone to, like, in a meeting to be like, I have 10,000 left to pay off and I'm going to, here's my plan. Like, it's weird. But in like the real world, it's like, that's like weird to bring up. So I don't think we ever had like a big conversation, but just working here, we knew we had a lot of the same. We never went, hey, it's time to have the money conversation. Yeah.

It was just so natural that it probably just flowed in and out to talking about, you know, where you went to college. and all this stuff. And so Whitney was completely debt-free. I don't think you had debt. No debt at all. Well, before I worked here, I had a credit card. You did. So I racked up debt really fast, and it freaked me out. And that's why I started working here, and I got rid of it. So maybe that's like, was our initial conversation. If you don't mind me asking, how much credit card debt were you in?

I was buying concert tickets because I just moved to Nashville. And I was buying them for, like, my friends, and then some of them would back out and not pay me back. No. One of them, I probably shouldn't even say. but it was like Beyonce and it was so much money. How much money? I lost sleep. Was it like $600 to take it for Beyonce?

Probably around four at the time, which is insane. Oh my gosh. And I did not have that money. And this is what? Was this five or ten years ago? Yeah, I got around 10 years ago. Okay. So anyways, but they like said they were going to buy the ticket and then would back out.

And so I would just like literally lose sleep over it. So it's just like little things like that after college. And then like rent here is very expensive. Yeah. So it's just like it's crazy how life just kind of happens. and see you really fast when you have a credit card too and you're just like spending when you like start working for dave is that like do you take a pledge of like i'm not using a credit card anymore or do you have like flexibility to kind of do whatever you want um you just wouldn't last

long here i feel like if you don't agree with the principles you know i think we just drive you crazy yeah there is no blood oath they don't like check your wallet at the door not crazy like that we try to buy guys we try to buy a book at the bookstore with a credit card last time we were like Why isn't it working? And we were like, why is that going through? And she's like, oh, it's a debit or cash. And we're like, we don't have that. Yeah, they stick to what they preach.

Did they just give you the book for free at that point? I felt so bad. They literally just gave us the book. I was like, please return. No, don't do it. Not a life hack, guys. Don't show up to the body. But it was like, I don't know.

It just speaks to the type of people that you guys have around here. It speaks to like, I don't know. I love the Ramsey principles. And I love how nonsense it is, right? Because if you don't have a credit card, it's like it's kind of impossible to spend more than what you have in your bank account with a debit card. Right. You know? I love to tell people, we are $1.2 trillion in credit card debt as a nation.

That's terrible. We are $0 in debit card debt. Are you serious? $1.2 trillion. Yes. So for everyone that goes, dude, just use a credit card and pay it off responsibly. I'm like, great. If we lived in a perfect world before the fall of man, maybe that theory would work.

Okay. But then I feel like some troll out there's going to be like, well, George, I heard that. that you got your wedding paid for and you won a competition. So, like, of course you're not in any debt. Can you tell us the story about your wedding and why you guys had a live camel at your wedding? Whose idea was having a live camel, by the way? Oh, me.

I'm like, if my last name's going to be camel, I'm going to have a real camel. Well, and truthfully, as I looked into it, there's a guy who runs an exotic petting zoo in Tennessee. It's like a little nowhere, Tennessee. It was $700. That's cheaper than flowers. Wow.

That's the cheapest part of the wedding. That's amazing. To rent a camel. And we saw him at a nativity scene at church. Oh. I went up to him and I was like, hey, do you do weddings? And he was like, no, but I'll try. And he literally called us.

And he called us. He was like, do you want two hump camel, one hump camel, furry, do you want short hair camel? Yes. You got options. Every camel. Please tell me the pastor was like reading, like in the, in front of everyone on top of the camel reading the thing. Like, was someone ride the camel. So, Grantwood has a law where you can't ride exotic animals. So we wanted to do camel rides and we couldn't.

You could only go up and pet it and take pictures. Yeah. But you got, but you guys won. How did you guys win? competition. He can write a camel and feet. Oh, yeah. There's much looser camel laws.

Yeah. Yeah, Whitney found a local wedding contest somehow as she was researching for the wedding. Venues and stuff. And we were like, well, we'll apply. I mean, it can't hurt. It's probably thousands of people

trying to get a free wedding. It was not marketed well. Like, it was a little bit a little tab on a website that I, like, just happened to see as I was scrolling through. And I think because of that, only like four people signed up for it.

And the way you won is by YouTube likes. And at the time, George was host of the Ramsey show YouTube channel. So really all I had to do was say, like, can you go like this video on YouTube? We crush the contest. The funny part is, I was like, all right, we won, but then no one reached out. I had to email them, be like, hey, guys, seven people entered. There was four finalists.

We got the most likes. And they were like, oh, yeah, you won. It was like anticlimactic. You had to go collect your own prize. Exactly. But that's like a huge prize, too. I think it was like a $28,000 wedding package. And so the caveat was you could only have 50 people total.

That included us. And the bridal party. No way. So it was like. So people all the time are like, oh, you want a free wedding. But we had to pay for a separate reception because they couldn't invite all our friends and family. No, that's sad. As you don't know, that's where the real money happened.

So at the end of the day, we ended up paying for a wedding. But we still got to have a really nice smaller wedding. So you did that for your ceremony and then had the big reception. There was ceremony reception and then of another reception. Later that night. So you had two ceremonies. No. There was ceremony, reception, reception.

We had a videographer at Ramsey. Actually, he did just a quick, like, summary of our wedding, played it at the second reception so they could see the ceremony, and then we come out for our second reception. So they got to see the ceremony. They got to see the great moments earlier that day, and then we got to party with them. So it actually worked out. How long was this wedding?

It was an entire day. It was a long day. It was a long day. It was like a 9 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. kind of day. Whoa. Stop. You know. That's intense.

Where does a camel come in? Was that part of the free wedding? There's a free. Just kind of like photo op, basically. That's amazing. But some great photos. When you got married, were you debt-free or not yet? Yeah, so I started in 2013 at Ramsey as an intern in temp.

And so by 2016, I met her. I was debt-free by then. I knocked out my $42,000 of debt. I had mostly student loans and then probably another four to five grand in credit cards. And so I knocked those out over 18 months. So by the time we met, we were both debt-free, with an emergency fund. And so it made things real smooth going into marriage. We didn't have to clean up any messes. Walk somebody through who's new to the Ramsey way, what the baby steps are

of getting out of debt. Because I feel like there's someone listening right now who probably wants to be out of debt, but they just have absolutely no idea where to start. Yeah. Well, a lot of people are doing nine things at once that have good motives that are good in theory, but they're not making any progress. So the baby steps are meant to cause you to focus on one thing at a time. So baby step one is $1,000 starter emergency fund. Okay. Because a lot of people, they can't pay off debt, and then an emergency hits, and it throws them off.

Exactly. And so Dave was like $1,000 to start. That'll knock out the ankle bite or emergencies. Once you have that, move on to Baby Step 2, which is paying off all of your consumer debt, everything but the mortgage using the debt snowball method. Okay. And all that says is, hey, pay the smallest balance first and make minimum payments on the rest. But wouldn't someone, I feel like the devil's advocate here would say, oh, well,

what if your biggest debt is the highest interest? So shouldn't you focus on the one with that? highest interest, what would you say to that person? Great question. We get that a lot and we love to say, hey, if we were doing math, we wouldn't be in credit card debt, would we? And so it's kind of a, we got to focus on behavior. We know at Ramsey that personal finance is 80% behavior, it's 20% head knowledge.

We have access to all of the information in the world and yet we are going into crippling debt. And so it's not an information problem. It's the person in the mirror. And that's where the baby steps and the debt snowball really works because it causes you to make progress really fast and it causes you to stop looking at the math and start going, I'm going to make, cause momentum to happen by knocking out the smallest balance first, take all of that payment

I freed up onto the next one, onto the next one. I love how you said that it's really a behavior problem because we're going to get to user questions that people submitted for you later, but somebody asked a question about, like, my husband and I make like a lot of money, but we somehow are still like falling behind. What's wrong? And it's because people have behavior problems. And I've fallen into that category too.

I mean, it's crazy to me how even though I like to think of myself as a frugal person, it's so easy to increase your spending as you make more money. And it's amazing to me how there's like there's doctors, there's lawyers, there's extremely successful entrepreneurs out there that make so much money and then they lose it all because they over leveraged or they spent too much. It doesn't matter how much money you make, but if you're making a lot and you're spending more than you make, you're still screwed. Oh, yeah.

We get those calls on the Ramsey show and I tell them on the call. I say, America has no pity for you. You make $300,000 and you're trying to find the margin to pay off debt. But the problem is, as you make more, you go, well, we can handle a bigger payment on the fancy cars, on the mortgage, and then life happens. You lose the income, someone wants to stay home, and all of a sudden things are tight. And that's when they call us. And so that's where the baby steps are really coming to play. So baby steps, I derailed for saying. So most people can knock out their consumer debt in 18 to 24 months if they get intense. So this is not a 10-year

plan to pay off debt. We're talking aggressive intensity. You're doing nothing else but paying off debt. No saving, no investing, no vacations. We're knocking out debt for two years or less. What if I want to be going on vacation? What if I really love my trip to Florida every summer? I think you're going to have to pause. I think we can have a staycation one year. What do you do for the staycation? What's an idea? Like a cheap, cheap, cheap, fun, family camping. You know? Well, you pay so much to live in your house. When you add up what it costs to live in your house, it's like a hotel stay every night. So just think about it that way and treat it like a hotel. Constinental breakfast is included. Breakfast in bed. The husband makes it.

date at home, like a date night at home where you do a little tent. Yeah, we would go to Aldi and get like a steak and I would really try hard, like cast iron, you know, the butter. Honestly, what the best sex I've ever had. It was a little rosemary on there. And obviously you guys at this stage when you were married weren't trying to like do the debt snowball because you weren't in debt anymore. But you guys were, you guys paid off your house in 26 months. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah.

So did you guys do like at home dates to just, you know, throw a ton of money to pay off your mortgage? Yeah. I feel like definitely with cooking. George would like watch. I mean, I feel like that was when TikTok was taking off. So it's like you'd see like the recipes and we would try that. And then I'm trying to think of what were creative ways that we were just, we love like comedy shows and stuff like that.

It was usually pretty cheap or you can watch them on Netflix. So it's just like. We didn't have any expensive hobbies. Yeah. Okay. That's the thing. If you like love golfing and it costs you 500 bucks a month, that's a hard thing to give up while you're getting out of debt.

