Confronting George Kamel on credit cards, student loans, and financial infidelity

Summary

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The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby

Episode: Confronting George Kamel on Credit Cards, Student Loans, and Financial Infidelity
Date: March 11, 2026
Guests: George & Whitney Campbell

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Episode Overview

In this candid and high-energy episode, Matt & Abby Howard welcome George Kamel, financial expert and Ramsey Solutions personality, along with his wife Whitney. The conversation dives deep into hot-button topics around personal finance: credit cards, paying off debt, student loans, and financial transparency in relationships. The Campbells share their story of paying off all consumer debt (including their home) and achieving millionaire status by age 32. The couples swap both practical advice and personal anecdotes, sprinkled with banter and honesty about money mistakes, parenting, and marriage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet the Campbells: Background and Journey

• How They Met and Ramsey Connection

  • George and Whitney met while working at Dave Ramsey's company, where finances were part of everyday conversation. Dating under a workplace spotlight brought its own pressures.
  • Whitney: “At Ramsey then was a lot smaller… so when you're dating, you kind of need to know you like this person because all eyes are on you.” (05:32)

• Becoming Debt-Free

  • Whitney struggled with credit card debt early after college in Nashville, mostly from buying concert tickets for friends who didn't pay her back.
    • “Some of my family said, like, after college, you will just always have debt. That's just part of being an American.” (22:38)
  • George knocked out $42,000 in student loans and credit card debt in 18 months before marriage.

2. The Ramsey Baby Steps - How To Get Out of Debt

• The 7 Baby Steps (Detailed by George)

  1. $1,000 starter emergency fund (13:02)
  2. Pay off all consumer debt using the snowball method—tackle smallest debts first for behavior change and motivation, not strictly by interest rate.
     • “If we were doing math, we wouldn’t be in credit card debt, would we?... Personal finance is 80% behavior, it's 20% head knowledge.” (13:32)
  3. Fully fund emergency savings to 3-6 months of expenses—lean towards 6 months if there's instability.
     • “No one's ever complained that they had six months... you always feel better and sleep better at night having more.” (17:59)
  4. Invest 15% of household income for retirement.
  5. Save for kids’ college in a 529 or ESA.
  6. Pay off the house early.
  7. Build wealth and give generously.

• Progression and Intensity

  • “Most people can knock out their consumer debt in 18 to 24 months if they get intense. No saving, no investing, no vacations.” (15:17, 01:48, 08:45)

Key Take:

• Focus on behavior and small wins over perfect math, and be aggressive and intentional about getting rid of debt.

3. Credit Cards: Cut Them Up or Use Responsibly?

• George’s Position:

  • Credit cards are a risk for almost everyone; the U.S. collectively owes $1.2 trillion in credit card debt versus $0 in debit debt. The system is designed for overspending.
  • “You play with snakes. Eventually you're gonna get bit. These companies are not your friend.” (43:43)

• Matt & Abby’s Experience:

  • Matt justifies credit card use for points and simplicity but admits the risk and headaches, including accidentally paying interest.
  • Debate over “arbitrage” and car payments: George warns this is just TikTok risk dressed up as a smart move: “It’s a $10 word for I’m gonna do something risky and stupid to try and get a little greedy.” (26:11)

• On Building Credit Scores:

  • George argues you can still buy a house and rent cars without a credit score (via manual underwriting).
  • “This was a new process because back in the day... there was no credit score. It’s only existed since the 90s, which is all we know.” (38:02)

• On Points & Cashback:

  • “You need to spend $50,000 on the credit card to get $2,000 back to make the trip free.” (39:56)

4. Financial Infidelity and Relationship Transparency

• The Red Flag Is Hiding, Not Debt:

  • “Are they honest about the debt? Are they hiding it? …that’s the scarier part. To me, that’s the red flag.” (24:00)
  • Joint accounts and transparency recommended to avoid the pitfalls of secret spending or financial infidelity.

