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Jack
Want to have money without having money? It's a fancy plastic IOU card that
George Gammon
will have you swimming in debt for
Jack
the rest of your and your offspring's life.
George Gammon
The system exists to screw you over. The system exists to keep you broke. And then you have a choice. As a human being with free will, you get to decide whether or not you want to be a part of the system. Americans are carrying more debt than ever before.
Sponsor Announcer
$18.6 trillion.
Jack
What are most people wasting their money on?
George Gammon
Wants and not needs. And there's all sorts of ways you can get the thing you want now without having the money. And that's the part that scares me.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
This is proof that the system is rigged or it's just a personal failure.
George Gammon
Number one villain in is the person. And if I can teach people how to budget, how to get out of debt, all of a sudden they can start affording the things in their life that they want without needing to turn to these companies. There is no magic time in your life or income level in your life. When you go, that's when I'm going to get good with money. Get good with money now, no matter what you're making. And then work to get your income up. And then everything will scale.
Jack
What happened to Ken Coleman?
George Gammon
What did he say?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
George Camel, Ramsey personality. Thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour.
George Gammon
It's an honor. Is this my third time?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I think this might be the third time.
George Gammon
Maybe we had what the first one was with Dave Ramsey. I joined him then. I think we've done two since then. So this is my fourth official.
Jack
People love them.
George Gammon
Oh, that's sweet. Well, thanks for having me back on. I always, I love the show, so I'm a fan.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Thanks for coming on. We have so much to cover. There are just some crazy studies.
George Gammon
Have things been happening out there?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
A lot of things have been happening. A lot of debt has been happening. We have a lot that we need to disagree on.
George Gammon
Okay.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
But first and foremost, an ex Ramsey employee, Anthony o', Neill, made a video claiming that he's shifted perspectives since working at Ramsey. He said that if you have paid off your debt and stayed paid off for two years, then it's fine to start maybe getting an amex card, paying that off at the end of every month, having a system in place to make sure autopay is on and start building credit. What do you say about that?
George Gammon
Well, I, I disagree. I see his point in that he's saying, hey, once you've had the discipline of not going back into debt, you can sort of reintroduce it. But to me, the same reasons you went into debt, that person is still inside and you can change, you can be disciplined. But I don't think it makes it better than if you use your own money.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So once a borrower, always a borrower.
George Gammon
Yeah, I mean I, I had some credit card debt and I haven't been in debt for 13 years. So could I potentially use a credit card? I'm going to put this in huge air quotes, wisely pay it off every month and maybe accumulate some points. Probably I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze and I think I still would spend more than if I stuck to my debit and cash. So I disagree that, you know, that's advice that people should go out there and open credit cards if they've been debt free for two years. I think you're just better off never opening it again.
Jack
So when do you think it's okay to borrow money?
George Gammon
The only time would be okay to borrow money where like I wouldn't yell at you for it is a mortgage. And even then that would be a 15 year mortgage with an affordable payment. Meaning it's not 50, 60% of your take home pay, which is sadly what we're seeing out there.
Jack
What if it is an affordable payment but the interest rate is 20%.
George Gammon
I mean at that point if it's an afford, if it's 25% of your take home pay regardless of the interest rate, it's a small part of your financial world.
Jack
Even if it's 20% interest.
George Gammon
Yeah. I mean if mortgages were 20% interest at the prices they are Now I think nobody would be buying homes. It would be a terrible deal and it would be very difficult to get that payment low enough. You'd have to be such a high income earner to be able to afford a payment.
Jack
Is there an interest rate that you say you would not pay for a home?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah.
George Gammon
No. Because I mean every time I've ever bought a home, the interest rate wasn't really as much of a factor. I bought a home at 3%, I bought a home at 6% and so it would just be more. Does that interest rate make it unaffordable as part of my take home pay? Am I after tax income? If it was 50% of my take home pay, regardless of the interest rate, I'm going, this is too much. We're not ready. We need to save up more. We need to change the home we're looking at.
Jack
So we had a really viral clip when Jack asked Dave Ramsey if he would borrow a big billion at 0% interest.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
If you could borrow $1 billion, 0% interest for 10 years, would you do it?
George Gammon
What did he say? No.
Jack
And everyone flamed him because they said you could just put that billion dollars in a risk free treasury making 4% and just pocket the difference. Would you borrow a billion dollars at 0% interest?
George Gammon
I'm happy to be flamed as well from people on Instagram and YouTube comments, but I simply wouldn't do it. And, and it's not because I'm like trying to be, you know, anti debt guy. It's because I live by a set of values and principles and I have found that living debt free is simply a better life for me. So someone else down the road, they can take that loan and I wish them the best. They can make all the money in the world at this point. Money is not something that I'm chasing. I got kids, I got crippled dogs. I don't not interested in playing money games at this point. I like the most boring, slowest ways to build wealth. So if it sounds like, dude, you can make this much in a year, that's when I go, I don't, that's, I'm not going to sleep well at night. I already have too much anxiety in other areas. So the idea of owing anybody any amount of money at this stage is simply uninteresting to me, no matter the dollar amount. And I know that is not a popular take, but again, happy to get flamed for it. Flame away my friends.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
How many millionaires has Ramsey made?
George Gammon
We're actually trying to track financial transformation as of this year because of our every dollar budgeting app, we can actually see debt paid off, dollars saved in aggregate numbers. And so we're actually going to start tracking that. But so far it's just basically self reported people in the lobby whispering to me, hey, by the way, we're baby steps millionaires. But there's no good way to just track it. My gut says we know that 10 million people plus have been through Financial Peace University, that millions and millions more have purchased the total makeover in our other financial books. So if you've become debt free and you follow our principles for let's say 10 or 15 years, I think you're going to find that they become millionaires as a byproduct from having a paid for house by following our Plan and investing 15% of their income in the meantime.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding with money that there is aside from debt?
George Gammon
The biggest misunderstanding with money aside from debt is that you have to make a lot of it to have any level of wealth. And if you don't have a lot of it, which again, a lot of it is the squishiest number because we now know that half of people making over $100,000 are paycheck to paycheck. And so it's not about income. We know that that's factual. I just took a call in the Ramsey show this week where they made a $340,000 household income and they were broke. They were going into the hole every month. And so it's not about income, it's about what you do with it. And the faster you can get control of it, if you make 40,000, the faster you're going to get control of it when you make a hundred thousand. So I think it really is about realizing there is no magic time in your life or income level in your life when you go, that's when I'm going to get good with money. Get good with money now, no matter what you're making and then work to get your income up and then everything will scale.
Jack
You've been pulling a lot of people on the street and I really enjoy those videos.
George Gammon
Thank you.
Jack
Here's what has that told you about the average person's finances?
George Gammon
The most shocking thing was, number one, people don't consider their debt to be debt. If it's student loans, they go, well, I mean, I don't consider that debt because the government's probably going to pay for it. Crazy. But that's what they say. Or if it's a car payment they go, well, it's a lease, it's not technically debt, so I'm not going to count that. And so everyone that has debt, number one, may not consider it debt, and number two, they're not concerned about it. I was like, does that stress you out? No, not really. I don't really think about it. Well, are you working on paying it off? I mean, minimum payments? Well, do you have money in savings? Yeah, I got some money in savings. Enough to pay off the debt? Yeah. Why don't you pay off the debt? I'd rather see my money in savings. And so there's just this nonchalant attitude towards debt that scares me because I see the record highs in consumer debt that we're hitting every month. I mean, credit card Debt's now at $1.3 trillion. And car payments, I mean, we're seeing 750 bucks is the average new car payment. $1.67 trillion sitting out there in car payments, More delinquencies than ever. More people defaulting on their debts than ever. And so to me, it's scary that people don't have the urgency that I have for them when it comes to getting rid of their debt and creating some peace.
Jack
What are most people wasting their money on?
George Gammon
Most people are wasting their money on wants and not needs. Like, I don't think renting is wasting money yet that's the thing people focus on. And then I find out they're spending $300 in DoorDash every month and they're doing buy now, pay later for Coachella tickets. And there's all sorts of ways you can get the thing you want now without having the money. And that's the part that scares me is we are, we're such in a YOLO mindset of just, well, I'll never have wealth because the boomers took it all. And who knows if the world's even going to be around. Who knows if Social Security will exist? So let me just enjoy my life now. Index funds are boring. Retirement is a pipe dream. Let's just put it all on black and sports, bet and gamble and do prediction markets and buy now, pay later our way into some level of joy. And the problem is that wears off real quick.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What was this study that came out with Coachella tickets? Like over 50% of people borrowed money to go to Coachella.
George Gammon
No, it was the, it was close to half. I want to say it was 40. 40 something percent.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah. Borrowed money to go to Coachella.
Jack
That's crazy.
George Gammon
Can someone fact check that over 60 over 60%.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
According to what? According to Billboard, over 60% of people that went to Coachella borrowed money in order to get the. The ticket.
George Gammon
Those just were the ones that were honest. That's the crazy part. They're all mostly young people who are mostly broke. Wow. And they're going, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Let me go when I'm young, my favorite artist is going to be there. It's going to be this incredible experience so people can justify it real easily. And when the payment is, well, zero percent interest on a payment plan, Man, I just went to Disney and interviewed people at Disneyland and half of them are going, yeah, I'm on the payment plan for annual pass. It's 130 bucks a month, and me and my mom are both trying to pay.
Jack
How much do people spend at Disneyland?
George Gammon
On average, from talking to people? The Trips range from five to $8,000 for a couple of people. So imagine about a thousand bucks a day per person is what you're going to spend between lodging, transportation, and it can go up from there. But that's generally what I saw. That tells me there's an epidemic of people going, I don't need to have the money now. I can get it now and I can justify it. And eventually future me will deal with that.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What does this tell you about human psychology, human nature?
George Gammon
I think we're fickle creatures. And as much as I want to say people are more disciplined than I think and they can handle debt and handle payments time and time again, it's proven that it's just too hard. I mean, the fall of man got us here. And so humans want the thing now. And we made it so easy, so frictionless to get the thing now. Because back in the day to go to Coachella, you kind of had to have a payment form to get that ticket. Now right there, it'll say, use affirm, use klarna, use afterpay and pay nothing now, or pay a small amount now, and you can pay the rest over the next couple of months. And so that level of frictionless payment plans have caused us to go into way more debt than we would have otherwise.