Or paying off the house falls into Baby Step 6. So I'll get us there through the steps. Yeah. No, you're doing great. My ADHD is getting this way off right now, so I do apologize. Just so people know where this falls into place. So Baby Step 2, we knock out the consumer debt. Now they're going, well, I need savings for my emergencies.

Let's go back to the emergency fund in Babysep 3 and fully fund it with three to six months of expenses. Who would be a person that would need to save up six months of expenses? That's a great question. And there's a range for a reason. Some people, they can stomach three months because they're two people with stable jobs. Think about a USPS worker and a teacher. Those are fairly stable jobs compared to someone who's on commission with a regular income. And so the more unstable your life is, the more you want to lean towards six months.

And so if it's a one-income family, I would lean six months. If there's a lot of health issues in the family, I would lean towards six months. And if it's two people, stable jobs, you can lean towards. Or if you're single person, you're like, hey, it's just me. No one's relying on my income but me. I can make this work with three months. Or just for me, I have more anxiety around money just because I didn't have as much growing up. So I lean more six months because I want the security, even though we didn't have to have that.

But I still, to this day, want the six months. No one's ever complained that they had six months and they're like, well, that was a waste. Yeah. You know, you always feel better and sleep better at night having more. Yeah. No, it definitely feels good. I can speak from experience. We, and this is just speaking to, like, money mistakes I've made, but we got to the end of 2025. And we had, like, a lot of money in our bank account. And I was like, wow, this is pretty, this is awesome.

We're like, we're killing it. We have, like, more money than I ever thought than banking out. Tax guy goes, oh, by the way, like, we actually owe a lot more on taxes, you know, whatever. So like, okay, whatever. So then, like, then like 60% of that money just gone. And I'm like, ooh, actually, no, that was all of it. So all of it went to taxes. And we had our six-month emergency fund saved up.

And then I'm like, oh, shoot, I probably should have done our monthly donations to charity. Like, I kind of saved it for the end. I usually save it for the end of the year. And I was like, I think we're going to have to dip into savings or emergency. So I actually liquidated our emergency fund to make charitable contributions because I was like, I don't, I need to like be a charitable person. Like I feel like when you're making money, you need to give back. You need to do good in the world.

But a couple weeks ago, luckily brand deals came in, revenue from YouTube and stuff came in. So we built it back up again. But I was like, for a little bit there. For a little bit there, I was like, oh gosh, I hope I hope by like, I hope good karma comes back to me right now because like we literally just... Yeah, I was going to say, if you had an emergency, someone needs to be charitable to you. You're going to start to go find.

I know. I know. That is tight. So yeah, there's baby step three. So if you think about the foundation, it's let's get out of debt and have money in the bank to protect us. That's the foundation. That's financial piece. Then we can begin building for the future instead of paying for the past.

And that's baby step four, investing 15% of your household income into retirement. So household income 100 grand, invest 15 grand into retirement accounts. Okay. Tax advantage to account. And then once you have that going, that's kind of an ongoing thing. So baby steps 4, 5, 6, you're kind of doing them in order, but simultaneously. And so baby step 4, investing 15%. Now if you've got kids, let's start putting some money away for college in a 529 plan or an ESA.

Because from 0 to 18, even 150 bucks a month, you could have 100 grand in there for that kid for college. Just to make sure we're on the same page. So baby step 1 is emergency fund. Starter emergency fund of $1,000. bucks. Baby step two is paying off all consumer debt using the debt snowball method, baby steps. Baby step three is three to six months of expenses for your emergency fund. Baby step four is investing 15% of your take-home pay. Baby step five is investing in college. And then investing is baby step six. So six is where you pay off the house early. So basically any

money after you're investing for retirement and putting some money away for kids, you can use the excess to throw at the mortgage principle. Okay. So that's what we ended up doing. That's kind of the stage we found ourselves in when we got married. I love it. So we got the house. We put a big down payment down on a modest town home, you know, 15 minutes south of here.

And we just had this audacious goal of, hey, what if we were in our early 30s with no payments? What kind of options would that give us? Well, and also mortgage to me felt like debt. Like it weighed on me as a consumer debt did. I don't know why because of all the people that doesn't. But I needed that out of my life. I feel that. She was more aggressive than I was.

Yeah. Really? George made this plan. It was like a five-year plan. I thought that was aggressive. It was like, we're going to pet mortgage off in five years. And I was like, no, we're doing it in three. And so, and we did.

That was your wife's idea to pay the house off early. Yes. Yeah. Even earlier than I wanted to. No way. Okay, speak to me about that, Whitney. Like, you seem like a risk-averse person and you said that you grew up being around money problems of some kind.

I mean, we lived on the outside the, like, normal life. But there would be times, like, in college where I'm. I literally had $5 for the week to eat. And I'm like, and I danced in college, so I didn't have time to go get like a side job or anything. But I don't want to like knock anyone in my family. But it's like they didn't have like excess money to also give me to live. And so I just hated that feeling of like not knowing where like, how am I going to get food the next week or whatever. And it's not like I was like majorly struggling, but I didn't like to always be like having that feeling that everything's about to just be like, I'm about to be just totally broke.

Yeah. And so even growing up, seeing that like money problems and stuff. Like my mom would work weekends and just try and like stay on top of things for our family and my dad too. But yeah, I think I just always, even after college I just started racking up just like I told you all the consumer debt so fast and it just like would keep me up at night. And I remember some of my family said like after college you will just always have debt. That's just part of being an American. Who said that to you? My mom.

Your mom said that to you. That's so sad. I know it is sad, but that's how they lived. Like they just always were under like insane. amounts of debt. And that stress probably takes so many years off your life. Yeah. So I don't know why I just was different than that. Like I can't tell you why, but I just didn't want to live that way. And so obviously when I saw Dave and Rachel speaking about like not living in debt, I was like, I want that, you know, I don't want that anxiety in my life. So, um, I don't know. I just didn't want to be,

like, always wondering like where the next paycheck's coming from, what is going to. Like, I wanted us to be able to live our life. This is just a personal opinion, question, like both of your opinion. So say someone, like, met someone, went on a first date, they really hit it off and say, like, a couple months down the line, they find out that this other person has, like, a ton of debt. Is that, like, a red flag, like, you need, you can't take it any further in your opinion? Oh, definitely not. I would say it's, like, their mindset of what are they doing about the debt? Do they care about it? Are they, like, actively paying it off? Do they have a plan? Or are they just, like, this debt's going to go with me to the grave? I feel like

that would be the red flag. Let's say it's, like, $90,000. in student loans. Or maybe it's like, you know, 70,000 student loans. No, I'm saying like credit card debt. Or in 20,000 credit card debt. What's the green flag and what's a red flag? Like, if you ask them about the debt and what response should you be looking for to know that they're the right person? You're right. The different types of debt speak to behaviors. And so 20,000 in credit card debt is different than 20,000 in student loans. Okay. Now, both are bad. Hear me say that. But if I had to force rank them about like what's going to take more behavior change, it's the credit cards. It's the, you know, spending more than you make versus, well, I was told I need to take out student loans for college as an investment in my future.

Both things are still wrong, but I do think the type of debt matters and their mindset around it matters. Because if they're going, well, I'm not worried about it. I'll just, maybe it'll get forgiven one day. Or, you know, this is not a big concern for me. I'm still going to use my credit cards. I'll work on paying it off at some point. That to me is the red flag. But the fact that they have debt, it would be insane to be like, I'm not going to date you because you have debt.

Now, we get the calls where they find out. And so the honesty is the key here. Are they honest about the debt? Are they hiding it? Do you find out during the engagement process right before you get married that they've been hiding $200,000 in debt? That's the scarier part to me. That's the red flag. But if they are honest and they're working on getting rid of the debt, those are green flags.

So it's not the debt that's the problem. It's the person and what they're going to do about it. And are they willing to live a debt-free life? Is that a value for them? that they want to become debt-free and stay debt-free. Now, I am going to be a devil's advocate here because this is another trap I fell into. As we started making more money,

we had some friends that were way more successful than us. And I was like, do you guys do a car payment? What do you do? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's like arbitrage. So we just, we have a car payment. And then, like, the extra money that we could have used to buy the car cash, we just put into the stock market because our payment is like 6%.

What word did you just use? Arbitrash. So if you're making 10% in the market, what is that? So if you're making 10% in the market, but you're paying 6% on the loan, the difference is 4%. So arbitrage is, am I to explain that, right? Yeah, it's all about trying to make a spread. So you're sort of leveraging the debt to try to make more money over here, which then can maybe pay off the debt later.

It's sort of like, well, I'm going to trade, I can make more money over here, so why would I pay off this debt? What would you say to that person that comes to you like, oh, yeah, I can just take out a car payment and use the extra money to put in the S&P? Well, I'll tell you this. Arbitrage is it's a trigger word for me. because it tells me that you've been watching too much TikTok. And I believe that a puppy stops wagging its tail when you use the word arbitrage. Because what it says is it's a $10 word for I'm going to do something risky and stupid to try to get a little greedy.

Okay. Because I'm not happy with the money I could make over here, so I'm going to try to leverage debt, add risk to my life so I can maybe make more money. So here's the truth. Your debt has a fixed interest rate that you have to pay everyone. There's a forced amount that you're paying for the pleasure. The stock market is risky. And so young people go, well, it's been great so far.

And if you talk to someone older, they go, I remember when it was negative 30%, or the crash of 08. Or it drops 50%, didn't it? Like, I want to say there was a time period. I mean, crypto has. In the early 2000s, though, there was a time, like if you had invested a thousand bucks into an S&P 500 ETF, you would have literally seen in a matter of a couple months, I believe, it go down from $1,000 to $500. Because there's been correction periods and downturns the market that have been that severe. So yeah, I mean, you're right.

On human behavior says you're probably not going to invest the difference. Now, there are people who are the super nerdy ones who do it. Which that was us. We did do that, but I am proud to say we did pay off our cars. We did that three years ago. Nice. It did hurt, though, because we bought brand new cars because it was around the time when cars were like, it was almost like the used ones were more expensive than the new ones.

Was that the 2020? I remember hearing that. I remember hearing that. We got those calls on the Ramsey show. Because why wouldn't I buy the new one? It's actually cheaper. And I'm like, is it, though? It was crazy.

But apples to apples, the used car was still cheaper and there was still depreciation hit on the new cars. Now, I will say it made me feel less guilty when I heard the Dave Ramsey recommendation that you can buy a new car if you have a net worth of a million dollars. Yes. But at the same time, it really, really hurt when I looked at the value of our Model Y. After buying it brand new and 2020-2, those EVs. They dropped. Elon was like, yeah, let's just drop the price of the Model Y. our car depreciated by like 60% in a matter of like a year or two.