• Talking About Money as a Couple:

  • The Campbells shifted from formal budget meetings to casual weekly check-ins.
    • “Usually like a Sunday check-in before the week starts... with little kids you’re so exhausted.” (70:45)
  • “Talking about it regularly is better than trying to make one big meeting happen.” (71:32)

5. Kids, Parenting & Teaching About Money

• Introducing Money Conversations:

  • The Campbells use real-life examples, like toy cash registers and fake money, to teach spending and savings.
  • “More is caught than taught... The way that our kids see us talk and handle money is way better than anything we could tell them.” (48:34)

• Commission over Allowance:

  • “Nobody just gives you an allowance to exist… that's where entitlement comes from.” (48:19)

6. Disney, Frugality & “Once-in-a-Lifetime” Experiences

• Should You Ever Go Into Debt for Disney?

  • Abby: “I think you should be able to go in debt for Disney. To take your kids to Disney.” (29:07)
  • George: “They’re not thinking about the payments and what it’s gonna cost them for six months or a year after the trip is over... It’s just, what’s another five grand gonna do?” (29:22, 30:36)

• How to Do Vacation the Smart Way

  • “If you can't save up $5,000 for a trip, that speaks to a deeper issue... The feeling of, ‘we did a really hard thing and sacrificed to be here,’ versus, ‘we took the shortcut and are gonna pay in the long run.’” (31:06)

7. Practical Frugal Hacks

• In Motherhood and Daily Life:
  • Whitney shared hacks for new moms: “Sign up for a million different registries… Target, Amazon… you get percent off even if you buy it yourself.” (63:37)
  • Both families talk about small frugality—returning items, fighting for discounts, negotiating—instilled from their upbringings.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Debt Snowball:

  • George: “If we were doing math, we wouldn’t be in credit card debt, would we? ...Personal finance is 80% behavior, it's 20% head knowledge.” (13:32)

• On Arbitrage:

  • George: “Arbitrage is a trigger word for me because it tells me that you’ve been watching too much TikTok.… It’s a $10 word for I’m gonna do something risky and stupid to try and get a little greedy.” (26:11)

• On Parenting & Teaching Kids:

  • “More is caught than taught. The way that our kids see us talk and handle money is way better than anything we could tell them.” (48:34)
  • “Our kids are going to live in a frictionless world where there's no exchange of money… we should add friction back into our lives to feel the pain of purchase.” (35:20)

• On Generosity:

  • George: “If you are generous when you’re broke, you’re going to be super generous when you have money.” (84:17)

• On Financial Infidelity:

  • “Financial infidelity is... the reason people get divorced over money is because someone was hiding something, someone was controlling something, and there’s just not that honesty and transparency.” (80:44)

• On Housing Market & the Government:

  • George: “There are things that the government can do… regulation could change to free up more homes to be built, which would then actually increase the supply and lower the price.” (74:56)

• On Compound Interest:

  • “If you’re young, every dollar you put into an investment… is worth twenty dollars… So you put in a dollar, you’re gonna get $20 back.” (78:00)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• Ramsey Baby Steps Explained: 12:35–14:06, 20:41–21:24
• Credit Card Debate: 24:00–27:00, esp. arbitrage & manual underwriting
• Disney Debt Debate: 29:07–32:00
• Parenting & Teaching Money: 33:28–35:43, 47:35–50:22
• Financial Infidelity & Transparency: 23:16–25:16, 80:35–81:09
• Agree to Disagree Segment (lightning round opinions): 74:33–93:44
• Listener Q&A (Buying a First House, Frugal Hacks, Motherhood): 60:06–67:29