Jack
Yeah, but isn't that just a lack of personal responsibility? I mean, just because it's there doesn't mean you have to go and do it. Like, I wouldn't blame a firm because someone took out a loan to go to Coachella. That's. To me, it's more of a, you
George Gammon
know, oh, it's on. Yeah. Number one. Number one villain in this story. Is the person doing these dumb things? The number two villain is the predatory companies that have normalized this and made it so easy. So it's not like a firm. There's, it's not like there's such good people of goodwill. Like, we're just going to let this, let them go on the trip. They don't care about you. You are a number to them. And even if you default, they'll write it off, they'll come after you, they'll sell it to a collection agency. So either way, the lenders are always going to win. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, do I want to be a part of the system knowing that I'm going to make terrible decisions, all for a temporary experience or product?
Jack
What percent responsibility falls on the person versus the company?
George Gammon
A hundred percent responsibility on the person. I think there's a lot less we can do about Polymarket and Kalshi and FanDuel and BetMGM. There's too many lobbyists out there. Like we. I, I'm not gonna spend my life trying to go after these companies. I, I'll make YouTube videos about them, trying to take them down, but that's nothing to them. They don't care. They're making billions of dollars a year, growing exponentially, increasing their shareholder value at the expense of a broke generation. And so I just know I'm not, I don't have the power to go to the White House and fight the lobbyists, but I do have the power to tell that person to stop doing that, to get out of the system, to use their own money, to wait, save up to where they can afford it. And if they can't afford it, it's just a. Not now. And if I can teach people how to budget, how to get out of debt, all of a sudden they can start affording the things in their life that they want without needing to turn to these companies.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So to the hundreds of thousands of people that are watching this right now that are not where they want to be financially, you, George Camel, money expert, would say this is proof that the system is rigged, or it's just a personal failure of the person listening right now. That's not where they want to be financially. It's on them.
George Gammon
Yes, both. And this is like improv. Yes. And so I wrote the book Breaking Free From Broke, and the first 2/3 of the book is about the system, how the system exists to screw you over. The system exists to keep you broke. And then you have a choice as a human being with free Will you get to decide whether or not you want to be a part of the system? Whether you want to participate and play the game and play with snakes hoping you don't get bit, whether. Which is how most people operate their life, right? At 18, we're told, got to get your credit score, got to get a credit card. Well, might as well get a car payment because who can afford a new car these days? You want something reliable, you don't want it to be in the shop all the time. Well, who can afford college with the current rates? Let's go into student loan debt, maybe a parent plus loan, maybe the government will forgive it. And all of a sudden there's payments all around us and we sign on the dotted line. Nobody forced us, nobody had a gun to your head going, you're going to get in a brand new Kia Sorento. You decided you wanted the brand new car instead of the used one that you could afford in cash. So that's the growing gap is the people who decide I'm not going to do debt are thriving because they're not playing the game as interest rates go up, as the costs of all this stuff go up with inflation. Instead, real millionaires are buying four year old used Toyotas and Hondas. And instead of going to the new car lot saying, sign me up for whatever payment I can afford, stretch the loan out to 84 months, I don't care. I want to be in that car. So it's really all about fighting the inner child who wants the thing and is whining about the thing versus maturity, delayed gratification, saying, I'm gonna pause.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So then a directly actionable thing. To the people watching right now, they're not where they want to be financially.
George Gammon
The actionable thing is to pay attention to your money. Probably for the first time. When I ask people, do you do a budget? They go, yeah, I mean, I do a budget. I, I've looked at my bank statement. No, no, no. Do you do a budget? Do you know what's coming in? Do you know exactly what's going out? Where it's proactive instead of reactive? That one thing alone, like when you download every dollar, you plug in your income, you list out all of your expenses. If you just do that, you are doing probably better than 99.9% of America because you have a true picture of if you're spending more than you make or if there should be margin that's disappearing into money leaks like buy now, pay later, eating out, and who knows what else.
Jack
When you're talking to people. Are they doing better or worse than you expected?
George Gammon
Who? People's a general term, but I would say in the street, they're actually doing better than I expect. When I talk to young people, I found most of them, they have two to $5,000 in credit card debt. They're driving cars. You know, 2013, 2016, a lot of them paid off. Some of them have five or seven grand. They're few and far between. Where I meet someone who's like, I'm 180 grand in debt. Those are the calls on the Ramsey show. Those are the extreme calls that we get. But the everyday people on the street, I think, are actually doing better than you would think. And they're driving cars that would not impress you really quick.
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Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
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Jack
What's the worst story you've seen on the street?
George Gammon
I met a guy who at Disney, they were 180 grand in debt in consumer debts, and they were at Disney, and they told me they were dropping a thousand bucks a day to be there for a week. And that's the clip that went viral on Instagram. That was the picture of what you expect at Disney, right? This person who's in crippling debt going, I just want to go on a trip. I need a vacation from my. The reality of my life, which is crippling debt. So that one stuck with me because I felt for them. And I talked to them afterwards and I gave them the Every dollar budgeting app and kind of coached them a little bit, gave them some next steps, because I hate to. The point of those man on the street videos is not to make someone feel bad about their vacation. The point is to. To create a little bit of conviction that I can do better and I know how to do better now. And therefore you kind of. Our ignorance was bliss until now. I kind of pointed it out.
Jack
Have you kept in touch with them?
George Gammon
I haven't, but I think. I think he's messaged me once before. So I'm gonna try to get back in touch to see where are they now? And try to see if I can get them out of this thing.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
It's interesting because that actually sounds exactly like someone who's addicted to drugs because their life is falling apart. And it's because of the drugs that they take, but then they take the drugs to escape that life. The same thing goes for this person in $180,000 of consumer debt. Or other people, maybe not this person exactly. But like, generally speaking, like, you're going on this trip to Disneyland, you're taking on more consumer debt in order to escape the stress of being in consumer debt. So it's just a vicious cycle that feeds itself.
George Gammon
Yeah. Dr. Arthur Brooks calls that the doom loop. And it happens with all kinds of addiction. And when you translate it to money, it's the retail therapy. I buy a thing, it wasn't enough. The dopamine wore off. So I need to go kind of do more of it, go bigger. And with debt, you see this kind of add it to my tab mentality of, well, I'm 180 grand in debt. What's another 10 grand onto the pile and even fail. I have family members who do this. You know, they're. They go to med school and they're 350 grand in debt. So adding a car payment to that is like a drop in the bucket to them. And that's the scary part is this is like Monopoly money to us. And we don't realize the Ramifications. And that's the side we get on the Ramsey show when life didn't work out perfectly. When they were laid off, they were fired. A spouse wants to stay home because they had a kid, and all of a sudden we have to tell them, hey, you got to sell the house, or, hey, that car is about to get repoed, you're about to get foreclosed on. So those are the heartbreaking calls. Everyone takes on payments when they're doing okay in life and they can afford the payment, quote, unquote. And eventually they have a misstep. Life happens. They have an emergency that they weren't prepared for, and then the whole house of cards crumbles.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So what's the worst thing you've seen on a call?
George Gammon
Oh, my gosh. The worst thing I've seen on a call, the one that is burned into my memory is, I don't know if you've heard of the sovereignty movement.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
There's a sovereign citizen thing.
George Gammon
Sovereign citizen?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What is that?
George Gammon
They believe that the government is basically operating under false pretenses that taxes are illegal, and therefore, I'm not going to pay taxes, I'm not going to pay back my debts because I think it's unlawful. And a woman called in and said, my husband is a part of this movement. He's sort of fallen into this cult like mentality. And the car is about to be repoed, Their house is about to be foreclosed on because he's not making mortgage payments, and he owes the IRS $300,000. And I'm. And I told her, I was like, hey, you might go to jail too. Like, you might be able to claim innocent spouse if you're lucky, if you get a good attorney and get out of this. But this guy is going to drag you into prison with him if you're not careful. So those are the scariest ones where someone is. I mean, I think it's a. It's a mental illness at that point of that level of sort of paranoia and, you know, deranged behavior.
Jack
What was her response?
George Gammon
I think she was a little bit of, you know, just shock mode of she didn't really know what to do. And there was a lot of next steps to. To handle all of it and is, you know, I didn't think the marriage was going to survive in all of this. It's hard. You know, you're so far removed of, like, that's not the person I married. You know, and so that. That was a really difficult call to take. That's hard to nail down in seven minutes on a radio call to help her. And so that's the hard part is you always think about them later on and you kind of have to like a surgeon or a doctor go like, all right, next caller. You know, you have to kind of compartmentalize it and not let it stick with you too much.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
This seems to be more of like a psychological question, but that also seems to be the same thing that leads people to believe that it's a good idea to put debt on, to take on debt in order to get a Coachella ticket. It's like all just like being disillusioned, basically, like being diluted. Seeing reality for something that it isn't. What do you think about this?
George Gammon
All see money anymore? When is the last time you guys saw $10,000 in cash? Now, Graham probably has because it's sitting in his safe at home. But most people, money is just as. Just like this digital thing. It's just a number in a bank account. And therefore, when we take on debt, like a car payment, it's $50,000 for that new car. You didn't have to actually exchange anything for that. All you had to do is promise to make a $750 payment next month and the month after that. But that balance sitting with that car lender of $50,000 isn't really real to you, similar to a mortgage. And that's what I think we need is to bring friction back, bring the reality back that even if you have 20,000 in savings and you have 50,000 in debt, you are not okay. You are not safe. There's a real deficit there. And you are. You are in the red.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You think it has to do with delayed consequence. Because back in the day, let's say if you. If you didn't pay the IRS or if you wanted to take on debt, like, I feel like the consequence of doing that could not be stretched so far.
Jack
Oh, yeah, you'd be borrowing money from, like, the mob or, like from dude. And then your legs get broken when you're like a day late.
George Gammon
Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. Now what you do is you. You file bankruptcy, you pay a couple grand, get on a payment plan, or they, you know, repo the assets or foreclose the home. And then you got a get out of jail free card. Now your credit shot, your financial world is ruined for, you know, about a decade. But people just go, I'll file bankruptcy again. That's sort of the mentality now. And people see bankruptcy. I mean, we get so Many calls where people say, should I file bankruptcy? And they are $12,000 in debt. But they just somewhere learned along the way that there was a shortcut out of this thing that did not involve them.
Jack
When should you file bankruptcy?