It was crazy. I know. That is crazy. But at least, you know, it's paid off. So it would suck if it's like, you know, there's people that have cars that are worth less than what they owe on it. Yeah, they're underwater. And we're seeing that all over.

You hear the Ramsey show for 10 minutes. Everybody's underwater on the car. And so here's what I tell them. If you pay cash for a car, you can never be underwater because you don't know money on it. And so you don't have to worry about the drop in value. And when you buy it used, someone else pay. appreciation for you those first few years. Okay, can we talk about you going to Disney World?

No, I wanted to bring this up. Okay, you asked a question. I'm a bone to pick about the Disney video. I don't know. I was talking to a Disney adult. You know, you are. I think it's the reason she had me on was confronting me. I was watching this video and I was like, Matt, I know he's going to debate me and make this.

My argument is so dumb. I think you should be able to go in debt for Disney to take your kids to Disney. Oh my God. No, Abby Howard, you didn't. not say that in the day raised the studio. They're only little kids once. Abby, going to death for Disney?

Come on. No. If a friend came to me, I would say send it. Here's the thing. I think a lot of people watching agree with you. And they're like, yes, queen. Snap. Because their husbands might be like Matt and be like,

Abby, that is insane. Okay, what's your response to people like Abby? Well, here's the thing. What they're not thinking about, all they're thinking about is the starry-eyed, wonderful experience of the amazing memories they're going to have. They're not thinking about the payments and what it's going to cost them for six months or a year after the trip is over.

And you have that regret of, oh, gosh, we're still paying off this Disney card. And the people I talked to, we did a man on the street at Disney Springs. So not even on the Disney, like, in the park. They probably wouldn't allow that, huh? Well, we filmed on a phone, and so we got away with more. That's your life hack, kids. That's legendary. Because everyone's got a phone out of it.

That was a high-quality phone. That is a legendary move. by the way. That video is so freaking funny. Yeah, it was our top performing video ever on the channel. I saw it. I got recommended it like 50 times. Yeah. And people were, they were telling me, honestly, and here's the funny part. The comments

were like, way to ruin their vacation, George. I was like, how do you think about that? I was like, wah, wah, the Grinch of Disney comes around. Now that's a title I can handle. Well, they're telling me, yeah, we're like $200,000 in debt. Somebody said that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, we put it on the credit card. We have because that was my theory.

Either you paid cash and you're debt free or you're in crippling debt and you're just adding to the pile going, what's another five grand going to do? So that's my fear. Is it just, what's another five grand here? What's another five grand there? Like it's not just the trip to Disney.

Then it like snowballs into it. And I don't think you enjoy it as much because in the back of your mind, you know this is borrowed money. And when you save up and pay cash and you book that trip, you're like, we did it. There's a level of just

that feeling of we did a really hard thing and sacrifice to be here. versus we did the easy thing, took the shortcut, and we're going to pay in the long run. And so I want everyone to go to Disney. I'm a Disney fan after going recently, and I went, it is magic. But there's ways to do it without it costing you an arm and a leg.

Now, the park tickets are the park tickets. But you can stay off property. You can bring your food in there. There's ways to make it not cost $5,000. But you want the full, well, I want to stay in the resort, and I want the kids to have the character breakfast. And, you know, in your mind, you're like, if you're a millionaire, if you've been networked,

of a million dollars, like send it. You know, if you have the money, why not? Well, the fear is if you can't, if you don't know how to save up $5,000, that speaks to a deeper issue in your life. Yeah. Now it might take a year or two to save up for that trip. And the kids don't know any better, you know, whether they're three or five, they're still going to have a great time.

And a lot of the times it's really for the parents. It's for the mom to feel like, wow, I did it. I'm the mom who took their kids to Disney. Yeah. More than it is for the kids. And Rachel Cruz will admit that. She's like, when I went to Disney, it was for me. It wasn't for the three-year-olds.

Our kids ask every morning to go to Disney. Oh, wow. Where do they get that from? I will say, we got to be careful not to spoil our kids too much. No, I will say this because I wanted to have a conversation with them. We got passes. We have the Disneyland passes. We've gone a lot recently.

We've gone a lot. But they think that, so Goofy's Kitchen is like the characters dinner, character breakfast, things like that. And they'll, like, come down in the morning. They're like, I think I want Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast. And so, and I was, like, talking, like, when we went to Disney this last time, I was like, like, are we going to go to his kitchen? And they're like, get on your phone. See, like, they were basically saying, like, see if it's available.

And I was like, well, let's have a little conversation about cost and, like, expenses. So then we, like, had a conversation. And then a couple days later, it became clear to me that my three-year-old deduced from that conversation that you work so you can go to Disney. Wow. And so he's like, for some people, that is the mentality. He told me, he's like, I need a camera and a pewter. So, and because in his mind working is, like, being a YouTube.

Oh, yeah. That's your life. He sees mom and dad go, this is their life. He sees us walking. He wants to go to Disney. So now it's so cute, you guys. He brings his little camera around with them. Like, Dad, say cheese.

He'll take pictures of me. That's amazing. Because, like, in his mind, he's like, yeah, I got to be a videographer guy to. So he's like, mom and dad, get to work. Yeah. I got to go to Disney. No, that does get, bring. You have a similar age, like, daughter.

Like, how do you already start those money conversations? Do you use real life examples of, like, going to Disney? Or does that just make it confusing for that? I mean, that's a great question. I'm already running into that, like, at the store, how she just... Oh, so we go to, like, a Trader Joe's or a Target, and she just starts throwing things in the cart. Oh, the carts at Trader Joe's. And she loves just throwing things in there.

And I go, no, we can't get that. That's not what we came here for. The worst is when you leave the place and they have everything on display, and your kids, like, I want that toy, I want that toy. And guess what they do? They put that stuff on the lower shelf because they know, it's all strategic. I know, marshmallows. I know, marshmallows.

What is that with marshmallows? The marketing is unhinged, you see. But what we do, she has a little, like an ice cream stand, like a toy one. And so it came with fake money. And it came with a fake credit card. Uh-oh. They're indoctrating her. Yeah, it's like a little like tap to pay or you can put the chip in.

And I'm like, it says credit on it. So I have to keep telling her, hey, we're going to use the cash today, okay? We're not going to put the card in. You can just change that C into a D real quick. Exactly. But I have to teach her like, hey, if you want the ice cream, you have to give me those $2 in your hand. So she'll have to pay me to get her fake ice cream so I can. teacher that there's a transaction that happens here.

That does bother me that they're like marketing credit cards to literal. Barbie comes with a credit card now in her little purse. Why are they doing that? I think about it. I guarantee you these credit card companies are in the pockets of, you know, Barbie and Mattel going, hey, indoctrinate them now. They're probably, and they have so much money too. They're probably just like, it was like $50 million if you can, I mean, not, maybe not that

$50 million dollars, but they're probably giving some serious cash to these toy manufacturers should just put a little credit card in the toy. That's a conspiracy. We're teaching our kids. Yeah, that is, I want to run down that rabbit hole with you on a separate episode. Let's do it. Let's do it, yeah. I bet we could get to the bottom of it.

Some credit card lobbyists who's over there at Mattel. Seriously. But here's the problem. Our kids are going to live in a frictionless world where there's no exchange of money. They just wave a wand. You can literally hold your hand over something and then get it. Yeah. You hold your palm and it reads your palm and pays.

So we need to teach our kids that we should add friction back. into our lives to feel the pain I purchase. Otherwise, they're just going to spend wildly and go into crippling debt. Okay, what about this, though? Maybe I'm just an oddball, but when I have cash, I want to spend it. It's like free money in my mind. Because for me, my spending, I just look at our bank account and I look, I do use credit card, sorry, but I look at like the money coming in going out. I just like literally gave Georgia heart attack. But that's like the one Dave Ramsey principle I don't follow. Sorry, guys. I'm probably going to get kicked out here. That's like their main principle, by the way. But if I could have lightning strike you in the

studio, I might have that. But let me just say this, though, like the principle of spending less than what you make, spending less than what you make is just like, that is the key. That is like the golden rule of personal findings. Yeah, it's amazing. And the debit card is just the tool to make that happen to me. You can't spend more than you make if you use your own money. And to toot my own horn, which I know you disagree with this, which is totally cool.

I respect that. To tube it away, I'll doot it. Like, when I first got a credit card in college, I would pay it off like literally multiple times a week. I treated it like a debit card because I did want a credit score because I thought it would make, like, maybe buying a house or, you know, using credit to maybe get insurance or rent, like, because they asked for your credit score. I thought it might make the process smoother for me. So that's why I did it and I treated it like a debit card. I know your philosophy is so different than that. It's like you can buy a house without a credit score.

You can rent a rental car without a credit score. Speak to the people like me who are like, oh, and not having a credit score makes your life way harder. Yeah, well, I think at the heart of it, there's some justification there of I don't want my life to be any more difficult. And therefore I'm going to do another difficult thing, which is trying to manage this credit card debt and pay it off every week. I feel anxiety thinking about having to do that. Instead of just going, I paid for it, it's over. Like, it's out of my brain now. Instead of, oh, I got to log in and make sure I pay that and make sure it's on auto pay and I can't miss a payment because it'll charge me 29% APR.

That's how most people live their life. And then they wonder why they have so much anxiety. Is that what the rates are now, 29%. Yeah. I mean, the averages are 25%, 27%. That's so off. So for us, you're right. Like, when we bought that townhome, we didn't have a credit score because we didn't have any debt.

We had no open credit accounts, no credit cards, nothing. But how did you buy that? Like, isn't the underwriting process a lot more challenging if you don't have a credit score for lenders to look at? I think we just had to give more documents, but it wasn't. Yeah, you upload a few more documents. So like tax returns, utility statements. Basically, they want to see that you've paid other bills on time. Got it.

And when you think about it, this was a new problem. Because back in the day, like your parents, there was no credit score. It's only existed since the 90s, which is all we know. Yeah. But back then, it was a person looking at your financial statements, a person who had a relationship with at the bank going, oh, yeah, I trust Matt. He's got the money. He's good for it.

He'll pay us back. So manual underwriting is the process instead of automated underwriting, which is what you're talking about. And as long as you truly don't have a credit score because people go, can I bypass my credit score to do it without a score? I go, no. If you have a score, they're going to use that. But if you don't have a score and you have the proper documentation, you have on-time rent payments for at least a year, you have proof of income, you can get a mortgage.

And you got to do it the Ramsey Way, which is 15-year fixed rate mortgage, 10% down at least. That's what's going to get you the best rate. So you're not paying more than someone else. I know you say all that and I'm like, yeah, it's kind of nice doing not having to do a manual underwriting because it seems like a lot more work in my head. It's upload and click two more documents. That's it. What about like renting a car? Like if I go to rent a car, don't they want to see a credit card so that I can just, you know, get moving and get grooving?