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Tone & Style

The episode is engaging, accessible, and relatable, filled with humor, “real talk,” and approachable financial wisdom. Banter flows naturally between both couples, balancing serious advice with warmth and playfulness.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Financial Success Is About Behavior, Not Math. Small wins and intentionality matter far more than tracking interest rates or chasing points.
• Transparency Is Essential in Relationships. Honesty about money—no matter how uncomfortable—is a non-negotiable for healthy marriages.
• Debt Is Not Inevitable. Challenging assumptions about car loans, student debt, and even mortgages frees you to build wealth faster.
• Teaching Kids About Money Can (and Should) Start Young. Use real-life scenarios, visual aids, and model good behavior.
• Frugality Is a Habit, Regardless of Income. Even millionaires look for coupons, fight for discounts, and avoid wasteful spending.
• There’s No “One Size Fits All” for Major Life Decisions. Whether it’s home buying, going to college, or choosing to be a stay-at-home parent, your values, risk tolerance, and timing all matter.
• Don’t Be Afraid to Live Differently from the “Average.” “If you live like no one else now, later you can live like no one else.”

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For more of George’s teachings, read Breaking Free from Broke and check out the EveryDollar budgeting app. Whitney’s wisdom comes by way of lived experience, and the episode showcases the value of supportive, aligned partnerships on the financial journey.

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Transcript

[Abby]

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[George Campbell]

your kids to Disney.

[Matt]

Oh my God.

[George Campbell]

I didn't know I was talking to a Disney adult. I think that's the reason she had me on, was to confront me. The reason people get divorced over money is because someone was hiding something, someone was controlling something. If you have total transparency, you have a shared bank account. It is so much harder to screw this up. Most people can knock out their consumer debt in 18 to 24 months if they get intense. No saving, no investing, no vacations.

[Matt]

But what if I wanted to go on Vacation.

[George Campbell]

Well, you pay so much to live in your house, so just think about it that way and treat it like a hotel.

[Matt]

Today on Unplanned, we sat down with George Camel and his wife Whitney to talk about money. I know that's probably just made you uncomfortable saying that out loud, but I think it's really important that we talk about it. Through the Dave Ramsey baby steps, George and Whitney were able to pay off all their debt, including their house, and reach millionaire status by age 32. We talk about why you should cut up your credit cards, why so many Americans are broke, and why you shouldn't have a car payment. All on today's episode.

[George Campbell]

What's up, dudes?

[Matt]

And welcome back to Unplanned. Sorry, I, like, I'm losing my voice right now. But today we're with George and Whitney Campbell.

[George Campbell]

He was yelling at us right before this. You guys don't know.

[Matt]

Excuse me. George and Whitney Campbell. Welcome to Unplanned.

[George Campbell]

It's an honor to be here. Do you need a. Do you need. I got some. You know what I have some vocals for.

[Abby]

He came on all of a sudden.

[George Campbell]

I do.

[Matt]

Honestly, I think this coffee right here and just this warm, fuzzy conversation we're about to have is the medicine.

[George Campbell]

I'll have Kara grab it in case. It's in the side pocket of my bag in there. It's called Entertainer's Secret.

[Matt]

No way. Are you a singer, George? Do you sing?

[George Campbell]

That was my past life.

[Abby]

He has a Spotify album.

[Whitney Campbell]

You need to look it up.

[George Campbell]

I don't know how to delete my album off of Spotify.

[Abby]

Don't delete it.

[Matt]

I have music on Spotify, too.

[George Campbell]

No way. Wait, what kind of music?

[Matt]

So I did, like, singer, songwriter stuff.

[George Campbell]

Me, too. Should we collab?

[Matt]

We should collab. Should we sing a song right now?

[George Campbell]

Just two grown men trying to relive the glory days.

[Whitney Campbell]

You should totally sing a song.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. What would you say your music was like? What artist?

[Matt]

Oh, man. Ben Rector. I took a lot of. Yeah, Ben Rector I really liked. We danced to a Ben Rector song at our wedding.

[George Campbell]

Oh, that's sweet.

[Matt]

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

[Whitney Campbell]

That's a great question.