George Gammon
I believe never. And if you know, Dave Ramsey story, he famously filed bankruptcy back in the day. But what happened is he, he had his back up against the wall. He had done everything he could in the time that he was allotted 90 days to pay back all of the, all the mortgages that he had, and he couldn't sell them off in time and therefore had to file bankruptcy. So we've never told someone on air you should file bankruptcy. What we tell them is, do everything you can to climb out of this thing. And then eventually, if you're a Dave Ramsey situation, it's going to be a natural byproduct because you've run out of options. But too many people make it the first option instead of a last ditch effort of, I man, I tried everything I could and I couldn't pay it back in time and there was no way out. But rarely is that the case these days. Most of the time, even if it's a couple hundred thousand in, you know, SBA loans, that's a big one we get is people took on a bunch of leverage to start a business, the business failed, and, and yet they're left, you know, holding the bag. And that's a scary situation. We go, hey, you guys have to go get normal jobs and work on paying this down over time and get on a payment plan. But I still believe that is the best path out because the behavior change and transformation that happens when you have to pay all that money back and sacrifice and actually have that inner transformation, you'll never go back in. Because what we see is people go into bankruptcy two, three, four times because they just keep doing the same behavior that got them there. They never really learn.
Jack
What are your thoughts on debt consolidation?
George Gammon
Oof. It's another shortcut that I'm not a fan of. People again, think this is some like, magic trick of just like, I'm going to take my 20 different debts and put it into one debt and that'll be easier to manage. And the truth is it makes it harder to pay off because now you're staring at Everest instead of quick win, quick win, knock out one debt, knock out the next, which is the debt snowball method. Debt consolidation makes the debt snowball method near impossible because now you're just paying back one giant loan.
Jack
What if you lower the interest rate and it lowers your payments and you're able to chip away at it faster. Do you think the psychological aspect just outweighs that?
George Gammon
I still think the interest savings isn't worth it, especially if you're doing our plan, because our plan says gazelle intensity, deep sacrifice for a short period of time. So therefore the actual math on how much you'd save on interest is negligible when you're going to attack it in 18 to 24 months, which is the average. We find people getting out of their consumer debt following our plan to a T. And so I, I've never seen someone go, man, I became debt free and debt consolidation was my ticket. Or even worse, these debt settlement, debt relief companies that are popping up all over the place.
Jack
What are you seeing right now with inflation impacting people's finances? Because right now gas prices are crazy. Even in Vegas, I'm seeing like five dollar six a gallon.
George Gammon
Yeah, I was just in California and I wanted to throw up thinking about like $8 a gallon having to fill up a car.
Jack
There was one gas station by Beverly Hills where someone posted on Reddit, $10 a gallon for gas.
George Gammon
That is insane.
Jack
$10.
George Gammon
I think I'd get a bicycle real quick. It's nice weather over there, so you can easily get to where you need to go or just, you know, don't leave the house other than going to work and back. But yeah, that's true. Inflation is real. That's. It's not like a boogeyman. There's a real level of prices have gone up. And even as inflation has cooled down, the prices just don't go back down. They just don't go up at quite the same pace. And so it is a real problem. I don't see it changing drastically anytime soon. And therefore, what's the solution? It's your budget. It's cutting back in other places and trying to make more where you can. That's the only real solution, is to go, all right, gas is going to cost me 250 bucks instead of 150. Well, where am I going to find that? A hundred bucks? I got to cut it from somewhere else. And once you can do that math and start to finagle your own finances, it becomes a lot less stressful than just sort of being in denial going, yeah, gas is more expensive, but I'll add it to the tab, I'll put it on my credit card, and hopefully I'll be able to pay off the balance at the end of the month. No, instead, make a real plan of where that extra money is going to come from, whether it's from working extra, getting a raise, getting a promotion, cutting back on subscriptions, cutting back on eating out because that money is real and you have to account for it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
How often is not making enough money a valid reason for someone's dissatisfaction with their finances or being in debt?
George Gammon
I would say out of all the Ramsey show calls I take, there's probably 10% where it legitimately is an income problem. But even then they are in a, like the debt to income ratio is off balance, so they have $40,000 in debt, but they make $60,000 as a household. That's a really tough situation. Like as your debt starts to creep up with as much as your income, if not more, the math just becomes a lot harder to pay off. But rarely do. I find, I think once you hit the normal threshold, which most of our callers, they're making the average median household income or higher, they're, they're doing well, they're making 80k, 100k, 150k. Rarely do we get the ones that are, hey, our household income is 40k. Yes, that is a problem. You're not going to be able to have a stay at home spouse with a bunch of kids with the car you want. Life you want while making 40k as a household. That's just really tight in today's America. So the good news is we always dig in and go, what are you doing for work? Okay, what's the ladder in that field? And if there isn't one, how do we get you out of this like hourly wage position making 15 or 20 bucks an hour?
Jack
Do you tell them to be an AI consultant?
George Gammon
You know, I haven't tried that yet. I heard Grant Cardone say you can make $1 million a year pretty easily. As an AI consultant. I haven't attempted, but I do tell people, okay, what is the skill set behind the thing that you're doing? And then where can you make a lot of money with that same skill set? If you just moved it over here and obviously if you listen to Ken Coleman, what is the, you know, the thing you're actually passionate about? So not just the thing that's going to be soul sucking because I, we also get a lot of calls from young guys who go, hey, I just want to make a lot of money. I want to go into medical device sales because I've heard you can make a lot of money. Well, that's a terrible reason to go into medical device sales because you're going to get burnt out, you're not going to last. You're not going to be a good salesperson. You're going to come across a little skeezy if you're only in it for that dollar.
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George Gammon
Rarely. Most people are miserable in their jobs and sometimes it's a mindset. I've met people who have. Because you would say if you looked at most jobs in America, I go, I wouldn't want that job. I mean, right? 99.9% of jobs out there. Graham Stephan goes, you couldn't pay me enough to do that. Well, maybe they could pay you enough to do that. Graham's like, I have.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah, they absolutely can.
Jack
There's an amount.
George Gammon
I have a number. But the truth is there's also people who no matter what the work is, they find joy in it because they don't look at the face value of the work. Because if you look at face value of the work for most People, I sit in meetings all day, I'm in front of a computer all day trying to wordsmith an email and then you go home. That's soul sucking. But if you actually like to serve people, you like to be around people, if you have co workers you actually want to grow, then almost any work can be fulfilling. I mean I've met Walmart greeters that have more joy than the guy making $300,000 at Deloitte.
Jack
Oh, because they get really good health insurance.
George Gammon
That's where it's at. Get that health insurance.
Jack
Really good.
George Gammon
But it's true. There's a quality of life that your job affects. And if you have a poor quality of life due to the income or due to the stress or due to the soul sucking nature of that job, get out. There is work out there for you that you can enjoy and make good money doing.
Jack
So how much do you think it takes per year to have four kids with a stay at home wife?
George Gammon
Well, it's very area Bay Area versus Idaho is going to be very different.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So let's just talk then. High cost of living. Like metro areas.
George Gammon
Metro area, single income, four kids. Now I'm going to say you don't have debt, all right? Because it's going to. Now you got to way increase the income. If you're in crippling debt. You got a bunch of cars, a huge mortgage, let's save a reasonable mortgage. You followed our principles, 15 year fixed, 25% of your after tax income and no consumer debt. You can then survive on a decent, you know, let's say a high cost living area, $100,000. Because if you do the math on that, you're talking six grand a month probably coming in maybe five. If you're high taxes in California and you have a reasonable mortgage, that's two grand a month. You got three grand a month to play with to cover food, utilities, insurance, a little bit of fun money for four kids. Well, it depends on the kid. I mean how old, how old are the kids? Are they in private school? All of that matters. But I mean with kids you're talking about maybe formula, diapers and basic clothing, rice and beans. Like what do kids actually need? Well, we're not, we don't need to take them all to Disney every year. We're just making sure that they're, they're fed, they're growing properly, they're healthy, that's about it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I kind of agree with that. Like I could be totally naive here because I don't have kids, but, or a wife For a wife or a girlfriend, shout out to Jack if you're interested. I do not remember being, like, needing expensive things when I was a kid. Like, all of the vacations that we would go on would just be backpacking trips. And so, like, we would just take the car out, load up our backpacks. We'd have a tent, and then we just walk somewhere. And then, boom, set up the tent and sleep. And then of course you have food and then you have like, I was in soccer, but soccer was maybe like a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars to sign up for a team.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And then aside from that, it's. I mean, what insurance? But my mom was a public school teacher, so that was also.
George Gammon
Which is. I mean, she's not making the big bucks as a public school teacher. And what you find is the reality is a lot of people live in California making $100,000 household income. They exist and they make it work. And yet there's other people who make $350,000 who are in the red every month, paycheck to paycheck. And so it's really hard to say, well, if they just made this much money, they would be okay. Because as we know, half of those six figure earners are paycheck to paycheck. So you can't just say, well, if they made 200,000, it'd be reasonable. Because that lifestyle probably necessitates this fancy car that they can't afford, the big house that they can't afford. But when you go, this is the reality of how much we make. What can we actually afford? You just make different decisions and you make it work. There's sacrifices made. When you have a stay at home spouse with four kids, you don't do the things that other people do.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Graham is under the impression that, like, to raise a family of four, what do you think it would cost?
George Gammon
Like, over eight years.
Sponsor Announcer
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Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
We had a discussion with the Oppenheim brothers, and they were throwing out, like, ludicrous numbers. And I'm like, there's just. My parents weren't making that amount.
George Gammon
How many of these people have four kids?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, no, two kids, because it's a family of four. So how much?
George Gammon
Oh, family of four. Okay, I have a family of four. Do they have a family of four?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
No, Graham does not. He's just. He's just apprehensive to have kids because he feels like he can't afford it.
Jack
So how not apprehensive to have kids? I'm just Saying it's. I just don't think it's going to be a few grand a month.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So how much do you think a family of four needs to be bringing in to support a fam. To support family.
Jack
I think it really is location dependent. If you own your house, Vegas, I'm going to say probably 125k a year minimum for a family of four.
George Gammon
Is that assuming there's no consumer debt?
Jack
Correct.
George Gammon
Let's assume there's no consumer debt. Don't you think it's a better way to live at that point to just have no consumer debt that way?
Jack
That's why I said 125k.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
He's saying 125k, no consumer debt.
George Gammon
So yeah, I think that's a good Life.
Jack
Yeah, about $10,000.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
But he said that's minimum.
George Gammon
But that's not to cover the kids. That's just to cover the entire household.
Jack
Everything.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Jack
Utilities.
George Gammon
The kids are this much food, they
Jack
might be some travel, 5%, other expenses, emergency. I think that's the minimum. I think it could be done for less, but I think that would be the, the amount that would be comfortable.
George Gammon
Yeah. As, as someone who is a, you know, we have a four person family. I've got an infant, I've got a toddler. I can tell you what we spend on the kids and it's, it's diapers, it's formula and honestly all the toys and books we didn't purchase, they come from family and friends and birthdays.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
How much?
Jack
It was interesting that Chris Camillo was saying that when you raise kids in a nicer neighborhood, they cost significantly more. Just because if you don't keep up with what the other families are doing, the kids will feel excluded.