Like, what do you have to show them when you're renting a car if you only have a debit card? That's a great question. And you're right. There are times where it can be more difficult. And I actually outline in my book everything you're talking about. There's a whole credit score chapter. Love your book, by the way. I know the answers to a lot of these.

I'm just asking them anyway. No, it's great. I love it. And the truth is every major rental car company has a debit card policy. There is a way you can do it. You just have to understand it. call that location or contact them and say, hey, I'm renting with a debit card. What are the restrictions or guard rails? Yeah. And that's it. And I've been able to rent, we've traveled

all over the country with just a debit card. So people make it out to be a bigger deal. How do you travel, though, without like points and miles? I don't even understand how that would work. It's crazy. If you just live on less than you make, you have the money and you just buy the flight. No, I don't think, see, I think when you travel, you're supposed to use like points in miles. It's supposed to be free. Because I don't think, yeah, it's supposed to be free. You need to spend $50,000 on the credit card to get $2,000 back to make the trip free. It is funny, though. looking like we have a 1.5% cash back business card and we spend a lot of money on our business because like we buy expensive mics and cameras to you know record our podcast and stuff and I'm like

oh this is cool we like we got like a thousand bucks cash back or it's like we got $1,500 cash back and it's like yeah because you spend $100,000 and I'm like oh my gosh plus the annual fee yeah plus any fees or interest that was I don't like the I don't like the cards with fees those are not like I'm not doing that okay how do you feel about this Abby I'm curious I try to what's the book of money well do you just like relegate it to Matt and go well it makes him happy I know it's not right I fully know I'm like we've had it

a lot every I feel like every year we're like we're gonna do it now we're gonna have this conversation I'm like I'll just never spend money ever again he's like no we can just talk about this I will say though I I've actually gone back and forth recently about cutting up her credit cards and the reason is

did I get in your head no I just love for sure Here's what I love about. George on your shoulder. I love, what I love about you and Dave and the whole Dave Ramsey family is, it's such a no-nonsense approach to finance. It is bulletproof. You cannot F it up.

Like, you could, if you follow all of the baby steps to a T. It is almost impossible to, like, screw it up. Now, maybe if, okay, I'm sure there's someone that, like, they get cancer and they get crazy medical bills, that's like a, you know, that's rare, right? But like for most people just following the baby steps, they're going, they can become a millionaire. Like in your book, you talk about how you are average George.

You're an average dude that was in consumer debt and student loans and you got out of all of it. And you became a millionaire by the time you were 30? I think 32. 32. Between our retirement accounts and our house, we had a million dollar net worth. And that just gets me fired up. I just, I love that for you. That inspires me.

That inspires. And so like, I don't know, listening to your book, I've not. never been more likely to cut up our credit cards than listening to your book. Seriously. That makes the world. Seriously. If I can just get in your head with that book, I think I've done the Lord's Word. And here's my challenge to you, and I put this in the book.

Just for 30 days, put the credit card in a drawer somewhere and just use your own money and compare your spending. And see how you felt. See the actual numbers. And what I found is people save more than their 2% they would have gotten cash back just by using their own money. Because you're more, think about it. If you bought the equipment, you might think twice and go, hey,

Could I get a better price on this same equipment if I just did a little bit of research? And you're totally right because- He always does that. Well, like, and look, we right now, we're running like 10 different social media accounts. So we're running multiple different, like, media businesses, modern media companies with our podcast and our YouTube channel, our TikToks and Instagrams. So I effed up recently where I didn't move enough money over to our checking from our savings. I told you this before the podcast.

And I got charged. It was the first time ever with our credit card that I paid a couple hundred bucks in interest because I didn't it wasn't it wasn't it went unpaid for like two three days and it made me really mad because I was like I paid this on time is on auto pay it set up all the time I called the card card company I've been a loyal customer of you guys like I know you make three percent off me whatever like you guys may have made so much money off of all the spending I've done using your card like can we just wave this this 400 bucks couldn't do it and look I guess have we made way more than four hundred dollars in our in our points and stuff sure but just the sheer principle of them

charging me $400 for me going like two days without paying it because I needed a, it was just waiting for the savings to process the checking, just made me so mad. And that, that I think is, you know, that really was the reason why I was like, screw these credit. That's why Dave always says you play with snakes, eventually you're going to get bit. Like these companies are not your friend. And their marketing makes you think, hey, we're always here for you. Here's a more line of credit. You deserve it.

You work hard. Yeah. And they make you think that you're winning because they're letting you go into more debt. Yeah, and nobody, no millionaire out there is like, you know what the secret is to become a millionaire? My credit card. My credit card miles and points. Arbitrage. It doesn't work.

You know, it's just silly. So I like, I like your principles. I think it's bulletproof. So you're saying you're going to go without a credit card for 30 days? Would Abby be down for it? That's the question. I'm seriously thinking about it. Yeah, he's the money guy.

So I'm like, if you said that, I'd be like, yeah. I'd rather do that than have to figure it out. Which like, I don't know, in my, I guess in my head right now, I kind of view it as like, I know the day of Ramsey principle is if you have a net worth of over a million dollars, it's okay to buy a new car. And so in my head, I'm like, I kind of view credit cards the same way. But that's in cash. Yeah. Yeah. And most people go, ooh, $50,000 of my own money right now. It hurts my soul. And I go, well, maybe let's rethink buying a $50,000 car. Because you're doing that with payments over time plus interest. Yeah. So you're paying $60,000 for that car over time.

And that's the problem is because we spread it all out and going to debt, we don't feel the pain. And I think we need to bring back that pain and friction into our lives. Yeah. Because America is just broke and exhausted. Thank you to Upwork for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. If you are a business owner, one of the biggest growth hacks is realizing you don't have to do it all by yourself. Upwork makes it easy to bring in the right freelancer when you need them so you can stay

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I know we talked a little bit about you guys. having kids. You guys recently welcomed a new baby five months ago, right? Henry. Congratulations on your son, Henry. That's amazing. How are you guys planning to talk to your kids about money and teach them about these money principles

and talk to them about it in age-appropriate ways? That's a great question. You know, people think like, well, George probably, you know, drills down mutual funds with his daughter and flashcards at night. But, you know, it's got to be age-appropriate. At two and six months, there's no conversations. and over time you start to step it up.

And so teaching them that, hey, if you do this chore that's outside of the family work, you can get money for that. You can get a dollar. And so just teaching them that principle, that money doesn't just come from mommy and daddy's bank account from the money tree. It comes from you doing something that adds value. What's the psychology of that with paying your kids for doing chores? Is that something that you think is good?

Oh, yeah. I mean, we call it commission around here because that's how the real world works. Yeah. Nobody just gives you an allowance to exist. No. Like that's crazy that we just teach our kids that, hey, you're just getting allowance. Then one day, that's on you now. And they go, what?

That's where entitlement comes from. And so we teach that, you know, don't punish your kids. Cover all their needs. But if they want something that is outside of that boundary, like they want a video game, teach them how to save for it because they're going to treat that video game differently than if it's just another one mom and dad bought, it's going to go in the trash and they're unused. But if they had to save up $50 over six months to get that game, it is like gold.

They're probably put it in a frame and not let anyone touch it. And so I think that shows you that we value things differently when we worked hard for them. And that's the thing you want to teach your kids. So for us, we don't have the conversations now, obviously. But I think more is caught than taught. We say that a lot. So the way that our kids see us talk and handle money is way better than anything we could tell them. That's great.

So when do you think that extra allowance time starts? like. As they get old enough to actually do things on their own. Yeah. I don't trust my two-year-old to do almost anything right now. But she does love to help.

She's a great helper. The ones that we started with them is like when I'm putting the clothes from the washer, he transfers them to the dryer. I hand them to them to them. That's just a family thing that we're going to do. You don't want to teach them that anything you do in this house is commissionable.

It needs to be the extra activity. And maybe for them, but something they hate doing, like brushing their teeth. I'll give you a quarter every time you brush your teeth. I'm going to put it in this jar. and they get to see the jar start to grow.

So things that are visual really help kids. Because if it's in like a piggy bank they can't see, it's kind of hard for them to feel it. And so we have clear banks that we sell as part of our Financial Peace Junior products where it's clear. So they can see how much they save, spend, and give. So that's another principle of teach your kids early on.

There's only three things you can do with money. Kids can understand that. We can spend some, we can save some, we can give some. All of those things are good and healthy. Let's focus on giving first. Then we're going to put some money and save it. things, then spending comes last. Did you end up spending, splurging on that like bed jet thing for your bed to cool it down?

Oh, yeah. You did? You guys got the bed jet? I know that was like that there's some, it seems like there's some friction. Oh, yeah. With that purchase in the household. Yeah, I forgot about that. I did end up, here's the thing, because of my massive influence, I got Whitney a free bed jet.

No way. Shut the front door. I saw how worth it was once I had my own because he always had his own. For people that don't know, not a sponsored product. But it just, it shoots like temperature controlled air through a magical sheet. Okay. And now we have one that's separated. So Whitney has her own that shoots heat.

I'm not going to mind the shoots cool air. Yeah. Yeah. So instead of putting our house down to like 66 at night and I'd be so angry. Now he could just do it. I'm sending her podcast. Like it's actually scientifically better to sleep in a cold house. No, literally, imagine that yesterday in our hotel.

I was like, my nose. I'm like, I'm under here, but my nose and ears are cold. 68 degrees is not cold. We're under the covers. You guys would have never survived the pioneer time. Notice how he does it in the hotel so he doesn't have to pay to cool it down to that. I cool it down.

Now that's frugal. I'll do 70. I'll do like 7. I'll do between 68 and 70 degrees in our own house that night, depending. I've gotten a little crazy now that we've... That's the one thing I'm not frugal about is air.

I'm like, I want to be comfortable in my own home. I'll pay an extra 40 bucks this month to have it at the temperature I want. It's probably our biggest argument in marriage is when he turns down the upstairs, which is the kids' rooms. It's not even ours.

By the way, one degree. I go from 70 to 69. I promise. Our newborn now is five months old. Sleeps worse when it's cold. And so he does it one degree. How could you do that to your child, George? He's like, it was burning up in there when I was rocking.

I was like, I don't care if you're hot. I need him to be like the right temperature. Welcome to our parenthood, guys. Have you noticed? Your needs don't matter anymore, dads. Has your electric bill gone up significantly with George's AC addiction? Yeah, I mean, it's high. Yeah.

I keep track of it and it hurts my soul. Have you considered solar panels? No, I haven't. His dad did. Went down the hole. stomach, the maintenance, first of all, the initial cost. It's like 50, 60 grand, right? It's insane.

