Podcast Summary

Podcast: George Kamel, Ramsey Network
Episode: How I Would Invest $100,000 Today | Responding to Comments
Air Date: January 7, 2026
Host: George Kamel

Episode Overview

This episode centers on George Kamel answering a wide spectrum of wealth-building and personal finance questions from listeners. The main theme is how George would invest $100,000 today, but the discussion expands to address common financial myths, retirement planning, education savings, pensions, and the pitfalls of trendy investment strategies. George's tone is direct, humor-laced, and grounded in the Ramsey money philosophy: prioritize simplicity, minimize risk, and pursue steady, well-researched investments.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How George Would Invest $100,000 Today

Timestamp: 00:05

Main Strategy:
- Max out all retirement options first, such as the Roth IRA ($7,500 for 2026).
- Invest the remainder ($92,500) in a non-retirement index fund via a brokerage account.
- Rationale: Index funds offer historically strong returns (10–12% annually, per S&P 500) with minimal hassle or risk.
- Rule of 72: Money doubles every seven years at 10% annual return.
On Risk & Alternatives:
- Acknowledges real estate and business ventures may offer higher returns, but with significantly more risk and "hassle factor."
- George prefers low-risk, passive strategies.
“For me, as a guy who doesn’t want any more risk and hassle factor in my life, I would just park it in the index fund and be done with it. Final answer. If anyone says otherwise, they're dimwits.”
— George Kamel [01:38]

2. Why Gold Is a Poor Long-Term Investment

Timestamp: 03:50

Debunking Gold Myths:
- Gold hasn’t outperformed the S&P or Dow over the past 10–15 years.
- Gold ($1,000 invested in 1989 = $9,711 today) vs. mutual funds ($51,518 over the same period).
- Gold is illiquid and its value is mostly driven by fear; selling involves hassle and fees.
“These industries like the gold industry, it’s rife with scams and fraud and gold has no apparent value. You gotta sell it to get any money out of it.”
— George Kamel [05:07]
On Gold Ownership:
- “If I’m going to own gold, it’s going to be a sweet chain around my neck, not a bar, because I’m scared of something happening with the economy.” [06:00]

3. The Role of Pensions in Retirement Planning

Timestamp: 07:00

Pensions are “gravy”—nice if they last, but not a substitute for personal investing.
Concerns: Uncertainty of pension solvency, typically lower annual returns (6–7%), and pensions usually don’t transfer to heirs.
Suggestion: Still save/invest 15% of income in retirement accounts (Baby Step 4, Ramsey plan) regardless of expected pension.

“The pension generally dies with you… But if you have it in an IRA or 401k, your children, your spouse can inherit those funds and continue to invest it. So it creates generational wealth.”
— George Kamel [08:10]

4. Best Practices for Old 401(k) Plans When Changing Jobs

Timestamp: 09:20

Don’t leave your money with old employers—fees and fund options aren't optimal.
Do a direct rollover into an IRA:
- If your account was traditional, roll over into a traditional IRA (and same with Roth).
- IRA offers more investment options versus a typical employer plan.
- Only stick with 401(k) if the new plan is exceptionally strong.

5. Safe Timelines for Investing in Index Funds for Major Goals

Timestamp: 13:01

Listener Question: Saving for a house down payment in 8–10 years—better to use index funds or high-yield savings?
Rule of thumb:
- If the goal is 5+ years away, investing in an index fund makes sense.
- If <5 years, choose a high-yield savings account to avoid volatility.
If saving for a house takes 10 years, that's a sign to re-examine budget, income, or expenses.

“For five plus years, if it’s non retirement, index fund is great. If it’s less than five years, I start to lean toward that high yield savings account. Because the longer time horizon you have, the better chance you have of getting that 10 to 12%... In the short term, it’s gonna be much rockier of a roller coaster.”
— George Kamel [14:05]

6. Education Savings Accounts: College Fund Flexibility

Timestamp: 21:58

529 Plans and ESAs:
- You can change beneficiaries easily.
- If child doesn’t need funds for education, up to $35,000 can be rolled over into a retirement account under Secure Act 2.0.
- Regular brokerage accounts are more flexible, but George cautions against custodial accounts (UGMA/UTMA) due to lack of parental control at age of majority.
“If they don’t go to college and they don’t use all the funds, you can always move the funds over... you just set your kid up either way.”
— George Kamel [23:40]

7. Investing When Self-Employed

Timestamp: 29:26

Options: Solo 401(k), SEP IRA.
Contributions can be made as both employer and employee.
Solo 401(k) is preferred for individuals or spouses.
Advises consulting a financial pro for setup.