George Gammon
That's true.
Jack
And that you have to have your kids at the same level, otherwise they're the odd ones.
George Gammon
Well, I'll give you an example. Our neighborhood, like all of these little kids have these little, you know, these little Jeeps, these little motorized cars they're driving around in. And so we got my daughter one because now she's just watching them drive around, not able to participate. And so for Christmas my family got her a little motorized Jeep that she loves to ride around in now. But there is a level of you sort of. And that's funny that we learned this at such a young age that you have to assimilate to the people around you. Otherwise you're. You stick out like a sore thumb. And there is a truth to it in that you want to be a part of this community, you sort of have to be like that community. Otherwise eventually they go, hey, he's not really one of us. Or they don't want to participate.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Would you say Nashville is similar cost of living to Vegas?
George Gammon
Oh, a hundred percent.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So you're, you're in Nashville, we're in Las Vegas. How much do you as a family of four spend per month?
George Gammon
Probably $5,000, maybe six if we're really living. But that's our like to cover. Like if I had a, let's say I lost my job, we needed our emergency fund and we cut back to like a pretty, just like bare bones budget. We still enjoy our life, but we're kind of cutting out all the extras. I could bring it down, yeah, I could bring it down to four or five grand easily. Because our actual expenses we have to cover are insurance for the home, taxes for the home, all the other insurances, auto, term life, all of that. And then food, which we could really, you know, just shop at Aldi and meal prep and do all that kind of stuff if we had to. And the kids have plenty of crap. They don't need any more of it. And so I feel very confident that if there was a situation like that, I could trim way down. But if you look at the average home in Williamson county, which is the county we're in, it's a million dollars. Now it's the average price, which is crazy in Williamson County. And so I assume Vegas is similar. I would say it's similar and depending on the area you could probably find cheaper. Like if you went to the most expensive area of Vegas, it'd probably be more like that of average home. At least a million.
Jack
I would agree with that. So how much do you think someone would need to retire in their 40s to support a family of four if
George Gammon
they retired in 2026?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Let's say they're 40 years old.
George Gammon
Oh, they want to retire early.
Jack
Yeah.
George Gammon
Okay. That's a pretty wild. Well, I wouldn't recommend it, first of all.
Jack
Why?
George Gammon
I've never met someone who can sustain that. Because the, the personality type to be able to retire at 40 with a huge nest egg, they're just simply too ambitious to just go full stop. It's like a marathon runner doing the marathon and saying, I am never running again. They're just going to be jonesing for that next thing. They're just too goal oriented to then just stop and have no ambition and sit on a beach. It gets old fast. Even if you want to travel internationally, great. You go on the trip and eventually you just want, you know, a McDonald's hamburger and to sleep in your own bed. And so I think there is a fallacy that retiring early. I love the idea of retiring early or being work optional. That's what I love. That's it's kind of the like screw you money where you hate everything. You hate your boss, your job is toxic, whatever, you can just go, I'm out. I don't need this anymore. And your assets create enough income to cover your expenses. I think it's a great goal to have for your assets to cover your expenses and create spit off enough income to do that. But I think the idea that you're going to do nothing is the scary part because those people have so much value to add to the economy if they're making probably a couple hundred thousand dollars and socking most of it away to be able to retire at 40. If you think about starting from 25 to 40, 15 years, you are just piling money away probably to the tune of a savings rate of 50, 60% to be able to do that. So how much would you need? It depends on your lifestyle. Some people want to live this sort of. And you know this. There's the like lean fire all the way to fat fire from financially independent retire early. So we're talking I can live off $750,000 nest egg to I need 10 million plus just to survive. And what I found, because I've been looking into these communities, the goalpost always moves. Everyone is so scared to pull the trigger. And all the comments go, dude, the math checks out. You're fine to retire. You got $6 million and your expenses are $100,000 a year. Go enjoy your life if you want to quit. But most people are so scared. And it's not about the money. I think it's about the purpose and value they an identity they feel in the work that they do. And what's going to happen on the other side when they're just sitting at home.
Jack
I think a lot of it is that they plan for the downside because I've seen a lot of those posts. I'm on Reddit fat fire like every single day. And I see those where it's like,
George Gammon
and they're almost the catch a million liquid.
Jack
And you know, I'm doing this.
George Gammon
The average person went to the fatfire subreddit. They would go, these are the most out of touch idiots I've ever met. They got $14 million and they're saying it's not enough, right? That's essentially most of the posts in there. They're all sort of like, well, I have this much, but I don't know, I'm still a little gun shy because they just, they're scared of the future, which is kind of what got them here. And they wanted to have some control over their future. And yet they are so controlled by their mind, by their own prison they've created.
Jack
And what would you tell those people?
George Gammon
I tell them to let go and let God and go find work you enjoy doing. And don't worry about, you know, the dollar amount at this point because truly they, they have earned their way to financial freedom by all stretches of the imagination. And so now it's going, dude, if you can't learn to live off of $10 million, then you'll never be able to live. And I think truthfully, what they're missing is a real purpose in life because their sole purpose was get to this number. They get to the number and they go, well, I guess it needs to be a bigger number because I can't let go of the one thing that was keeping me alive, this weird financial goal. So that's the part that scares me, is there's no real foundation other than, well, I want to be able to work out more or, you know, enjoy travel more. I think you just need a deeper purpose than that. And some people avoid having starting families, they avoid getting married, they avoid having kids because they think that is a deterrent to their financial goal.
Jack
And what purpose do you recommend for those people?
George Gammon
Oh, my gosh. I mean, I think getting married and having kids gives you an immense sense of purpose. And it's not to say that if you're single, like, you don't have purpose, but I think there's a newfound sense of purpose that causes. It forces you to become more selfless and be less inward focused. When you've got to, you've got to raise these kids and you want to do it right.
Jack
And what if they already have kids? Because it seems like a lot of those posts, they already have kids.
George Gammon
Yeah, if they're, if they're married, they have kids. I do think faith plays a big part of it. I think without faith underpinning a lot of this, it does feel a little bit meaningless. This sort of like capitalistic rat race. We're here for 70 years, then we're in the grave, so what's the point of anything? You sort of have an existential crisis if you don't have a bigger picture and a bigger thing to live for. And So I think faith plays a big part, family plays a big part, your health plays a big part. Because we see a lot of these people are burnt out, stressed, high blood pressure, out of shape. And so if you're able to focus on your health, your relationships, your family, your work and your faith, you are so well rounded that you're gonna have a great life no matter how much money you make or have.
Jack
How much do you think people should be saving who want to get to that point in their 20s, 30s, 40s? Is there a percentage that you recommend
George Gammon
for like a work optional, sort of aggressive savings goal? Well, I, I, what I did is I saved 15% of my income into retirement accounts while aggressively paying down the mortgage with anything left over. So that was my plan. I'm not saying everyone has to do that, but being completely debt free in my early 30s then freed me up to go from investing 15% to 50% because I still live the same way. We didn't really increase our lifestyle by much. We may have bought our time back in a few ways. You know, lawn care, a cleaner, whatever it is. But aside from that, I'm still the same George. I don't spend, I don't have this, like, materialistic, like, I just want more stuff. We really focus all of our energy toward our, like, buying our house. Let's furnish it nicely. But outside of that, a vacation's a, you know, it's a pipe dream for us right now with an infant toddler and two dogs, one of which is handicapped.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You keep bringing up a handicapped dog. I'm just curious, what's the handicap? If that's like, insensitive to ask, I'm sorry.
George Gammon
No, I, I think the dog would be fine with me telling you he had something called intravertebral disc disease, ivdd, which is fairly common in French bulldogs and other dogs.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You have a French bulldog?
George Gammon
I got two French bulldogs.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So that's.
George Gammon
They're born broken. Okay. When you think about dogs that just don't look like they should exist, French bulldogs are at the top of the list. And vets hate and love these dogs. They hate them because of how they're bred. And they have so many issues. Breathing issues, hip issues, spine issues. And they love them because it pays for their second home. And so French bulldogs are, have common issues like this. So my dog was very athletic, four years old, great shape. All of a sudden, exploded disc in his spine, lost all function in his back half. So we had to make the hard decision. Do we see if it heals on Its own, or do we do an expensive surgery to remedy it? They go out and clean the.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You know, that's the hard. I thought you were going to say a different hard decision, but.
George Gammon
Of putting him down. Yeah. Well, that's a. That's a byproduct that could happen if you don't deal with it. And so we decided to do the surgery. We had about an hour window to decide. I was live on the Ramsey show. My wife's calling me in tears at the emergency vet going, hey, they need a decision now because there's a window of time where you can actually do the surgery. And so we did the surgery, and it was eight months of grueling rehab. And he's doing actually great now as far as all things are considered. He can run and walk. He can't bend his back legs. He kind of does like a. Just this move on the back.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
That's good.
George Gammon
But he, you know, he's thriving otherwise. Like, he still lives a pretty normal life, which is great, but that's taken a toll on us emotionally. You know, financially, it's just super expensive.
Jack
Why get that breed of dog?
George Gammon
There's. There's some things in life you do knowing that it's not a smart financial decision. And I think dogs fall into that category, but especially dogs with known issues. You buy, like a mutt from the, you know, the rescue, that dog's gonna live forever with no issues. You buy a purebred French bulldog, it party's over. And so we just. Both my wife and I love French bulldogs. We love their temperament. We love the way they look and their weirdness, their personality. And so we just got one and then decided it needs a friend. And so we got another one, and here we are.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
How much was the surgery?
George Gammon
The surgery was $6,000.
Jack
It's not as bad as I expected.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
It's not horrible.
George Gammon
That was just the surgery. The scan and anesthesia, I think, was another $5,000. Oh, and then the rehab costs, the medication costs, that just kept adding to it. So it's. It put a hole in our pocket. Luckily, we did. So I don't advocate for pet insurance for most people. I think you're better off just putting money away in a savings account and using that as your insurance plan for a pet. But knowing that these dogs have so many issues, I got sort of a high deductible pet insurance plan. And so they ended up paying the max for us of a five grand back into our bank account.
Jack
How much was the pet insurance?
George Gammon
It's probably a Couple hundred bucks a year for that. Oh. So we, we made out like bandits for this one. But it was still, I mean, that's what made me feel good. What I didn't want was to have to make the decision, as Davis said on air, of like, do you cover it or do you put the dog down?
Jack
Were those the only options? Because I've seen some dogs that have the wheels on the back and they're able to use their front legs and they have like the wheels.
George Gammon
We do have those for him to help him sort of rehab on walks, but he doesn't need them to, to move.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Why couldn't he just have that with his lower half not working?