And then to ROI on that and break even on that. And then the maintenance and repair you need to do to keep those, you know, the tiles break and they need to be repaired. And so I'm like, it's not worth it for me right now. Well, I got a quote, so I had Tesla quote, our house for solar because we live in Arizona. I feel like Phoenix is, yeah, it's a different ball game. It's so hot. And with the AC on, our lecture bills like $800 in the month of July.

Wow. So we might send it because I think it'll save us money over time. Here's my thing. If you do it with cash, I will allow it. Cash, cash. Because most people go, well, the guy at the door that came to sell a solar said we can get it on $200 payments. And don't buy it from the guy at the door because the guy at the door is making a massive commission off of you. Thank you.

Support them. No, I mean, if you're rolling in it, you just have like money to throw away, sure. But like, that's your money that you worked hard for. So, hey, if you want to, Abby will fall for it. If you go to Abby's door and sell her something, she said, you need to support a small business. No, seriously. She dropped $250 on popcorn for her. cousin.

What? Your cousin came to the door? No, he sent me a link. The kids aren't even working these days. He's in Missouri. He couldn't come to my door. Yeah.

He didn't even do a sales pitch when I was a kid doing door-to-door sales. George gets so upset. For my school. Nothing to be more living. I won the contest. I went to every house in the neighborhood and all the right neighborhoods around her house.

You know who's doing the work nowadays is the Girl Scouts. Every time I go to the grocery store, they have their pitch. And so every time I go, I have to get another box cookies. That is something I will. I'm a second court. I agree with that.

If you're hustling, I want to support you. But if it's like your mom sent me a link to support you, I'm like, listen, man, I'm not buying your Tumblr for your school marching band. You say that, but you do. You do that, but you do that. No, I have a question. Oh, yeah. So you, this is something that we talk about a lot.

Because when we were in our, like, extremely frugal years. Yes. There are certain things that were instilled in us that no matter how much money we make down the line, we will probably, like, it's going to, still, we're never going to change those things. One of those things is buying water. Like, we don't buy water. Buying water, like, really bothers us.

Like, we want to always fill up a water bottle. We're like, water should be free. But is it, like, renewable, like, are you trying to go green? It's not that. It just makes me angry that, like, you're at, yeah, if you're at Disney or six flags. Or the airport. And it's like, yeah, it's only $5 to $9 to buy. Now it's like, I've seen bottles of water for like $10.

One day I flexed on Matt. One day I really flexed on Matt and I drank the water bottle that came. in the hotel. I was like, well, I was like, and I was like, pay for? Yes. Dude, I went to Vegas for F1 with my brother. It was $15 for a Fiji water in the hotel room. I'm like, are you effing kidding me?

It was more expensive for the water than alcohol was down downstairs. I saw Backstreet Boys in January or beginning of January and I was so thirsty. I couldn't find water anywhere. So I had to, I've never done that. 19, but I was that thirsty. And she even text me like, hey, just FYI. Like, I had to do this. And it was also like 11 o'clock at night.

I didn't want to go out by myself in Vegas and try and find water. Yeah, don't do that. I just was like, I will eat the cost here, but it crushed me. Even when I checked out and I had to pay for it, I was like, this is insane. Do you have things like that that you're like, no matter what, we will still like never spend money on this? It's so funny, you do mention the water things, but I'm at the airport now. I've just recently, like in the past year, let myself start buying waters. I know it sounds crazy.

It feels crazy. It is more convenient. I still am the frugal research one. Even if it's like, on principle, I can save $3. I'm going to do it. Tell about your public store just the other day. The dollar at the customer service card. Oh, yeah.

You went to customer service? Yeah, so, well, it was supposed to be a dollar off in my public app. And so it didn't ring up. And so then I'm like, I checked out and I got to go wait in the line for customer service. And I go, hey, I just checked out. It was supposed to take a dollar off. And he's like fighting me on. He's like, well, it's a dollar.

And I was like, yeah. And he goes, do you really want a dollar? And he's like, yeah, I don't know. Oh, I'm the same way, dude. And so he finally rings it up and gives me a dollar bill. And he was like miffed by it. And I was like, I don't know how you were raised. Well, also because hello, you're shopping at public's like,

it's supposed to be a pleasure, man. That's kind of expensive. So Abby and I were servers at a pizza restaurant in college. And I studied like, I studied our pay stuff because I was like something that's not lining up here. Realized that I was shorted 20 bucks by our employer. When our hourly was was less than $3. Yeah, our hourly was like around three bucks an hour because you make tips at the restaurant.

This was gosh, seven years ago. Anyway, we ran, we went back. to pizza restaurant recently and my boss brought it up. He was like, I still think about how you gave me wanting me to pay you the money that I owed you and I'm like yeah, I still love the guy, love the guy but I'm like, yeah, dude, like when you're getting paid

$3 an hour, yeah, I'd like to be paid the $20 I have an injustice thing. I don't know if I was like because I was bullied growing up, but I feel like taking advantage of it. Well, first of all, Middle Eastern. So my dad, like, growing up Sunday, we would get the paper with all like the coupons in it for the groceries and we would sit there and cut up. Oh, yeah. It was like a fun experience for me.

My mom had a coupon drawer in our house. Yes. And so I just loved those days. And it was exciting to like see how, you know. They still have coupons. They still exist. A lot of their digital now and they're like, you scan them in an app or whatever. But that's still instilled in me.

That frugality of like don't get taken advantage of. Get the best deal you can negotiate. Which makes Whitney cringe. Oh, I have to. I cannot handle any negotiations. Abby has negotiations too. I kind of love it though. I love it.

It's a sport for me. It's a sport. I'm not athletic. So this is all I have as far as sports goes. Oh, no. That, no. So, yeah, Whitney stays in the car or just doesn't go if I need to make a big transaction. I know when to walk away.

Whitney, what's an uncomfortable situation you've been in, Whitney, because of George trying to negotiate something down? Oh, my gosh, so many. I feel like the most recent, well, I don't know. Anything that's like a return? I'm so curious. She doesn't go with me to make returns. She'll be like, hey, I bought a bunch of stuff.

I'm going to return most of it. Who gets to make the returns and fight me? Maybe if you're not comfortable sharing the recent one, but like what's a story of a negotiation George did? that made you uncomfy. Gosh, can you think of one? I'm trying to think. There's so many, but I feel like they're like...

Maybe a car? Because I know I'm fairly petty when it comes to these things. So it's not about the dollar amount. Now, the bigger the dollar amount, the more I'm going to fight, you know, with like a car, which I did. I didn't go in a dealership because it was across the country. So I had to fight over the phone and text. I think the ones that stick out to me the most.

I can't think of a specific situation right now, but it's the ones where the person, like the customer service person can't actually do anything about it. Like they're literally telling George, like... I don't have the power to do this. I think one was like an apple and he was getting charged extra for something. And the guy was saying like, I cannot give you that discount. And so George is still like, come on, there's like got to be something.

He keeps pressing then. And so I feel bad for that person. I'm like, they're just doing their job. So I get that they're like being like a sickler on this. But he does usually win in the end because I'll call over a supervisor or something. Well, then I just say, well, is there a manager I could speak to? I'm never like mean or rude. It's not like.

It's not unreasonable stuff. I'm not making a scene. I'm not like yelling at anybody. It's just like, well, is there a manager I could speak to? And usually George is, right. It's like a fee was out of that shouldn't have been or something. That happened to us with internet. Or just incompetence.

Like I try to return something at Target and they said, no, it's not in the system yet because I bought it at a different target that day. And so they're like, I'm like, I have the receipt. Can I return this item? And so I said, wait, if I don't have a receipt, I can do a no receipt return. So I literally crumpled up the receipt, put it in my pocket and said, now can I do the return? and the Target employee stared at me like,

did he just find a glitch in the Matrix? And they did the return. Whoa. So it's just like, I'm just like, be a competent person and think if this was me, what would I do for that person? So if I was in customer service and I've worked those jobs, just do for one what you wish you could do for many. Regardless of a policy,

I think everyone's just so by the book now and they don't want to get in trouble that they just are so scared to treat someone like a human being. Some of our viewers submitted questions for you guys, which I think are really, really great questions, very practical to 2026. And then I also asked me to agree to disagree questions. That's okay because agree to disagree is like a really fun game we like to play on the show.

But first off, this is from Abby. She said, advice for buying your first house in today's economy as a young couple making $100,000 combined. What the bank says they'll loan you is not the amount you should be taking out alone. And so we have to reset expectations. And that's really hard to do to go, I want it to live in this neighborhood, in this kind of house. And so I always tell people, don't get stuff. sorry-eyed, scrolling Zillow, going, that has to be the house. Yeah.

You have to hold everything loosely and go, we got to compromise on something, either location, the home type, the timing, the amount we're going to put down. And so there's always a way around it, so don't get discouraged. But it might take you five years, and you need a higher down payment, and you need to make more money, and you need to go further out and get the townhouse to start. And so get your foot in the door and don't go, well, I need the house my parents have right now. Like, we're trying to fast forward and shortcut it. And, you know, yes, the boomers did have it easier as far as income to house ratio.

Yeah. But that doesn't mean that we can go take out a bunch of debt just because we want it now. Like we've moved three times to get to the house that we want. Every three times. Every three years we've moved. And do you always buy the house cash whenever you move into a new house? We try. Yeah.

The first one, we paid it off. We got another one. That one got paid off even faster. And then the next one was cash. Did you turn your old houses into rental properties or did you move the money over? No, because we wouldn't have had the cash to do it. So the way we did is you buy the house. It appreciates, and we pay it off.

So we have 100% equity. We take all of that, roll it into the next one, which means a smaller mortgage. We knock that out fast. And then we're able to save up and pay cash for the next one. So it took time. I mean, this has, you know, it's been, what, a seven, eight year journey. Yeah. And where a lot of our friends, like, just bought their forever home first, but they're going

to have a mortgage for 20 years. Yeah. Because they put very little down. It's a bigger mortgage. So we always wanted a small mortgage that we could knock out fast. So we, yeah, we did 20% down. didn't realize that you guys recently updated your recommendation that you can do that it's okay to do five right five to 10 percent down if you're a first time home buyer is okay okay now you still

follow the other parameters yeah and you're still going to have PMI which is private mortgage insurance that extra fee every month to protect the lender if you don't do why did why did it always warn me about that yeah why was like don't do drugs and avoid PMI yeah but why why the why did the recommendation change um I think just realizing the current state of affairs in America that a 10% down payment could be $60,000. Yeah. And so that might be unattainable. So if you can get, you know, 5 to 10% down on a $250,000 home that's a little further

out, that's more reasonable to get in a home faster. Because we know, like, it's a moving goalpost. I don't want people waiting 15 years to buy their first home. Well, it's sad. I mean, the area we love the family area we're in of Arizona, but the average home price is like $750,000. And just look at the payment, because if you make $5 grand a month and the payment's $3,000 a month, that's unsustainable.