8. How Much Will You Really Need to Retire?

Timestamp: 46:19

It’s impossible to state a universal retirement number due to inflation and lifestyle differences.
Follow the 15% rule and the Ramsey plan: stay out of debt (including mortgage) and consistently invest, and you’ll be prepared.
Encourages listeners to use retirement calculators and plan for more rather than less.

“Can you imagine if I was like, Dylan, you need $1.8 million. 40 years from now, I don’t know how much you’re going to need. I don’t know what your lifestyle is going to be.”
— George Kamel [47:04]

9. Ending on Humor & Discipline

Timestamp: 71:17

Funny, lighthearted banter: “Are you a smart fella or a fart smella?”
The juxtaposition is played for laughs.
George wraps up with a call to disciplined, unsexy investing:

“At the end of the day, investing is all about being willing to have the discipline and play the long game and do the boring unsexy stuff. But even though building wealth the right way does take time, it doesn’t have to be complicated.”
— George Kamel [73:00]

Notable Quotes

On simplicity in investing:

“It’s not complicated… you just need to know the right steps to take.”
— George Kamel [73:30]
On gold bugs and fear:

“Gold is a fear-based investment, sold by opportunistic fear mongers... what you’re saying is every company in America is going to go bankrupt.”
— George Kamel [05:27]
On generational wealth:

“If you have it in an IRA or 401(k), your children, your spouse can inherit those funds and continue to invest it. So it creates generational wealth.”
— George Kamel [08:10]

Memorable Moments

George’s humorous opening about answering questions from “carrier pigeon” (with poop on the mailbox) [00:07]
The sharp dismissal of gold as an investment (“If anyone says otherwise, they're dimwits.”) [01:38]
A roast of a listener’s joke—“Are you a smart fella or a fart smella?”—and George’s playful analysis [71:17]
Critique of custodial accounts: “I remember when I was 18 or 21... if you were like, 'Hey, $150,000 is legally yours to do what you want with.' It would be gone like that. Poof.” [25:09]

Key Takeaways

Invest in what you understand and can control—index funds and retirement accounts over trendy, risky, or fear-driven assets.
Don’t count exclusively on pensions or gifts; always have your own backup plan.
For big purchases 5+ years out, index funds are a good option—otherwise, save safely.
For your kids, prioritize flexibility in education savings and maintain control of accounts.
Being self-employed unlocks excellent retirement account options—don’t neglect this advantage.
There is no magic retirement number—consistency, discipline, and avoiding debt are paramount.
Embrace long-term, patient investing—it’s not sexy, but it works.

Transcript

A (0:05)