George Gammon
Well, there was, there was a chance that was a possibility, but we wanted to see if he can get back to where he was because he's only four years old. So I was like, he still has a lot of life left in him if we can get it, get him healed up. And so I feel like we are on the right side of history there. Deloney wanted me to just, he was like, dude, I would have not done what you did, Rachel. Same way they're both not even Dave would have said, I would not have done what you did. Really, they would have written it out and just to see what happens. But they're not going to pay for all this stuff.
Sponsor Announcer
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Jack
I feel like a dog's always like a member of the family.
George Gammon
It's. I agree. And truthfully, the reason we do the baby steps, the reason I'm so conservative with money is because I don't know what life is going to throw at me. So when a dog has a situation like this, we have the money sitting there. We don't need to get on their payment plan or put it on a credit card. We take it out of the emergency fund and go, that sucked. But I'm glad we didn't have to suffer financially too. And so it's one of the biggest reasons I advocate for a debt free life. The savings in the bank, building wealth of the future is because you have more flexibility and options with whatever life's gonna throw at you.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So then in order to retire, let's say someone does want to retire early, how much would they need in a low cost of living, medium cost of living, a high cost of living area?
George Gammon
Man, I wish there was a magic number. It'd be so fun to spit it. And everyone goes, this guy crushed it. Again, it depends on your lifestyle, your expenses, but if you kind of go, how about this we can kind of go with like a, like low middle, high lifestyle and how much? I think as a blanket number, I would like to have an nest egg retiring in like in your 50s. What are we talking?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Let's do 50, 50 years old.
George Gammon
I think it's an easy. If you want me to just blanket it, I would say 1 million, 2 million, 3 million would get you very far. That's not to say it's going to cover every situation, every family, every level of household expenses, but I think when you look at the stair step of that, you go, that's a pretty. It would take a long time to deplete that. If you only took out what you needed, 3 million bucks for most people on a nest egg, they'd be set for life. Now if you spend 20 grand a month may not get you that far, but for most people, let's say the average household expenses are between 3 and $7,000. For most people, that's plenty. If they're not, you know, just milk in this nest egg. Susie Orman says 5 million, that's, that would be comforting. But I think to tell someone that they need $5 million by the age of 40 is insane. 50 by 50, still, that's a, that's a very aspirational goal that only personal finance nerds. Now, if there's an 18 year old who watches your channel or my channel or even in their 20s, it's very achievable. If you can make a good income, household income of let's say, 80 to $150,000, you have a great investment rate. You have no consumer debt. You get that mortgage paid off and then invest that mortgage payment for the rest of your life. You can get there. And I plan on having more than $5 million when I retire. So it's not to say that I couldn't live on less, but the more I have, the more impact I can have. The more I can create generational wealth, the more I can give to my church or nonprofits that I care about. And so I think making money has been villainized and having a ton of money has been put on an unhealthy pedestal.
Jack
So if someone's 18, what advice would you give them? Would it be to go to college? Would it be to become a consultant? What would you recommend?
George Gammon
I think I would have them figure out the work they're wired to do first because that will then show you the path, because for too many people. And I just went to a high school couple weeks ago and I interviewed all these high Schoolers about their plans after school. And it was shocking to me how many people just went, well, I'm going to college because I don't know the next step. So they're just sort of falling into this herd mentality of I go to college because I'm told that's going to be my best path. When the truth is it's not. Especially in 2026, as you know, most people want to be YouTubers. You don't need a college degree to be a YouTuber. It probably won't even help you at that point. You're probably better off spending that four years creating content than sitting in a classroom. And so depending on what you want to do, college might be the next step. It might be trades, it might be an entrepreneurial venture. But I do think the faster, you know, the work you're wired to do, the faster you can fail when you're young, the better off you're gonna be. Because too many people wait until they're in their 30s, 40s to figure out, man, I really hate this. Well, I hope you figured that at 22 instead of 42, you say you will save yourself a whole lot of time and heartache. But the 18 year olds I talk to, the number one question they have is how do I get a million dollars by 25? That's my most viral. TikTok was a call on the show. 18 year old calls in, says, I want to turn a hundred grand into a million by the time I'm 25. And I said, why? And then he backed out. He went, oh, it was just a question. I went, no, I just want to know truthfully why. And at the heart of it, they're all scared that they'll never get ahead. They'll never build wealth, they'll never own a home. Therefore they need to do something crazy, risky and high leverage in order to make a lot of money now. Because they're never going to have it. And that's the heart of it. If you ask someone why or and then what, they generally don't have an answer after one or two rounds of that.
Jack
Here's interesting. Let's just say he had to do it. He had to turn a hundred grand into a million at 25.
George Gammon
Okay, how would you do it? Go make a lot of money and sock a lot of it away?
Jack
How would you make a lot of money? Let's just say his life depended on it. He turns 26 and he doesn't have a million.
George Gammon
I think starting a business is the best path for a young person to make a lot of money quickly because I don't know a lot of companies looking to hire an 18 year old. Unless there's some kind of prodigy working in tech or AI who's going to pay them $200,000. But you can make $200,000 with a lawn care business at 18. And I've met those people, they're crushing it. So find a business that is not sexy, that is not highly promoted on TikTok and go, all right, how do I scale this thing with the time that I have in a smart way that doesn't involve debt? And the people that do it debt free just have a much, they have much more room to play with. And the people that are highly leveraged, well, now they just own a job with a bunch of payments on the other side. But if you can scale this thing, hire a couple guys under you to start doing the lawn care, you scale into Christmas lights during the winter, you start to get resourceful. You can make money in these little niches over here and compete with the big guys.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
If someone were to listen to every single thing you tell them to do, let's say you called them every single morning for five minutes, like, do this, do this, do this, do this. They're 18, they want to be a millionaire by 25. What's the likelihood of them doing that?
George Gammon
The likelihood, okay, give them seven years. Now this is largely dependent on their income because we always say your income is your greatest wealth building tool. So making $40,000, you're not going to get there from 18 to 25 to a million. I mean, it's a $900,000 gap. We're talking about in seven years. That's over $100,000 a year you need to be putting away or growing for you. So I think it's just a, it's a terrible goal. And so my number one thing with that person would be to adjust their goal. Not to help them get to the
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
number, but let's just say like if, if you could put your mind into the mind of an 18 year old, what's the likelihood that they could go to becoming a millionaire in seven years?
George Gammon
Likelihood, I would say 10% if they
Jack
called from me every day, every single
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
day, five minutes with you and you just, or however long, you know, if you said, hey, today I want you to spend 14 hours going door to door trying to sell this. And then once you have this money, report back to me how much money you have, I'll tell you exactly how to reinvest it.
Jack
Okay.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
That you only made this much. We're going to try doing this, do this, study this, read this book. And if they just listen to every single thing. And they needed, let's say eight hours to sleep, two hours.
George Gammon
Who they need. They need Alex Hormozy for this. They need to scale 100x.
Sponsor Announcer
I'm just, I'm just curious to get
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
the likelihood that they become.
Jack
And they really followed it like they're exactly to a T. And they're motivated every day.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yep.
Jack
I would give it 40%.
George Gammon
Oh, 40%.
Jack
And the reason I say 40%, not 50% is because there is an element of just the person and randomness.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
No, let's say the person listened to every single thing you say.
Jack
Yeah, but even then, okay, so randomness,
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
like they get into an accident. Yes.
Jack
There could be like random things that just come up that, that I am not equipped to handle either. So I would say a 40%. I'd be confident.
George Gammon
Well, the key they would need to be because I'm not a guy who's gonna. I'm not a betting man. So most people would say leverage, take a bunch of risks and hopefully it works out. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be the, the tortoise instead of the hare and go, well, what is a six figure job or business you could create and then sock away that level of income. Live off 20%, 30% of that. Keep living so frugally and sock it away. Which again is not a good quality of life. Which is why I would not recommend it. I would go, hey, what's behind this? What happens at 25 with a million dollars? What then? You probably don't have an answer.
Jack
I take it to 90%. If I could have more than five minutes a day with them.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You can have as much time as you want.
George Gammon
Why isn't this a new channel? Graham, you should start this series.
Jack
No, because we would do social media consulting and I would have this person non stop throughout the day creating content. Not creating content. Finding people who need social media consulting, like corporations.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You can't pay this person or go into business with them.
George Gammon
It's not.
Jack
I just have to coach them. They can't come to me and say, like, Graham, what do I say? They need a thumbnail. What do you think about this thumbnail? You can't get.
George Gammon
Well, they.
Sponsor Announcer
Then they would just be marketing.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Graham. No, that's. You're destroying the premise. Because then they could just say, oh yeah, I'm basically, yeah, Graham, I'll just.
George Gammon
Premise of this random hypothetical hold on,
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I'll just ask Graham, you know, and because I'm Graham's closest friend, then it's
Jack
back down at 40%.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Okay, that's interesting.
George Gammon
Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to answer because I think it's just a. A useless goal because I think once you have a million dollars at 25, your life is not necessarily better. You probably have no relationships at that point because all you did was grind. So now you're just single, no friends, with some money, and you probably have bought some nice things along the way, let's be honest.
Jack
But you could make friends at any age. And to be fair, a lot of the people I hung out with from 20 to 25, I never see him. None of it really mattered. And now I have great friends.
George Gammon
Now you have at least one friend.
Jack
No, I have one friend and a wife. And a wife, one quality friend and
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
a dog is worth a hundred non qualified.
George Gammon
Yeah, that math hurts my head, but I'll go with it. I'll go with it. Yeah, I just, I just think that that person has their, their goals out of order. I would rather them go, what is a problem in the world that I would love to solve? That's a much better question to ask than how much money can I make? Or how do I get to a certain number? That number needs to be a byproduct of something that you added to as far as value to someone or a group of people. And that we talk about that at Ramsey, one of our core values is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. That's what Dave's done. I mean, most of our content's free. We're not asking you for money at every turn. You could buy a course or a book, but it's not like we gatekeep it.
Jack
See, I agree with that. But my mindset was always from 18 to 30, you head down work, you sacrifice everything you don't need, and you just head down work. Because the value of Money when you're 20 years old is so high compared to the value of that same dollar at 50.
George Gammon
Agree. Can I tell you the math on it? At 20 years old, every dollar you invest is a 73x return at 65. So $1 at 20 turns into $73
Jack
at 65 at what rate of return?
George Gammon
That's I believe, 9 or 10%. Now, when you invest that same dollar at 55, maybe a 4x return if you're lucky, at 65. So you can see from 73x it starts to go down, down, down over time because you have less time for compound growth to work its magic.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah.