And what happens is, like, Whitney wanted to stay home when she had her first kid. And it wasn't a financial decision for us because we didn't have a mortgage payment. And so it just gives you more options later. It's not about being gung-ho to pay off the mortgage to make Dave happy. This is going to give us flexibility down the line. And too many people become inflexible because they took on this giant mortgage. And this question comes from Ashley. It's actually for you, Whitney.

It says, I would love to know if Whitney has any frugal hacks she uses in motherhood. That's a great question. So many. I've got a book on this. Well, I do feel like. like when you're first about to give birth, I don't know if you does too, but if you sign up for a million different registries,

like any of them that you can do, like Target, Amazon, you get a certain amount off, like 15% off for Amazon, for example, like the first year. So I would just keep adding diapers or things like that to my Amazon registry. Anything remaining on the registry?

I like it. Yeah, so then I can just keep getting the percentage off, even though it's not someone else buying that for me. Wait, actually curious question. What's your favorite diapers? We've switched. actually at Millie Moon now. Oh, that's our good.

Yeah. And they're surprisingly not, like, they're good price. Yeah. Actually, they were cheaper than Pampers. That's why I ended switching. We were a Pampers Pure family for a long time. And we switched over. Yeah, it was more because my daughter's skin issues.

This is from Lexi. She says, a mortgage would be cheaper than my rent. Is it dumb to buy a house even though I have debt? Ooh. This one is so tough because if you just in a vacuum, look at those two numbers on paper, you're like, no, duh, I should buy a house. Yeah. The mortgage is going to be cheaper based on what.

what I could get. Number one, home ownership is not for the faint of heart. It is expensive, it's a headache, you are the landlord that you have to call to fix the issue. And so people don't think about that. When you're in debt and you have a mortgage that's right up to the line and it's on a 30-year, now that emergency hits and it's $5,000 to replace the H-VAC, when they're going further into debt. Well, George, we have two rental properties. We have one that was built in like 2020.

The other one was built in 1958. Something breaks at this 1958 house, I swear to you, every week. week. It is brutal. And it's not like a little thing. It's like a major roof. It's been the biggest thorn on my side. So I agree with you. It's like home if you're going to yeah it's it's not a one size fits all for home ownership because depending on the age of the house or who built it, there could be some serious stuff that goes wrong that then you have to front the cost for you. And it's just again, it's inflexible. Like you bought a house. You can't just get out of that easily like you could renting where it's I broke a lease and we're good. Yeah. And so there's a lot more

responsibility and finances that you need to think about when it comes to home ownership. And I like this question from Mary has, you know, goes right hand in hand with you guys moving to you being a stay-at-home mom, which is so cool that you're able to live off of George's income alone. That's like really impressive in today's economy. As Mary said, how can we budget well with the goal of having kids young and being a stay-at-home mom? That's like such a hot debate. Yeah. Like I know so many moms in this position where it's like they want to stay home, but they don't feel like they can financially or their husband wants them to work because they're like, We need both incomes.

Because it just gets too tight, too much pressure on that one person's income. Yeah. That's a real, and we see that a lot of, like Whitney has a lot of friends who want to stay home, but it's tough because you need the dual incomes. And so the way you budget for that is you do a test run. Just ignore that other person's paycheck, the person who wants to stay home, and see if you can live on it. That's good. And if you can't, and that's why we tell people to follow the Ramsey plan.

If you become debt-free with an emergency fund, it's a whole lot easier to stay home than what we still have our car. payments. You still have a bunch of student loans. And so it just gives you more options. And it is tough. And for some people, it makes sense to do daycare. Like if you make $85,000 a year and daycare is much cheaper, then it might be worth it for you to work. But I always tell people it's more, it's more than just money. Right. And so if you're willing to make the sacrifices needed and you want to stay home and you're going to downgrade your lifestyle or maybe move, then it's worth doing. Yeah. I tell George all the time, like, if he lost his job tomorrow, we just like lost all the income, I would, because it means so much to me to stay home, I would truly, like, move into, like, an apartment or something, which that's not a bad thing to do.

Just saying, like, going from a home to an apartment would be very hard for some people. There are, like, major lifestyle changes that I would be willing to do just to, like, have these years. Because I didn't have that with my parents, and I think it does matter a lot for me personally. Right. I think that's the key there is that, like, people want to continue to have their same lifestyle and not work, and then that's just because. Which I get it. It's hard. Yeah, that's just the math problem of it. It's like, well.

Yeah. It's not going to add up then. And this question is from Diana. How does Whitney put up with George's tight financial decisions? I ask the Lord every day. I still don't know. Let's see. Your tight ones.

I do feel like clothing can be like our biggest one that he doesn't understand. You're kidding. What clothing? I think it's because as a female, and I've had two babies now. I don't know my size. Say it. Say it. old Navy's having a crazy sale. I need to buy

like three of the like these pants in different sizes because I don't know what I am. Right. And so he just sees the initial like coming through. I'm obviously not spending more than we have budget. You spend $1,000 at Old Navy? Like it might be truly, it might be a couple hundred, but it's because I know I'm going to return almost all of it. Which is the girl math.

So she'll immediately tell me, hey, just you know, I'm going to return most of it. But it's so rare that I do that. So that's where I get like you know I don't ever shop. Like come on. And truthfully, I'm never angry. It's just more like, what, what was this that just came to, you know? That's how Matt was with the $2.50 of popcorn.

Oh, I was just like, wait, just making sure we didn't get, that's always what I did. Did you just spend $250 on popcorn? Yes, you know, every transaction. And so I called him right away. I was like, hey, you're going to see something crazy. And then he literally, his response was, you just feeling generous today? And I was like, whoever this entrepreneur is that started this like kids popcorn company,

they're probably loaded, dude. Because it was like 10 bags of popcorn. this it's like a teeny little bag. It was 24 bags of popcorn. I bet you this cost him 20 bucks to make the popcorn. And this dude just pocketed it $230. It was good popcorn. I'm sure he gave like 20 bucks to the kids.

Right. Maybe. It does trigger me though when he sees a text come through the amount. He'll text me about it. And I'm like, I'm allowed to spend this money. But really, he's had identity theft. So he's trying to make sure like someone else is. And I feel like maybe you can, like Matt is very much of stickler with the finances.

But that actually. makes me feel safe. Yeah. When he's like very, like, strict about things and, like, see things coming through. I'm like, oh, like, that kind of. Yeah, I prefer the strict over someone who's just like, whatever. Yeah, we invest more than what we spend. Yeah.

Yeah, same. Like your savings rate. Yeah, I'm just, I'm kind of treating our job like we're professional athletes, because professional athletes, like, it all goes away one day. Yeah. And I'm like, and the longer we do this, I'm like, hey, maybe this actually isn't going to go away, but I'm treating it like it will because I just don't want to be stuck in a situation where me, a college dropout that dropped out of college to do TikTok.

TikToks like is then stuck yeah yeah right um but so we're just we're just playing it safe and I feel you never know it's going to happen like 2020 so many people lost their jobs right so it's like so I rather and that's why a big goal of ours for this next year is to pay off our house because I think it'd be I think I would just sleep better knowing that our house is paid off cash right it's so nice yeah okay so this is from zo she said how do they discuss finances together is it weekly meetings random times and I'm honestly curious how you're going to answer this because I would love to learn how we can have more money conversations. Yeah, I will say this.

We used to do like very formal sort of budget meetings. Yeah. And now it's become more conversational, usually like a Sunday check-in, kind of before the week starts, hey, what's going on this week? What do we need to be thinking about? Do we need to move any money over? And honestly, with little kids, you're so exhausted. Like, say he'll start giving like his like money rundown and I just, I was literally telling me I can't handle it right now.

I need to go to sleep. Like, it's hard. You should be honest. That's not. He starts throwing numbers or, um, acronyms at me. No acronyms. Like I was going to talk to you about

ETS and Usual Fund and I was like Can we not bring that up in the conversation? Like I don't know. You basically turn to switch off in her brain when you put ETF. I said I accidentally just stopped listening And I literally just didn't mean to but I knew it was because you said an accurate. Just call me if you want to talk ETFs. I'll be happy to do it.

I love VEO. I'm a Vanguard guy. Yeah. It's a solid fund. Huge fan. We got to get to a greatest favorite for it. Oh yeah. Talking about it regularly is better than trying to make one

big meeting happen where it feels so formal. So just kind of make it a regular pattern. And last question before we get to agree to disagree. This is from Shelly Ann. How do you start saving? So many of us are living paycheck to paycheck with no wiggle room. I'm just sensing a lot of fear from Shelly Ann because that's, I think a lot of people are in that boat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, four in 10 people don't have anything in savings. Zero dollars in savings. And so they fall into that bucket of when you're paycheck to paycheck, you're like, well, I don't have any money to put savings. And so that's where the budget becomes your best friend. Because when you lay it all out, number one, you feel better because it's not all in your mind floating. It's real numbers on paper.

It's facts. Because if you know, well, hey, based on what I made this month and what I spent, I'm a 500 bucks in the hole this month. That's $6,000 over a year if I continue this. So that's when you go, what can I cut from this budget? There's probably subscriptions that I forgot to cancel. There's probably ways that I could be spending less on groceries. I could cut eating out completely. I don't need that gym membership right now. I can scale down. I can try to make more and do a side job for a season. And so all of those things help because the way to get margin is spend less and make more. Only way to do it.

And then you take that first. It's like eating your vegetables first. Put the money in savings before it has a chance to slip through your fingers into spending. So cover your four walls, you know, food, utility, shelter, transportation, cover your insurance. But beyond that, make it a priority to put that money aside so that you don't see it. And our new Every Dollar App actually has a really amazing onboarding experience. where we'll help make recommendations for how to find that margin in just 15 minutes. And so it's a great one to go download and try out.

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stress less right now. You can get up to $200 off Square hardware at Square.com slash go slash unplanned. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash G-O-S-U-L-Lplanned. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Okay, and I know we're running out of time, so I want to get into Agree to Disagree. If you need to leave, by the way, I don't want to hold you hostage. Yeah. But this is... You're on my top priority.

Wow. You want to do agree-d-d-st-gris. Can we start with this? Okay, you just do it. Actually, no, you do it. Start with which one? Start with the last one. That one's a fire one.