What would I do if someone dropped $100,000 in my lap and I had to invest it today? I'll be answering that in a deluge of other wealth building questions you guys have sent me via Instagram, YouTube and carrier pigeon. Didn't appreciate the poop on the mailbox, but I'll answer your question anyways. Let's hop in mommy. 3950 hello mommy. Best way to invest $100,000 okay. I always want to assume that you actually have $100,000 to invest, but I found that reality doesn't always match up. People ask this question, they don't have $100,000. They maybe have 100, I don't know, but I'll answer it anyways. In this hypothetical, what would I do if you gave me $100,000 and said you have to invest this like right now? Number one, I would try to max out all retirement options available to me. So. So in this case, let's say a Roth IRA, that's about 7,500 bucks this year. That's done the other $92,500. If I didn't have access to any more retirement options, I would just simply park it in an index fund in a brokerage account that is non retirement. Simply that because what we've seen is 10 to 12% returns in the S&P 500 and the overall US stock market over the last several decades. So at a 10% return, your money would double every seven years. That's the rule of 72. So if you put 100,000 in seven years later, it's 200,000. Now are there faster ways you could potentially make money by investing it into a business? Sure, but you're also adding a whole bunch of risk and hassle factor. Could I invest it into some real estate and maybe get a duplex and do all that gyration? Maybe. But there's also a lot of risk and hassle factor. So for me, as a guy who doesn't want any more risk and hassle factor in my life, I would just park it in the index fund and be done with it. Final answer. If anyone says otherwise, they're dimwits. Next question comes from Hughes Enterprises. This guy loves a plural Hughes Enterprises. Why is gold such a bad investment and store of value if it's beat the S and P, the Dow and High Yield Savings Accounts in returns for the last 10 to 15 years? Okay, for starters, the average returns of both the S and P and the Dow still outperform gold in the last 10 to 15 years, 1,000 bucks of gold bought in 89 would be worth $9,711 right now. If you invested that same thousand bucks in good growth stock mutual funds, it would be worth $51,518. So if you look at certain time periods, you could say, well, gold beat the S and P maybe, but then also what are you going to do with a bunch of gold? I guess you'd have to like go to a pawn shop or a coin shop and sell off the gold and pay a fee and turn it back into money. Maybe. I don't know many people that actually do that. Yeah, money talks. We're talking different languages at the moment. So here's how I feel about gold. It's a fear based investment. You're really just buying an asset. It's not really an investment, but it's sold by opportunistic fear mongers. And what we've seen right now in the economy is people are scared. So when people are scared, what do they do? They turn to these alternative investments. Cause they think, well, the dollar's gonna go bust and the stock market's gonna crash. What you're saying is every company in America is gonna go bankrupt. That would be apocalyptic. We've got bigger problems if that happened. So here's the truth. These industries like the gold industry, it's rife with scams and fraud and gold has no apparent value. You gotta sell it to get any money out of it. So for that reason, I just don't own any gold. I'm not mad if you do own some, but you know, if I'm going to own gold, it's going to be a sweet chain around my neck, not a bar, because I'm scared of something happening with the economy. Next up, Wagner MJ6. Assuming that you are investing in an IRA 401K, how important is saving 15% in baby step four, when you have a pension slash retirement, that's 50% of your highest three years of salary. A nerdy question. I appreciate that. Love a good pension discussion. Not enough of those happening these days. Neuter lunch. Okay. Now, I don't know how sure fire this pension is. The problem with pensions is we just don't know if they're gonna last the test of time. It's a pretty wild thing that one day we were like, hey, give us a little bit of money and then we'll give you money forever until you die. Hopefully that pans out. But you know, we've seen companies go bust and pension funds explode. The Truth about pensions is it's a nice to have it's gravy on top if it does happen. But. But I wouldn't plan for it as far as retirement goes. I'd rather have too much than not enough. And the other thing is, pensions usually have a terrible return. Historically they return about 7% annually, 6% annually. Cause they have to be a little more conservative with it because they have to make sure that the money lasts. So investing on your own is gonna give you more control and safety. The other thing people don't think about is that the pension generally dies with you is a morbid detail to note. But if you have it in an IRA or 401k, your children, your spous can inherit those funds and continue to invest it. So it creates generational wealth. Now if you wind up with too much in retirement because you did 15% and you have the pension, you can write me hate mail with 20 bucks in it as a thank you for you having too much money. Next question comes from golf player. When you start a new job, what do you do with your old 401k plan? Do you roll it over into your new plan into a big lump sum investment or do you keep the funds in your old 401k? I'm a big fan of not keeping money with old employers. It's costing you in fees and it's just sitting there. Who knows what it's invested in. At