Jack
So that's why I always thought that it didn't matter if you see friends or not. It doesn't matter if you're not going on vacations because you could do it when you're at 32. Like the difference of experience, I think, between 25 and like 35, very little. Like I still feel internally 25.
George Gammon
Yeah. I mean, you look at great skincare. That really helps.
Jack
Thank you. Macy's got me moisturizing.
George Gammon
Wow.
Jack
Yeah, she's got this. All these serums, dude. I now put on my face.
George Gammon
I will say I got a huge glow up when I got married. There was so many things I didn't know were wrong with me until my wife lovingly pointed them out and said, we can fix that.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What was the biggest one?
George Gammon
Hair was one thing. I think I. I upped the hair. Clothing was a huge one. I was not dressing very well when I met her and she helped me step up that game. My teeth, I think I was using a sort of mouthwash that was making my teeth sort of have a. Almost like dark lines in between each other. It wasn't plaque, though. It was like I Listerine too much and it affected my. So all that stuff. Glasses. I got different glasses. That really helps look nice. They're a little more modern, that fit my face better, all of that stuff. So marriage will do that. Yeah. So get ready, Jack. One day you're going to have the glow up. Nobody expected you're going to be looks maxing.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I appreciate that.
George Gammon
Have you interviewed that guy, by the way?
Jack
Yeah, Jack is ascended a little bit over the last month and a half.
George Gammon
Was he nice to talk to?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah, he's very friendly. He's socially interesting. I would say, like, it's a nice
George Gammon
way to put it. I was just curious. I just think that I'm a. Like, I don't get in that world, like the manosphere, the looks. I have to be told by Gen Z people what's happening right now. And it makes me feel like a boomer. But I just think there's a. There's a level of just vanity and grossness and flexing that's happening right now in culture that I'm just not at all interested in.
Jack
I noticed that you were mogging us when we came in.
George Gammon
I don't know what that means, but it sounds like it's a bad thing that I did.
Jack
It's not a bad thing. It's just it is what it is. You were mogging, Jack and I.
George Gammon
What does that mean? Can you even give me the definition of mogging?
Jack
Yeah, you were kind of like one upping us. It's like you're kind of showing.
George Gammon
Oh, like a little like, status.
Jack
A little bit like the way you were dressed.
George Gammon
I didn't mean to. I think you guys just usually generally underdress, that's all.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah.
George Gammon
So it wasn't me flexing, but you guys look great, honestly. And you wore my jacket on my YouTube channel when you did my show.
Jack
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Are you wearing socks?
George Gammon
I'm a no show guy, which I know is a big faux pas in the Gen Z world.
Jack
It is.
George Gammon
I'm told that no show socks have not been cool for 10 years.
Jack
Correct.
George Gammon
But I simply refuse to wear thick white socks in the summertime or when it's warm out here in Tennessee.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
But you'll wear a jacket.
George Gammon
Yeah, I'm indoors.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So what is your current portfolio look like?
Sponsor Announcer
This episode is in partnership with Airbnb, so Graham and I just wrapped up a trip. We were in Austin for a few days. We filmed episodes with Togi, Chris Camillo and Caleb Hammer. And honestly, every time we're on the road, we're staying at homes on Airbnb. It's just become the default.
Jack
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Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
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Jack
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Jack
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Jack
When Jack and I started the Iced Coffee Hour in the very beginning, we were winging it. We were trying to figure out everything ourselves. And that's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you get it and how frustrating that could be. But that is why our sponsor, Shopify, is so incredibly helpful.
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Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What is your current portfolio look like?
George Gammon
The same as it always was. It's the home.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Let's talk percentages.
George Gammon
The home is probably, let's see, the home is probably about half of my entire net worth. And then the investments between my wife and I's retirement, checking, savings, all of that is probably another half.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And then what do investments look like?
George Gammon
My wife now stays at home, so she had a 401k at Ramsey and we rolled those over to IRAs. A traditional IRA for the traditional side, Roth IRA for the Roth side. So we have that just sitting there. I've got my 401k at Ramsey. I have an IRA from a rollover from.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yeah, but like what are they invested
George Gammon
in in mutual funds? I do have a brokerage account that's non retirement that's invested in, you know, Vanguard index funds. So that's pretty. That's the only thing that's not.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Do you do international index funds? Do you do bonds, Treasuries, anything?
George Gammon
I don't do bonds or treasuries. I'm an equities man, so I like to go 100% equities. I think it's a. The asset allocation theories kind of bunk. And the idea that I need to have 40% in bonds is, is why
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
do you have in cash.
George Gammon
Cash probably close to 10%.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And do you buy the dip or do you just dollar cost average?
George Gammon
I dollar cost average across investments. I like to do things monthly. I might like fund a Roth ira, for example, in one fell swoop. But other than that, I like to have things automated so that my human brain can't mess with it. So for example, I have my kids 529 college savings plans. I automate investments to that. I automate the investments to my brokerage account so that the money's gone. Like paycheck hits, the money disappears. I'm basically living like I'm broke, which is great. I keep only as much as I need for household expenses and checking.
Jack
How much bitcoin do you have currently?
George Gammon
Close to zero. And by close to, I mean I have zero. I don't, truthfully, I don't even know how to buy it.
Jack
You could buy the etf.
George Gammon
That still sounds like work to me. Like if you gave me the choice of a S&P 500 index fund or a Bitcoin ETF, I'm going to go index fund every time because it's the one that I understand, I understand what's behind it. There's 500 companies, they're weighted, there's market caps. Bitcoin is based on how we all feel.
Jack
Can I buy you one share of iBit?
George Gammon
You can do that? Are you going to donate it to me? How does that work? Yes, no, I would just venmo you enough to buy. What's one share cost?
Jack
40 bucks.
George Gammon
And what's that going to do for me now?
Jack
You could say you have a little bitcoin exposure.
George Gammon
Oh, okay. So it's the flex for me. Yeah. In case people ask, I can go. Yeah, I got a little bitcoin. How Much.
Jack
Graham bought me some.
George Gammon
Graham bought me 40 bucks. It was a gift from a friend. Would you do it? Who am I to say? Now, I'm not one to block a blessing, so if you want to give me $40, sure.
Jack
But with the express intent that you have to buy one share of it.
George Gammon
Yeah, if you show me how to do it. I don't even know how to create a wallet and all that.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
It's in your etf. It's any brokerage. IBIT is the technology.
George Gammon
So I can go to Vanguard and purchase it.
Sponsor Announcer
Yeah.
George Gammon
Okay, great.
Jack
If I can do it in Vanguard, it.
George Gammon
I can understand that.
Jack
Okay, great. $40. Deal.
George Gammon
Deal.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So now George owns Bitcoin.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Jack
There we go.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Holy cow. We just convinced you to buy bitcoin here on the podcast.
George Gammon
Well, technically, Graham bought Bitcoin. Well, I'm just holding it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
You own Bitcoin now?
George Gammon
Yeah, I guess so. I don't even know what IBIT is. It just represents Bitcoin.
Jack
Yes, it's an etf. So it's a fractionalized ownership of Bitcoin, but as a stock.
George Gammon
So do I actually own Bitcoin or just move up at the same price Bitcoin does?
Jack
Yeah, you own the stock. You own the company that owns bitcoin. You're not directly buying the bitcoin.
George Gammon
Well, the company owns bitcoin. I thought it was not owned by anybody.
Jack
This is BlackRock.
George Gammon
Well, now I'm selling.
Jack
You're buying BlackRock.
George Gammon
That's scary fun. Feels like I'm in with the Mafia.
Jack
Well, there's FBTC, too, but that's $70, so I picked iBit.
George Gammon
You're not willing to spring the 70 for me?
Jack
Do you want to split it, Jack? Be an iced coffee hour.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Would you rather have?
George Gammon
I mean, this video is going to produce more than $70 for you guys. I feel like I'm worth it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
We had expenses flying out here, you know?
Jack
You know how much our flights were going back to Vegas?
George Gammon
Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Just one way.
Jack
One way, people.
George Gammon
One way for two people. Okay. From Nashville to Vegas, one way. What airline?
Jack
Southwest.
George Gammon
I'm gonna go total totals with $780.
Jack
$1,200.
George Gammon
You got ripped, man. You got ripped.
Jack
Gas prices and flights are jet fuel cost.
George Gammon
Yep. I think they knew it was your account on Southwest, and they. He's got the money, probably.
Jack
So that's why we have to settle for ibit.
George Gammon
Yeah, I get it.
Jack
I get it.
George Gammon
You got to save money where we can. No, I'm fine with that. I'm again, I'm not anti crypto. I just don't understand it enough and I'm not interested enough to be a part of it and track it knowing that it's 24. 7. It's not. There's nothing underlying in it other than maybe utility in the future. That's it. I mean, so I like to know, hey, Apple just released the iPhone 17 and a new MacBook, and their revenue went up and therefore the share price went up. And therefore I benefited from that. That I can understand. And I love Warren Buffett's take that he wouldn't buy all the bitcoin in the world for $25. He said that. I don't know if it's still true, but I respect the man for having some principles going, it doesn't produce anything. He's like, what would I do with it?
Jack
Would you buy all the bitcoin in the world for $25?
George Gammon
I would, yeah. 100%. Okay, there we go.
Jack
If you said you got me really
George Gammon
going to push back. You got me with your hypotheticals. If someone offered all the bitcoin in the world, which I assume is like trillions of dollars at this point, I would, I would take it.
Jack
But let's say bitcoin crashes, it's worthless. And they say you could buy all of it for 25.
George Gammon
Yeah, I would do that. Okay. I mean, that's, that's doordash money.
Jack
Good.
George Gammon
Wouldn't anybody other than Warren Buffett because he already has billions.
Jack
But you wouldn't take a billion dollar loan at negative 10 percentage.
George Gammon
It's a totally different process. That's debt. That's borrowing money. This is money I actually have to purchase something. So that's the difference maker. Happily, I will buy things with my own money. But borrowing money to get anything? Not interested.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
One thing I just realized right now, which I think is very funny, is this shirt I purchased with my Saks Fifth Avenue credit that I get from the Amex Platinum.
George Gammon
Look at you. Thank you.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And these pants I purchased with my Lululemon credit that I get with the Amex Platinum. And I didn't even do that on purpose.
George Gammon
You know who loves that right now? Saks Fifth Avenue and Lululemon, which is why they paid Amex good money.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Also, these pants were like $130 and my credit was $75. So I paid an additional, you know, cost you.
George Gammon
I'm just being honest.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And this was also more than 50 bucks.
George Gammon
Well, plus we got the annual fee. Saks 5th you know, what's the annual fee on that card?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
900 or something.