That, like, I'd agree to disagree question. I'm so... That wants to come in hot. I'm coming in hot with this. The government needs to step in to fix America's housing problem. Agree or disagree? Three, two, one. Agree.

Yes. No way. It's because I honestly have not... I don't know enough. Wait, okay, so why do you say disagree? Why do you say agree? Based on the actual problem with housing right now, which is supply and demand, there's just not enough homes on.

the market. And so there are things that the government can do. Now, you know me, I'm not a fan of the government solving your life's problems. But I do think government regulation could change to free up more homes to be built, which would then actually, you know, increase the supply and lower the price. And couldn't they put a stop to all the, I don't know if it's private equity or investment groups that are just buying up all these single family homes and jacking up rates for everyday Americans? Yeah, I just saw that bill come through to stop that. Now, that's happening. When you look into it, it feels like a bigger problem than it is, because when you look at the numbers, it's like one or two percent. So is it going to move the needle?

Probably not. But it is a good thing to do? Absolutely. Yeah. And so that will help. Obviously, the rates coming down, that could help, it could hurt. Because think about it, if rates go down, people flood the market. Well, now home prices are going to go up.

You have more competition. Yeah. You get nine people bidding on that same house, and they have more buying power. So people will just raise the price and go, well, people will pay more. So I don't think interest rates is actually the solution. I do think it's looser regulation and allowing home builders to build more homes. That's what we need right now. And we need the boomers to sell their homes they've been sitting on.

Yeah. Which that's where interest rates coming down could help. Because people go, well, I'm willing to move now because I'm not tied to my golden handcuff low interest rate. Okay. I can actually switch homes, which frees up more inventory. Yeah. And buying a house for most Americans is where we build wealth, right? For a lot of people in America, that's kind of like they're almost like built-in savings account in a way.

Not that it should be their only savings account. No, it's a forced savings plan. We found it in our millionaire study that about a third of their net worth was their home. No way. And so you're thinking about it, that's a big chunk of your millionaire status and net worth is your home. And it's not going to create income, but, you know, it's still something, it's an asset. I'm actually so curious, what percentage of your net worth does your house make up, if you don't mind me asking? Right now, it's too much. I would say it's over, it's over 50% right now. But that's because we went so hard. Our focus was, yeah, let's create a beautiful home. Okay. Because that's Whitney's office.

You know what I mean? Like that's where she works. That was our main focus. We don't do big trips. I don't have any hobbies. Our home was the main thing. And so over time, what will happen is compound growth and investments will take over. So the house will end up being a smaller and smaller part of our world every year. Can we get people fired up for a second about compound interest? Because I think that was the first thing I've ever learned about. The last thing we need to get fired up. I want to get back to the degree disagree. But I think the reason I became such a big Dave fan when I was 19 and read his book as someone that wanted to get married young was I learned the numbers of compound interest. And it just, it just made me so excited to save. Because I was like, wait. So you're telling me if I live like no one else right now and like my friends make fun of me for not buying ice cream for a dollar when we go out for ice cream and I just save as much as I can, I'm just a psycho about it. and I put all this money aside. You're telling me that like 20, 50 years from now, it's going to like, you know, 10, 20x. I mean, not, it doesn't 20x.

No, I mean, if you're young, think about it. Every dollar you put into an investment if you're in your 20s is worth $20. So you put in a dollar, you're going to get $20 back out. Wait, wait, wait, hold up. So you're talking like 50 years. So you put money aside, assuming 10% interest because that's like what the market ish does. You're saying put money aside in your 20s, 50 years later, that $1 will turn into $20. Yeah, thinking about if you put $1,000 in, it could be $200,000. That's crazy. Decades from now. That's crazy. And so as you get older, that same dollar is worth less. If you're in your 50s and you put a dollar in, you might get $2 out for every dollar you put in.

And so that's where starting early is so important. And if you're young, like, you have time on your side. That is your greatest asset. And we're assuming that we're not touching this money, but what about the person that's like 40 or 50? And they're like, oh, shoot, I'm just learning about this now. I need to get money fast. What do they start? It's not too late.

You can still, I mean, if you've got another. decade or two of a working career, you can build some serious wealth, but you have to get serious and knock out the debt, get the emergency fund, and then start investing heavily. So you have time to catch up. I'm just so nerdy about this, that he lost like hours of sleep the night, just looking at the compound interest of if he kept working this amount of time. Oh, yeah. It's so much fun. He's like, if I, dude, let's just run a sleep number party. At school of a compact interest calculator right now. And I'm like, how about this? The girls go shopping and we'll crunch some numbers. That'd be great. Yep. They go to Old Navy, get some

clothes and all the different sizes they want and we'll do a compound interest party okay sorry agree we have so many let's just do these quick buying a house without a credit score is easy three two one disagree agree agree met you never done it though it's easy i never done it it's easy if you do the prerequisite steps okay yeah it's hard if you're i mean if you're in debt you can't do it so it's easy if you become dead free and have savings in the bank to actually do it So you're just basically with manual underwriting, no credit score, you're sending over some extra documentation to prove that you can pay the loan. The actual process of getting the loan is not that difficult if you qualify and follow the steps.

But what if you can get a lower interest rate by doing the automatic underwriting? That's the thing. If you do it my way, I will get the same interest rate as you, who has an excellent score. No way. People don't understand that. That's why I said 15 year fixed. And I actually worked this math out with a mortgage loan officer. Which you guys, you have on the Day Ramsey website, you have like...

Churchill Mortgage. Yeah. Churchill Mortgage, is that who will do manual underwriting people? They're the number one in the country. They specialize in it because our fans go to them. I love it. That's amazing. I love that we're giving that resource right. I said, hey, show me who's going to get a better interest rate.

And if you do a 15-year fix, 10% down at least, I'll get the same rate as you. I love it. It's fine to keep small financial secrets from your spouse. Oh, major disagree. Three, two, one, disagree. Why do you guys say disagree? Oh, that's horrible. I mean, now, obviously, if it's small, it's one thing, but what I found is it starts to spiral.

And if there's a problem, there's so much shame and guilt and fear around it, that it stays a secret. And it eats that person up while compounding the problem. And so I think financial infidelity is the reason people get divorced over money is because someone was hiding something, someone was controlling something. And there's just not that honesty and transparency. Well, and this is an extreme example, but like a affair doesn't just happen. It's like these little steps that like get to that. So I feel like just the small lies over time is what lead to the big ones. That's good.

When you guys see this on the show, is it usually gambling? What's the most common reason people are not being financially transparent with their spouse? Well, usually it's they don't have a shared bank account. And so it's easier to cause financial infidelity when, well, it's my money and his money. We have a shared account that we pay bills from. But otherwise, I get to do what I want with it. Yeah. Well, that's dangerous because your spouse might wake up and go, wait, you have $7,000 in savings?

and I'm struggling over here to do X, Y, Z. That's where it causes a lot of friction. And sometimes I dig in, I go, what is he actually spending that money on? Or she's spending that money on? Because sometimes there is a moral failure. There is some gambling happening, some infidelity happening. And so, again, if you have total transparency,

you have a shared bank account, it is so much harder to screw this up. And that's why we do that. So then what's your take on pre-nups, couples that do a pre-nup? Are you for that or against that? It makes sense in certain situations. for the average couple, it just doesn't make sense. Now, if one person comes in and they have like a family business that's worth a ton of money

or they come in with worth $2 million and this person is in debt, yes, it can make sense, but it's more to protect each other from crazy family members than it is of a distrust. That makes sense. And so it makes sense for fewer people than you would think. Okay. But I'm not anti. It's all about the motives and what's the heart behind it. Because if it comes out of a distrust, don't do it.

It's like, why are you even getting married then? Yeah. Yes. This one says a couple should be financially stable before having kids. This, we just talked about this and we couldn't come to like a three, two, one, agree. They said just that's what I said. Really? Well, we were financially stable before having kids.

Yes, I know, but I was definitely not hurt. You said should they? Yeah, should they? And so we always say that having a baby is not a baby step. If you want to have a baby, have a baby. I love that. And just know, you're going to have to make sacrifices. Yeah.

Will it be so much easier if you have no debt and money in the bench? bank, absolutely. You'll have less stress. But I'd never tell someone, hey, wait until you're completely dead free with savings to have a kid. Because we know in this world, it might be really difficult for you to have a kid, especially as you get older. And so if you want to start a family, start it. The financial part, we'll deal with that after. We're going to have to make sacrifices. I guess speaking from experience for me, the change of like, oh, my time is not my own now was like hard to get through. Like I got like low-key. Like women get postpartum, somehow I got postpart. I was like, why am I depressed right now?

I don't know. But I got through it. I got through it and I feel like if I would have had the financial stress on top of that, I would have, I mean, I ended up getting on the antidepressants, but hey, I mean like, you know, you got to do what you got to do. No, but it's true. It adds more stress if you are in a financial bind.

Yeah. I know what you're going to say to this one, but generosity should come after you're out of debt. Three, two, one. Disagree. Oh, I love it. Why should you be generous even if you're in debt? I've just found that if you are a generous person, it's a habit that you have throughout your life. And I love what Rachel Cruz says.

Give a little until you can give a lot. And so it's hard to actually turn the switch on when you've been so intense to then say, well, I'll be generous when I have this amount. Yeah. Because the goalposts always moves. And so I found that if you're generous and when you're broke, you're going to be super generous when you have money. And if you're a stingy jerk when you're broke, you're going to be a stingy, rich jerk later on. If you were in my position in December of 2025 where I liquidated the emergency fund to make our charitable contributions, would you have done the same thing? Would you have kept the emergency fund and just funded the done charity maybe a month later when the money came in?

Precisely. Okay. I would have not, because what you did is you kind of added risk to your own family. I did. To be like, well, I have to give. It became almost like a rule of like, well, I have to give. And I would have just said, hey, let's wait. You can do a big, generous gift later on.

In January. Once we have money outside of the. emergency fund, but it worked out for you. Renting is throwing money away. Three, two, one. Disagree. What do you think, Whitney? What do you think about it?

Why do you disagree with that, Whitney? Man, I want George to give his Ramsey answer. I feel like he doesn't know. No, I like, boo. Hey, you got a lot of questions for you, Whitney. Women want to hear what you have to say. I mean, I feel, by the way, I feel so honored that you came on our show. Can I tell you?

I was legitimately shocked. I was like, hey, they asked you if you want to be on the podcast. It's fine. I'm out of sleep I don't get these days made it scary, but it's been fun. Y'all are good bad. I told her. I was like, they're going to be a great time.

Yeah. But I totally understand if you don't. Like, your job is not to be on camera. Yeah. But she has so much more wisdom than me that I was excited for her to come on. I think people like hearing the women's side of thing. Yeah.