[George Campbell]

I wish. I mean, it was for me. I'll say that. I can't speak to you.

[Matt]

Oh, okay.

[Abby]

She said it Wasn't.

[Whitney Campbell]

Let's see. Our story's a little tricky. So I'm like, where do we kick off? I'll let you kind of tell your abridged version.

[George Campbell]

Okay, sure. So I was friends with a guy named Michael here, and Whitney was his assistant at the time.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And so I was hanging out with Michael and his wife, and they were like, hey, what do you think about Whitney? And I was kind of like. I mean, she'd never. No me. She would. No, there's no way. No chance. And so I asked her out as a grown man over Snapchat.

[Matt]

That's amazing.

[George Campbell]

Like a text.

[Whitney Campbell]

I was sneaky, and I had given him my number for a work thing before, so he had my number.

[George Campbell]

I'm a loop.

[Whitney Campbell]

But he snapped.

[Abby]

You forgot that you had it in number.

[Matt]

So was that just the immediate ick? Was that a big turn off right away?

[Whitney Campbell]

I had just woken up from a nap, so I didn't have as much of a filter. And I was like, what did I say? I was like, I was going to church. I was like, I'll give you an answer after church. She basically was like, mad.

[George Campbell]

Are you asking just to see what I would say or ask a real question?

[Whitney Campbell]

He just threw it out there.

[George Campbell]

I was like, abort mission. Abort mission. Delete, delete, delete.

[Matt]

Do you remember what this picture was? Was it just like. George?

[Abby]

No.

[George Campbell]

A message.

[Whitney Campbell]

Vicki thinks we should go on a date. That's all he said. He didn't say, like, would you want to go on a date? It was, like a question.

[George Campbell]

It was a statement, George. Guys, it was a rough. It was a rough move.

[Whitney Campbell]

It was bad.

[Abby]

It was a rough move.

[George Campbell]

I'm zero risk.

[Whitney Campbell]

But I told him I'd go on one date, which is looking back on it. I mean, there's a. There's a lot of backstory to that that I won't necessarily get into right now. But I said I'd go on one date and just thinking that we just have a good time and then we'd move on. But I ended up loving the date. So I hated that I said just one. But we worked together at the. And Ramsey then was a lot smaller. So it's like when you're dating, you kind of need to, like, know you like this person because all eyes are on you.

[George Campbell]

Okay?

[Whitney Campbell]

Like, they, like, watch you.

[George Campbell]

You're the talk of the town. Yeah. You're like the couple that's dating in the company now.

[Whitney Campbell]

It's so big, no one even knows.

[Matt]

And working. Working for Dave Ramsey is not easy. I know because my, my cousin applied last year. He didn't get through. Which I'm saying like I feel like you guys have really a really high caliber of talent and people here. So like did at. By the time you guys were working for Dave, did you guys not like have debt? Was that a conversation you guys had at first, over your first date, like tell me about your finances. Was that something? No.

[Whitney Campbell]

Well, it's funny at Ramsey it's so easy to talk about finances, I guess cuz it's like in our everyday. So like it's not weird for someone to like in a meeting to be like, I have 10,000 left to pay off and I'm gonna, here's my plan. Like it's weird but in like the real world, it's like that's like weird to bring up. So I don't think we ever had like a big conversation. But just working here we knew we had a lot of the same.

[George Campbell]

We never went, hey, it's time to have the money conversation.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

It was just so natural that it probably just flowed in and out talking about, you know, where you went to college and all this stuff. And so Whitney was completely debt free.

[Matt]

That's amazing.

[George Campbell]

I don't think you had debt.

[Matt]

No debt at all.

[Whitney Campbell]

Well, before, before I worked here, I had a credit card. You did?

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

And so I racked up debt really fast and it freaked me out and that's why I started working here and I got rid of. So maybe that's like. Was our initial conversation.

[Matt]

But if you don't mind me asking, how much credit card debt were you in?