George Gammon
So now we're already over a thousand bucks that we've. We've paid for the pleasure of getting some credits that you then had to use because you, you wouldn't have shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue. You could have got that on Amazon for a fraction of the price.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
This.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, how much did you pay for that jacket?
George Gammon
I didn't pay for it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
How much did you pay for that shirt?
George Gammon
This is an old everlane shirt. Probably 20 bucks.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Man.
George Gammon
Those pants, probably another 50 bucks. The socks, $2. Shoes, $60.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Glasses.
George Gammon
I'm wearing some money right now. Warby Parker's hundred. Oh, I am high index. So they charge you more for the pleasure because otherwise I'd have lenses this thick. So maybe 180 bucks.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Graham.
Jack
Free. Free. Free. $2.
George Gammon
Wow.
Jack
Free.
George Gammon
Ding, ding, ding. So Jack is the high roller here.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, I also. Well, yeah, if you account for the credits. I mean, this was a Christmas present. These were free.
George Gammon
I do like the pickleball socks. That really brings the outfit.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Thank you. And I, I actually was hoping that they weren' show on camera, but, you
George Gammon
know, I feel like you wear those socks to show. You want to show them off?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
No, no. I, I, my. I did a purge of my socks lately, and these were some of the ones that I kept and just happened to pack them.
George Gammon
Wow. Well, I'm glad we're all pretty frugal with our, with our clothing.
Jack
What do you waste your money on
George Gammon
if you, if, like, what other people would say I waste money on?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Sure.
George Gammon
Oh, man, that's a tough one. If you looked at my bank statement, you would say, we waste money on our dogs 100%. They would say it's a waste of money to spend money on their specialized food. We send them to, like, our friend's house for, like, a daycare a couple times a week. We spend money at the vet, you know, rehab visits, acupuncture, all of that stuff. People would say that is a waste of money. And I go, there's about five, six creatures that I am that I really care about on this earth. And my family and dogs are that are in there.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
If you came into financial hardship, would you sell your dogs?
George Gammon
Would I sell my dogs if I came into financial hardship? If it was like, life or death or, like, to avoid bankruptcy, I still don't think I would. I would find a way to make money,
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
but people should sell their horse.
George Gammon
Well, financial hardship.
Sponsor Announcer
Here's.
George Gammon
Well, here's the good News, I physically, there is zero reasons I would ever be able to go into debt. You know what I mean? Like financial hardship. I'm not going to need to borrow money ever. And so that's a, again, a crazy hypothetical, but if my dog was worth $20,000, $25,000 and I was $135,000 in consumer debt, would I, knowing that horses are to be bought and sold on the open market, absolutely. Now would I maybe a rehoming fee temporarily while we got our feet, you know, on back on track? I might do that.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Now that the horse thing has ran its course, how do you feel about it?
Jack
As pun intended?
George Gammon
Yeah, the horse, I think I'm on the right side of history. If you understood the context of that call, I think on what I said, I wish I could take back a thousand times. The cruelty happened. Katie called into the show, 136 grand in debt, rural area in Kentucky working for the USDA making 36 grand a year. And I was doing the math going, she's never going to get out of this because she's like, well, I can't move. It's a rural area. I have no plans on going anywhere. I'm stuck here because of my horse. And I finally find out the horse is worth 25 grand. It's a prize winning horse. And so finally the end of the call, after she hit us with excuse after excuse of why she couldn't take any of our advice, I said, katie, I'm going to give you a hard challenge. Could you sell the horse? And she went, I died out of 11 years, I didn't know. And I katie, the horse doesn't even know your name. And then we went to break. So the part that I wish I could take back was the cruelty in which I threw out the horse doesn't even know your name.
Jack
I thought a lot of people agreed with you.
George Gammon
There was a small subset. The large majority were in shock at what I said and how I said it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I thought it was hilarious.
George Gammon
But I think over time people are more on my side, which I appreciate.
Jack
The thing is, if and I heard from camera was on, that would say to sell the horse.
George Gammon
Well, when you look at the horse as, as an asset, which by the way, if you are racing your horse for profit, you can't tell me it's just a family member, okay? I don't race my dog for profit and then try to claim that, you know it's a family member. So that's the difference maker is horses do go for a million dollars. If it's a prize winning horse for the derby or whatever. My dog barely can walk, and so, you know, it's not really something anybody would want. But French bulldogs, you know, if you go out in the open market and try to buy one from a breeder, you're paying three grand, four grand, five grand.
Jack
We have a member of this community, it's called the Index, and he breeds horses and I've seen the prices that he gets for some of these horses. He sold one recently, I think it was like 400 grand. And they go to auction, but they have a sold.
George Gammon
How could he do that to that poor horse?
Jack
That's a show horse.
George Gammon
All horses can be show horses if you put them in a show.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Is Katie doing okay now? Did she end up selling the horse?
George Gammon
She's doing better. There was a lot of backstory that she kind of filled me in on, but she is chipping away at the debt still. This was years ago and she's still in the debt. To my, to my credit, could have sold the horse and been out of debt by now, probably.
Jack
But did the horse go up or down in value?
George Gammon
I don't know. I don't know how I need to ask her about that if she's been tracking the value of said horse. You know, you got to get a horse appraisal, I imagine, which. That's a job. Somebody's out there appraising horses.
Jack
Maybe that's what the 18 year old should be doing.
George Gammon
Yeah. Don't tell me there's not some opportunity out there. There's no jobs out there. Go appraise a horse, dude.
Jack
An AI horse consultant, Grant Cardone.
George Gammon
Get him on the line.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I think you need to go spend more time around horses. I think you need to, to get a connection.
George Gammon
I am going to the Renaissance Fair here in Nashville coming up. So I'm gonna have some pictures with horses. I do have a fear, an irrational fear that I'm gonna get bucked by a horse to my untimely death.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
That's there' has nothing to do with you telling this lady to sell her horse.
George Gammon
I just think if it happens, we're all going to go. Kind of had it coming. Final destination.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So on the topic of controversy, because that horse issue was a controversy, people online are making crazy speculations of what's going on with Ken Coleman. Oh, he's left Ramsey.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So now we're all curious.
George Gammon
We're sitting in his studio for his old show. Front row seat.
Jack
What happened to Ken Coleman?
George Gammon
The only true story, which at this Point. Who's going to believe me when they already have a narrative in their mind that something crazy happened? I've known Ken longer than most people in this building. I've known him since 2010. We were friends before he even worked at Ramsey. And we were really good friends when he was here. And he truly did not see this opportunity coming. And if you follow Ken's content, you know that he preaches the proximity principle, that's do the work you want to do, he get around the people doing it. And his whole thing was get better, move up, lead well. And because Ken is such a sharp guy that he had a lot of friends and those friends were entrepreneurs and business owners and they moved over here and now they're at this company. And so he tapped Ken on the shoulder for this opportunity to become kind of an executive, you know, C suite SVP of communications for this tech software company. This caught Ken off guard. He wasn't expecting it. And the more time went on, you know, a month or two of discussions, conversations, praying about it, talking to his wife, he realized that it was an opportunity that was a once in a lifetime generational wealth building thing for his family that he just couldn't pass up. And Ken loves a challenge. If you know Ken and his, you know, he had a great, what, 1212 year run here, going from host to personality, multiple shows carrying Ramsey show and live events and books and products that have done really well. So there was no animosity. He had a great two hour meeting with Dave at his house and you know, there was, there was tears, there was hugs. He's still going to be a family friend to Dave's and I know that's the least exciting story I could tell,
Jack
but it's the truth. I've seen wild controversies online. There were these theories.
George Gammon
Give me the craziest ones. I'm curious.
Jack
Viewership was declining and so Dave Ramsey internally is bleeding so much money.
George Gammon
Oh, that's hilarious.
Jack
Demoted to him and that.
George Gammon
Well, Ken has the most successful digital product in the Ramsey store. So that's just already like a debunk his find the work you're wired to do. The get clear career assessment is top selling product.
Jack
Okay, well, apparently Ramsey Solutions was bleeding money, couldn't afford to keep the show going. He was demoted.
George Gammon
That's hilarious.
Jack
And because he was demoted, he ended up taking another opportunity to be able to leave on his own terms instead of getting fired.
George Gammon
Wow. So we let him go with dignity. Is what happened because he was such a money loss for the company? No, that Would have been a cooler story, though. That would have been a lot more exciting than what actually happened.
Sponsor Announcer
I'm curious.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Why can he not just pop in once a week to film something?
George Gammon
Well, I mean, when you're no longer employed, we're an all in or all out company. We're 40 hours a week. You are representing this company and this brand, and so it gets too messy when you're now working for another company full time and then just popping in. I'd be mad because, like, well, I don't get to pop. I got to be here doing this show with you guys. I'm working out here. But Ken will remain a dear, dear friend. We were texting the other day. I asked him if he's making new friends at work and if there are any.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
So he's already. He's already there.
George Gammon
Yeah. He had a 2A weekend gap, if that, a day gap before jumping onto the new. Just the way the timing worked out. So he wrapped up some great events that we did. Ramsey show lives, wrapped up a speaking gig, and it was sayonara. But he's still gonna always be a pal of mine.
Jack
Who's gonna.
George Gammon
He's not moving, so he's still here.
Jack
Who's gonna take his place?
George Gammon
Nobody. We're not backfilling his role. It was. He was a once, like a. This role was created for him because of his passion. So it not like a field. We're just trying to fill to fill, if that makes sense. But if the right person came along and they had a similar thing, who knows? You know, we're always hiring.
Jack
Would you guys hire Caleb Hammer?
George Gammon
I would say if. If hell froze over, we would consider it. I think Caleb and Dave are so at odds with their principles, their values, their faith, the way they carry themselves, their mission, their goals, that it would not make sense to work here. You have to have a similar, like, mind, similar values, and Caleb just doesn't have those. It's not a knock against Caleb, but, you know, we don't have that. That type of content around here, and we have a different mission.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
When you say that type of content, what is the main thing you're thinking of?
George Gammon
I would say the. The cussing. It's not family friendly. We have a set of values that are faith based that I think would be jarring for Caleb to then, like, adhere to or grapple with in this building. And our mission is not to, like, scale at all costs, which I think Caleb is just. He's a young entrepreneurial guy. He wants to scale, and there's not much stopping him. And this place has been around for 30 something years. We have a thousand people. We represent something kind of bigger than us and we're not willing to, you know, kind of water that down to get more clicks and views, which Caleb would obviously get. The guy crushes it. But to us, it's not worth it. And it's why we don't do that style of content.
Jack
What do you think Caleb is doing? Right?