that point things may have changed around. So I'm a fan of just rolling it over. Do a direct rollover to an IRA. So if you have a traditional 401k, do a direct rollover to a traditional IRA. If it was all Roth 401k, do a direct rollver to a Roth IRA. So you want to do it in kind, right? If it's traditional, keep it traditional. That way you're not going to pay taxes on that money. So that's what I would do. It's what I have done in the past with old 401s. I wouldn't roll it over into the new plan unless you have like an amazing plan with great funds. You could do that. But an IRA is going to give you way more options than your company 401K which has limited fund options. Our next question comes from Jacob Prigmore, 1301. What's a safe timeline to invest in an index fund? My wife and I plan to save for a down payment for a house in eight to 10 years and are curious if that range is better suited for a high yield savings account or an index fund that tracks the s and P500. Love all the work you do, George. Thank you, Jacob. That's so kind. You know what, Shout out to Jacob for being kind. A lot of you guys are just out here just. Yeah. My question, Jacob took the time to add a. I love all the work you do. Thank you. All right, so let's talk about safe timelines to invest in an index fund. The down payment, what would I do? I say anything beyond five years. Years, you're safe to invest wisely like an index fund. We're talking hundreds of companies, not a single stock where you're betting on Tesla or Apple or Proctor and gamble to do well. The index fund's gonna cover the top 500 companies. So you're already diversified if you invest in that. So for five plus years, if it's non retirement index fund is great. If it's less than five years, I start to lean toward that high yield savings account. Because the longer time horizon you have, the better chance you have of getting that 10 to 12% in the short term. It's gonna be much ro. Rockier of a roller coaster. You could see plus 23%, negative 24%. And so for that I go, that's simply too much risk if you're going to need this money in the near future. But eight to 10 years also worries me. For a down payment, like the fact that you're banking on it taking you 10 years to save a down payment tells me we have other problems. We have a budgeting problem, an income problem, an expense problem. Because most of the time we've seen that it takes people 18 to 24 months to get out of debt, 6 to 12 months to get that emergency fund in place. So we're talking two and a half years for that. So for it to take you another seven years or so to save a down payment, that tells me we're just simply not saving enough. Because here's the other thing you got to think about. Where's the housing market going to be 10 years from now? Are houses going to cost double what they do? For that reason, I want to get there sooner. So you don't need to save up and pay cash for a house that's a nice to have. It may not be in the cards for you guys, but saving up a decent down payment of 10%, 20% or more, you can definitely do that in less than 10 years if you get aggressive with it. Good on you, my man. I'll get to more of your questions in just a Second, but first question for you. How much are you paying for your phone plan right now? Cause if it's anything more than 25 bucks, it's simply too much. And that's why I love Boost Mobile. They have a $25 Forever Unlimited plan that gives you unlimited data, talk and text with 99% nationwide coverage. That means you can scroll, stream and group chat to your heart's content without wondering if you're gonna get hit with fees or go over your limits. And the best part is there's no cont and there's no price increases ever. So stop overpaying and head to boostmobile.com Ramsey or click the link in the description below. All right, our next question comes from George, Camel's number one fan. Love this question. What's the best way to protect your digital privacy online? I can't believe they use my username. And question. Love this best way. One word. Delete me. Another sponsor of today's episode. I know technically two words in the English language, so. But as far as the brand delete me goes, they smashed it together. There's no time, no time for a space. All right, they got business to attend to. Removing your data from these data broker websites to help keep you safe, and we love them for it. They'll even send you a report showing you what they've done and how much time they've saved you. And all of this will help protect you against spam, scam and nefarious fraudsters out there. And right now you can get 20% off their annual plans by going to JoinDeleteMe.com George or use the link in the description below. All right, our next question comes from Corey Barnett. 2,158. Are there investment or savings opportunities we can pursue for our kids that could be used for education or possibly for something else? If they don't choose to go to college, we'd hate to set aside a lot of money only to discover they don't want to go to college. Okay, this is a fair question. We get this one a lot. And here's my hot take on it. There is a bigger chance your kid goes into crippling debt for college because you didn't prepare and set them up. Well, then there is that they don't go to college at all. And there is hundreds of thousands wasted. And here's the truth about, you know, ESAs Education Savings Accounts 529 plans. You can change the beneficiary at any time. So this can go to a very loose list of family right A niece, a nephew, a brother, a sister, yourself. And so if they don't go to college and they don't use all the funds, you can always move the funds over. And with the Secure Act 2.0, you can