Because sometimes you have people on, they're like, well, who's buying all the groceries, the daily things for the kids? Yeah, that's true. That's true. So to answer your question about renting, like my parents are in this situation right now. They want to move to this area, but it is so expensive to buy a house.

And so to them, they're like, we don't want a rent, so it's thrown away money. And I'm like, no, that actually buys you time to keep saving for what you want. Yeah. And also, I know the rent is high, but you're not doing it forever. So it's like, then you can get something more that you want and you have more security around it instead of just throwing all of your money into this big home purchase. That's good. Yeah, that's my parents rent so they can live close to us. Oh, that's awesome.

See? Mom, listen to that. Literally two minutes from each other. It's so fun. Amazing. And the math says that renting mathematics. is actually a better move for most people right now. No, she's literally like, it's a brand new apartment.

She's like something broke. They just come and like to it. We're losing money on our rentals right now. There you go. The person who's renting it is getting a sweet. That's why I changed my strategy. At first I was like, we're gonna, the passive income of real estate's amazing.

We're gonna own all these rentals and I'm like, actually it makes way more sense when you look at the numbers to just keep putting money in the market. We just keep, you know, investing in ETFs because you don't have to manage an ETF. It's just buy and hold. That's truly passive income instead of real estate. So I'm a big fan of that. This one says financial freedom matters more than loving your job.

Three, two, one. Agree. Oh, I say agree. I would say agree because the stress of debt and the stress of money problems can be so overwhelming that like having the job you love doesn't even matter anymore because you're just so stressed out. I was taking it this way. Financial freedom matters more than loving your job is saying I will work a job I don't like if it gives me more financial stability. Wait, did I answer that wrong? I think so, because I think you're on 19.

Oh, yeah. No, okay, I changed my answer to George's answer. Yeah. Cheated off of my case. But yeah, I see this a lot. This guy literally called the Ramsey show and says, hey, I only want to make a ton of money. I want to get rich.

I don't care what the job is. I said, you are doing this completely backwards. To do a job you hate to make money so that you can have freedom. That was his goal. And I'm like, you won't survive it. I think it's a balance. Like, I think it's good to take a season

of living like no one else so that one day you can live like no one else because that hard season is so worth it. It's like going to the gym five days a week for a month and eating right and then you look at yourself after a couple months and you're like,

look at what I did, I feel great. I'm in an amazing place. Like that's kind of how I look at it. Yeah, I just see them as connected. I think you should do the job you love and have that help you lead to financial freedom because you're going to excel in it. You're going to want to grow in that field.

You're going to want to become an expert, which in turn, you make more money. And that leads to that financial freedom. So don't do a job you hate for the money, please. I'm kind of surprised that you said that, actually. Splurging on travel is never worth it. Three, two, one. Disagree.

Oh. But you guys aren't big travelers. I mean, I'd like to be, but right now I can't leave my house. Which is a problem with two babies and a purple dog. Yeah, parallel-a-old. I think splurging on travel is worth it if you do it with cash. Yeah, I mean, it's fun to go to Disney. world and ruined vacations, you know.

Splurging to me feels like I'm going to splurge and put it extra on my credit card. I do agree. Sporging does kind of insinuate you don't have the money. Nothing feels like a splurge because it's all within our means. So it's kind of like splurging doesn't exist if you're doing it our way. Yeah. But yeah, I do think as you get older and you

become more financially stable, take the nicer trip. Skip the one with a layover. I just did that for Whitney for Backstreet Boys. I had booked your one with a layover because it was like $200 cheaper. And then it weighed on me and I was like, Gosh, she's finally getting away. She deserves to have a direct flight.

So I ponied up and I switched the flight and paid the difference. We're no... We are no laos. We don't fly business or anything, but when we fly... We fly Frontier, Allegiant. But we like to go direct. Well, just because it can mess up your whole travel. That to me is a splurge.

College isn't worth it. Three, two, one. Disagree. Agree. Yeah, I agree. Wait, saying it is not worth it. I agree with that. I agree with that.

Yeah, same. I am, listen, you're talking to the guy who thinks most people shouldn't go to college. Wait, no. As a blanket statement to say it's not worth it, I think is a little too, you know, line in the sand. But reading your book, though, I was shocked at how many people have student loans. I was shocked at the average cost of private university is like over 50 grand and people are taking out debt. So let's caveat it. Going to a super expensive school for a degree that won't really turn into a great job and going into crippling debt, not worth it.

Horrible decision. But if it's a field that you're going to be working in, this is what you really want to do, and you leave without student loan debt, I would say that's totally worth it. You know, education itself is worth it. But paying the price of 200 grand in student loans to go to some name brand school for the experience,

that's the stupidity that I'm seeing. And isn't it honestly the parents that are pushing their kids into this? Yeah, oh, yeah, 100%. I haven't given my mom enough credit. Thank goodness my mom encouraged me to go to the cheap state school with Abby because we followed each other to college. and both went into the acting program at Missouri State. We know, we just wanted to know.

We were like, you have to go together. We auditioned at like 20 different acting and musical theater schools because we wanted to go to school together and we were like, we need to find one that we both get into. And so my mom encouraged me to go to the cheap state school, which was totally the move because after a semester, I was like, you know, I kind of want to get married and acting's not going to pay the bill,

so I'm going to, I'm going to switch this, I'm going to go into finance. Yeah. And then the TikTok ended up working out and I dropped out, and I dropped out and had 100 grand student loans, that changes your options. No debt. Changes the job you have to work.

Yeah. And so that's, that's, I, it was a caveat. Yeah. I can't say it as a blanket statement, but I agree. In most cases, it's a waste of time. The wealth disparity in America is getting greater because the rich. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer? I think that's what this is meant to say.

Okay. Three, two, one. Disagree. Ooh. Well, the because. The because was the part. Because the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Maybe let's rephrase it.

Let's just say like, wealth disparity growing. The wealth disparities growing in America. I agree, which is sad, honestly. It's really sad. And I hope that changes. We've seen post-COVID what happened is housing skyrocketed. So if you were a homeowner or you had multiple homes, you just got a whole lot wealthier. The stock market last few years has gangbusters 16% up, 23% up, 22% up. So if you were investing, you've done really well. And if you were broke, not doing any of that, you've sort of stayed where you are while inflation took over. That makes a lot sense. That is true. that there is a growing gap because of that.

But I rebuke the idea that it's because of the rich that I am poor. Yeah. Now, are there situations where there's corporate greed and private equity ruining things? Sure. But you got to look in the mirror and go, I control the job that I have, the skills that I have, the education that I have, the way I spend my money. And so that to me is you've got to take personal responsibility to and go, I'm going to climb above the suck bar and not be average and not stay broke.

Would you say if a poor person came to you right now, like, I want to build wealth from my family, I want to be out of debt. What do I do? What would you tell them in like one sentence? Your income is your greatest wealth building tool. And so we've got to work on your income. It's really hard to become a millionaire making minimum wage your whole life. And so that doesn't need to be. People are like, we need to raise minimum wage. I'm like, or just make more than that. Yes and, but you need to go find a way to make more money and you're not stuck where you are. And so find a way to do something that you love to do that you can make good money. Would you hand him a copy of your book as well?

I honestly would. I would give them every dollar and my book as like, here's a primer that I hope encourages you and motivates you. Because that's what they need. They need hope. They don't need a game plan and an ETF to invest in. They need hope that they aren't stuck where they are. And that's why the debt snowball is so powerful because you pay off that smallest debt first and it gets you fired up to keep going, right?

Yes. That's good. If someone asks you, should I read Breaking Free from Broke or Total Money Makeover, which one would you say? If it's a younger person, I honestly would say breaking free from broke. If they're Gen Z millennial, I think my book would... Because my book is... It was made for that crowd. Who's like, I need something that is speaking to me

for where I'm at in this current economy with humor. And Dave's book is still the goat. I mean, you can't beat Total Money Makeover. So I can't compete with Dave. So... Maybe... Should we have George choose the last one? No, there's only one left. And it segues nicely, but it's also really...

It's a hot one. What is it? The wealthy don't pay their fair share in taxes. Oh, dang. That is a hot one. Count it down. Three, two, one. Disagree. I don't even know.

I go back and forth. Because I feel like every time people are like raise the taxes, the rich figure out a way, they figure out a loophole and then the middle class gets hit with the tax bill. Right? You are correct. And these are legal loopholes. Because when you think about it, now we've got to define wealthy people. Because I'll tell you right now, I pay a crap ton in taxes.

As a W-2 employee who doesn't run a business, like it would, it, hurts my soul to see how much I pay in taxes. Now, if you're a billionaire, like you're Elon Musk, well, think about it. He doesn't have income. He doesn't have cash. He owns stock in his company. And so he can borrow against that without paying taxes on it and continually avoid paying giant amounts. But his company, I mean, I'll tell you, our business, Ramsey Solutions, the amount we have to send to the government to exist and make money is insane. Is that public information? I don't know. But I know it's millions and millions of dollars that we paid the government and taxes. So to say that I think people don't understand and they're looking for someone to blame and it's easy to say, well, if they just paid more taxes, it would be easier on me.

But do I think the tax code should change? Absolutely. How should it change? I think a flat tax would be a good move and moving to consumption taxes versus income tax. Tennessee doesn't have state income tax. So it's one of the best places to be. Consumption taxes. Yeah.

So like think about the vices in people's lives. I don't charge more for that. If you want to buy cigarettes, you know, and you want to gamble and buy lottery tickets, let's charge high taxes on that stuff. But don't poor people fall prey to those things? Sure. Doesn't like the lottery industry and the cigarette industry?

It's predatory towards lower income areas. Yeah, and just like the credit card industry. Like that's another reason why I thought of credit my credit card, just because it made me mad that when I do get the points and the miles and all that, it's because the credit card companies make money off of poor people. It's subsidized by people who paid interest. just, you know, are broke in part by that, plus their fees that they charge small business owners for people using their credit card.

I hate when the little guy gets screwed. I don't like that. Agreed. And so this is not me saying I think the wealthy, you know, should do nothing. But I think this is not the main problem, is that wealthy people aren't paying taxes and therefore I'm broke. George Whitney, it was seriously such a pleasure getting to sit down with you both today. Where's the best place for people to connect with you on socials?

At George Camel is the place to find me. The book is breaking free from broke. the budgeting tools called Every Dollar. You can get it in the app store. And, I mean, Whitney's not really... I'm on private, so... Yeah. All right.

So, good luck. You can keep up with her through me. There we go. There we go. Well, guys, thanks for tuning in, and we will see you in the next episode. Peace out, dudes.