George Gammon
What he's doing right? I mean, creating crazy engaging content while sneaking in the teaching. So he's leaning into the edutainment where he's teaching you about taxes while yelling at the person and you just learned about how tax brackets work in the meantime. That I think he does really well. But I can't watch the content because I have children at home and so I'd have to have headphones on at all times to engage in any of it.
Jack
At what age would you let your kids watch Caleb Hammer?
George Gammon
Oh, gosh, I wouldn't. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't. Now if they go off and they're doing their own thing and they choose, I, you know, at some point you can't control what they're going to watch on the Internet. I hope, I would hope I raised them enough to go, hey, you don't want that kind of filth in your brain, you know? And I was on Caleb's show. I left needing to take a shower. After that, it was just woof, you know, I'm too much of a prude, I guess, to be in that world. So, you know, my, my kids watch Blippi and I already don't like that.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
What do you think we can improve on?
George Gammon
I think you guys, what you've done well is sort of like let anybody in, which is really nice that you've. It's an open forum, essentially. You guys stay very curious. I think what you could do is have a. Have a sort of a stance, like have a foundational principles that you got that's clear to the audience of here's what we believe. And therefore that's the basis for the discussion.
Jack
I'm so fluid with a lot of these things, though, that I don't have like very firm beliefs on a lot of things. And I'm open to hearing.
George Gammon
You're telling me I could convince you to cut up all of your credit cards and pay off all of your debt.
Jack
You could convince me. I'm not saying you will convince me, but you theoretically could convince me. If I hear another viewpoint that I'M like, wait a second, that actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I'm incorrect.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Graham is oddly fluid sometimes, but also, I would say you're also very hard
George Gammon
headed and very well, you, you are, you're a sucker for logic and that's, it's all about the logic.
Jack
Yeah, right. So that's why I think I, I don't know what I.
George Gammon
And I think the part, the, the, I guess the blind side, if there was one, would be the reality and emotional and psychological side of the principles that we teach. That's the hard part to just like rattle out there of. Like, well, you'd feel better if you didn't have a mortgage. Like, yeah, but I could make a hundred thousand dollars if I kept it. I'm like, well yeah, but you'd feel better like psychologically, emotionally.
Jack
I feel better with 100 grand though.
George Gammon
That's the question mark. So you're not willing to try it to see what it's like?
Jack
Because I can't reverse that. Like once I pay off the 2.875% more.
George Gammon
You're a smart guy, you'll figure it out. You'll arbitrage it, you'll box, spread it.
Jack
I can't.
George Gammon
You'll. Options call it.
Jack
I can't get that again.
George Gammon
See that's, that's a, that's a short sighted mentality. It's going to limit you in life. Think big.
Jack
I think thinking big is not paying
George Gammon
off the mortgage, Jack. Agree, disagree.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I think if in a perfect world, yes, it makes more sense to not pay it off. I agree because I think one is subject to like you're, you're adding a layer of complexity which is someone's emotions and feelings. If you remove that and it's just.
George Gammon
By perfect world you mean if you could control every single variable in your life without fail, then it works.
Jack
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I would say in a vacuum it makes more sense to take on the debt.
George Gammon
Would you say we exist outside of a vacuum? Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And it also depends like how far you want to expand outside of that vacuum. So like, you know, if you're going to go 10 layers deep, you know, and you add complexities in your life and then you add emotions and you add this and you add that and you add maybe someone who has a more flippant nature and they were raised a certain way, then you know, they have, they have addictive personality then, then yeah, like it doesn't make sense. But I don't think that it's necessarily black or white. I think that like it depends on how many of your variables you can control. For example, for me, I do not even check my portfolio daily. Like, I don't do that. I don't stay super close to my money. I don't idolize money. I just try to do whatever I think is the most rational thing. And so for me, I. I'll keep my sub 3% interest rate debt because it just makes sense. And I'm aggressively investing into the markets. I don't check my accounts daily. I don't, I don't have, like some crazy theme that I try to adhere to in my portfolio. And it's worked out very well for me. And I, I agree with the math. The math agrees with me. But I'm also, like, weird because I'm a little sociopathic in that sense. Like, I just, I don't care as much, I think.
George Gammon
Yeah, well, we can agree on that. That he's sociopathic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a great way to wrap. Yeah. Ending on Jack as a sociopath. That's your tag.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
One last question for you, though.
George Gammon
Yeah.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Thumbs up, thumbs down. Selling a covered call.
George Gammon
I don't even know enough about that to give you a yes or no. But I'm gonna say no because I don't know how to do it.
Jack
Do you think it's possible that Jack would be able to make 3% a week selling covered calls?
George Gammon
Not consistently.
Jack
How do you know that?
George Gammon
Because if he could, I agree with George. Everybody would be doing it. Any. It's so easy to do the math. Well, if I just sports bet, I make 5% per day. If that compounds, I'll have a million dollars by the end of the year. The problem is the house always wins and there's still risk involved. And you're not going to bat a thousand in the. In the financial world. And so therefore, I think it's a simpler. I'd rather just leave the money in an index fund. And eventually you'll have enough. And even paying off the mortgage. To your point, let's just say you're going to have plenty of money. Even if you pay off the mortgage, you're going to have more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime. What's the point of having a little extra money right now? You have plenty of.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, if I had all of the money in the world, then I would
George Gammon
pay off the mortgage. Yeah, but do you have enough to pay it off right now?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Yep.
George Gammon
So why won't you?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Because I don't have all the money in the world.
George Gammon
What happens if you Pay off the mortgage right now. Are you broke?
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
No, I'm not broke. The way that I see it is that there are certain, like, tiers of wealth, and once you check those boxes, once you elevate to that level, let's just say a net worth of $5 million. Once you hit 5 million, then you have a new tier of FU money. It's not quite FU money, but it's the amount of money that you need in order to raise a family of four comfor comfortably in most locations in the world. Right. And so, like, I kind of want to race to this. This new tier, and then once I get there, I'll be selfish or selfish enough to pay off my mortgage because that reduces the emotional toll of having a mortgage. I'll be selfish enough to spend a little bit more on clothes, to do other things that I wouldn't normally do. But right now I feel like I need to be a little bit more selfless and do the thing that might be a little bit more uncomfortable to be financially advantageous to then get to that point of being able to take care of better.
George Gammon
Okay, we'll play back the clip. He said once he gets there, you'll do it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Pay off my mortgage.
George Gammon
$5 million net worth. You'll pay.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I would not pay it off.
George Gammon
You just told me you would.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, I would start enjoying other things.
George Gammon
Yeah, you just told me if you had, if you got to this point, then you would do it.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
No, I said all of the money in the world.
Jack
No, you said five.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
And then the way that I did
George Gammon
say five, that's a wrap.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Did I say five? Did I say five?
Sponsor Announcer
I said five, but that was after
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
I said all of the money.
Sponsor Announcer
I said there are different tiers.
Jack
Once you hit 5.
George Gammon
This is sociopathic behavior year. Wow. Is that how we end this episode? That's how you want to rap?
Jack
We can tell them about our credit idea, Jack.
George Gammon
No, I don't want to hear about that. I'm not going to invest. I'm not your short term.
Jack
Do you want to say it's going to. It's easy.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
3% a week if you invest.
George Gammon
You couldn't tempt me. Everything you guys are saying is just making me want to run. What if we offered equity an iced coffee hour?
Jack
No. In our credit idea.
George Gammon
Yikes. No. I'll take equity and iced coffee hour.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Well, if you want to check out our credit startup guys, we're going to leave it more mysterious.
Jack
It's incredible.
George Gammon
Check out my debit startup.
Jack
It's in the description. Description you're going to click it to see what it is.
George Gammon
I don't coign any of this. By the way, George does not co sign.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
George.
George Gammon
Thank you. Thank you.
Jack
Thank you man.
Co-host (possibly Graham Stephan or similar)
Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it guys.
George Gammon
Thanks.
Jack
By the way, if you enjoy this episode, we just posted our next one early for members. So if you click the join button, you could literally begin watching our next episode right now. Really hope you enjoy it.
Hosts: Graham Stephan, Jack Selby
Guest: George Kamel (Ramsey Personality, Personal Finance Expert)
In this episode, Graham and Jack welcome George Kamel for an in-depth, candid discussion focused on American debt culture, personal finance principles, the “Dave Ramsey” philosophy, early retirement, and recent controversies in the Ramsey network. The conversation covers practical debt advice, behavioral insights from street interviews, industry trends, the psychology of money, and George’s no-nonsense approach to frugality and value-driven living.
Prevalence & Attitudes toward Debt
Systemic vs. Personal Responsibility
Cultural & Psychological Roots
Advice on Credit Cards
Borrowing for Mortgages
Hypotheticals — No Debt Principle
Key Misconceptions
Actionable Steps
Debt Elimination Tactics
Frictionless Payments & Delayed Consequences
Bankruptcy and Debt Solutions
Wants vs Needs
Lifestyle Inflation Across Incomes
Peer Pressure and Cost of Living
Skepticism of Early Retirement
On Finding Purpose
Savings Rate and Investment
Ken Coleman’s Departure
George’s Principles & Ramsey Approach
Commentary on Other Personalities (Caleb Hammer)
On Avoiding Debt:
“The system exists to keep you broke. And then you have a choice as a human being with free will.” (01:02, 14:55)
On Loans, Even at 0%:
“Flame away my friends...I don’t chase money anymore. I got kids, I got crippled dogs; I’m not interested in playing money games.” (05:36–06:21)
On Early Retirement:
“I’ve never met someone who can sustain that...the personality type to be able to retire at 40 with a huge nest egg, they’re just simply too ambitious to just go full stop.” (41:29)
On Measuring Wealth:
“It’s not about income. We know that’s factual. I just took a call in the Ramsey show... $340,000 household income and they were broke.” (07:34)
On Budgeting:
“Do you know exactly what’s going out? Where it’s proactive instead of reactive? That one thing alone...” (16:31)
On Controversial Advice:
“Once a borrower, always a borrower.” (03:21)
“If someone offered all the bitcoin in the world, which I assume is like trillions of dollars at this point, I would take it.” (73:30)
On Animals and Money:
“My dog barely can walk, and so, you know, it’s not really something anybody would want. But French bulldogs, you know, if you go out in the open market and try to buy one from a breeder, you’re paying three grand, four grand, five grand.” (78:56)
On Living in the Present vs. Building for the Future:
“The value of money when you’re 20 years old is so high compared to the value of that same dollar at 50.” (61:54)
“At 20 years old, every dollar you invest is a 73x return at 65.” (62:09)
For listeners new to personal finance or wary of debt-ridden culture, this episode offers a principled, sometimes contrarian, and always actionable guide to getting and staying free, with a surprising dash of humor, vulnerability, and pop culture banter.