now roll over funds up to $35,000 total. There is an annual limit of I believe like seven grand or so. And the account has to be open for 15 years. But let's say you start saving when the kid is, you know, one or two or three and now they're 18 or 20 and they didn't use all the funds. Well, you can begin to roll over, you know, 7 grand per year up to 35 grand and put that money in retirement account. Think about this. From the age of 18 or 21, they have 35 grand sitting in that account. And now that grows for the rest of their life. That's millions of dollars right there. So you just set your kid up either way. Now if you want to invest outside of college savings, you can do that in a regular brokerage account and then you can choose what to do with that money later on. I'm not a huge fan of like upmas and ugmas where the kid gets control of the money at 18 or 21. That's just a frightening prospect. Cause I remember when I was 18 or 21 and what I would do if you were like, hey, $150,000 is legally yours to do what you want with. It would be gone like that. Poof. So I'd rather you stay in control. The brokerage account helps you do that. The 529 plan helps you do that. And I would do both. Great question. Next one comes from Stephanie Noble, 29, 26. What's the best option for investing? Being self employed. This is a great one. I love that you're even thinking about this because a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of self employed people just go, well, I don't have a company 401k, so I guess I just won't invest. I'll just invest in myself or in my business. But you have tons of great opportunities to invest. In fact, some of it is even better than those that are employed by a company like I am. Because when you're self employed, you can put in the contribution as the employer and a contribution as the employee. So I would check out a solo 401k, that would be my first thing to look into. There's also a SEP IRA that can be a good option as well. And as you grow, you know, you might need to look into different retirement options. But if it's just you or you and a spouse, the Solo 401K is the best bet. And I would contact a smartvestor pro to help you with this. And I'll drop a link in the description if you want to contact one. Next up, we've got Dylan Adams, 4619. Why are you guys more specific on the real amount needed to retire? 1 million right now is a lot of money. In 40 years, it's not going to be near enough to retire. All right, Dylan, I don't know what you want from me, man. I mean, I don't know where the million came from. And it feels insane for me to tell you how much you need to retire. So I think you kind of answered your own question. Can you imagine if I was like, Dylan, you need $1.8 million. 40 years from now, I don't know how much you're going to need. I don't know what your lifestyle is going to be. But here's what I'll tell you. If you follow the Ramsey plan to A T, then 15 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, it's really not going to be an issue. You're going to have plenty of money in retirement if you follow our plan. And you're going to have no debt. We're talking no mortgage at all. So your living expenses will be fairly low. Now, are you going to want to spend $10,000 a month on travel? You tell me, bud. Because if so, it's going to take more money in retirement, more money in that nest egg. But if you invest, you know, a menial amount that 15% into retirement from the age of 25 to 65, you're going to have millions of dollars in there. So it depends, are you going to need more than 3 or 4 million? Who knows what inflation is going to do? I'd rather have too much than not enough. So there's some good retirement calculators you can use. You can check out our investment calculator. We've got some great tools to help you figure that out. But the truth is it's something only you can do, like prevent forest fires. You pressed? You referring to me? That is incorrect. We are down to our last question. Last but not least from Justin Quozo, 717. Are you a smart fella or a fart? Smella? One question for you, Justin. Are you a cuzo or a bozo? Oh, the team's going crazy, but you can't hear it because they're not mic'd but they are going insane over that roast. We done good. I can take a nap now. I got a lot of questions about this. First of all, why can't you be both? Like why are we assuming that if you're a smart fella, you couldn't be a fart smella? I don't know why those two things are like the juxtaposition, if you will. And I don't know who consider themselves a fart smella. Like what makes one a fart smell? Like are they actively looking for farts to smell or are they happening upon farts? You know what I mean? Like was it them or is it a whoever smelt a dealt it situation? Whoever made the rhyme did the crime? I don't know. There's so many follow up questions I have because you could be like dumb and not smell farts. Like that's also an option. There's a third option C here that we're not talking about. I digress, but it's a great question. Irregardless. At the end of the day, investing is all about being willing to have the discipline and play the long game and do the boring unsexy stuff. But even though building wealth the right way to does take time, it doesn't have to be complicated. You just need to know the right steps to take. Which is exactly why I made this video breaking it all down. So click here to watch it up next or use the link in the description. That's it for today. Thanks for watching. And thank you to all of you who submitted some great questions. And to Justin who submitted a question, be sure to hit like hit subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.