[Whitney Campbell]

I was buying concert tickets because I just moved to Nashville and I was buying them for like my friends and then some of them would back out, not pay me back.

[Matt]

No.

[Whitney Campbell]

One of them, I probably shouldn't even say, but it was like Beyonce and it was so much money.

[Matt]

How much? How much money?

[Whitney Campbell]

I lost sleep.

[Matt]

Was it like $600 a ticket for Beyonce?

[Whitney Campbell]

Probably around four at the time. Which is insane. And I did not have that money.

[Matt]

And this is. What was this five or 10 years ago or.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, I got around 10 years ago. So anyways. But they like said they were going to buy the ticket and then would back out and so I would just like literally lose sleep over it. So it's just like little things like that after college and then like rent here is very expensive.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

So it just like. It's crazy how life just kind of happens to you really fast when you have a credit card too. And you're just, like, spending.

[Matt]

When you, like, start working for Dave, is that, like, do you take a pledge of, like, I'm not using a credit card anymore, or do you have, like, flexibility to kind of do whatever you want?

[Whitney Campbell]

You just wouldn't last long here. I feel like if you don't agree with the principles, you know, I think

[George Campbell]

it would just drive you crazy.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

There is no blood oath. They don't, like, check your wallet at the door.

[Matt]

We try to buy. Guys, we try to buy a book at the bookstore worth a credit card.

[Abby]

Last time we were like, why isn't it working?

[Matt]

And we were like, why isn't that going through? And she's like, oh, it's debit or cash. And we're like, we don't have that.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, they stick to what they preach.

[George Campbell]

Do they just give you the book for free?

[Matt]

I felt so bad. They literally just gave us the book.

[Abby]

I was like, please return. No, don't do it.

[George Campbell]

Not a life hack, guys. Don't show off the body.

[Matt]

But it was like, I don't know. It just speaks to the type of people you guys have around here. It speaks to, like, I don't know. I love the Ramsey principles. And I. And I love how nonsense it is. Right? Because if you don't have a credit card, it's like, it's kind of impossible to spend more than what you have in your bank account with a debit card.

[Whitney Campbell]

Right.

[George Campbell]

You know, I love to tell people, we are $1.2 trillion in credit card debt as a nation.

[Matt]

That's terrible.

[George Campbell]

We are $0 in debit card debt.

[Matt]

Are you serious? $1.2 trillion?

[George Campbell]

Yes. So for everyone that goes, dude, just use a credit card and pay it off responsibly. I'm like, great. If we lived in a perfect world before the fall of man, maybe that theory would work.

[Matt]

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

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, me. I'm like, if my last name is going to be Camel, I'm going to have a real camel.

[George Campbell]

Well, and truthfully, as I looked into it, there's a guy who runs an exotic petting zoo in Tennessee. It's like, it was $700. That's cheaper than flowers.

[Matt]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

It's the cheapest part of the wedding.

[Matt]

That's amazing.

[George Campbell]

To rent a camel.

[Whitney Campbell]

I met him at a nativity scene at church, and I just went up to him and I was like, hey, do you do weddings? And he was like, no, but I'll. I'll try any little.

[Abby]

Did you do weddings?

[Whitney Campbell]

And he called us. He was like, do you want two hump camel? One hump camel, furry? Do you want short hair camel?

[George Campbell]

Please tell me.

[Whitney Campbell]

Every camel, please me.

[Matt]

The pastor was like, reading, like, in. In the. In front of everyone on top of the camel reading. The thing like, was.

[Whitney Campbell]

Has a. A law where you can't ride exotic animals. So we wanted to do camel rides, and we couldn't. You could only go up and pet it and take pictures.

[Matt]

Yeah, but you guys won. How did you guys win this competition?

[Abby]

You can ride a camel in Phoenix.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah.

[George Campbell]

There's much looser camel laws.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

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

[Whitney Campbell]

Was not marketed well. Like, it was literally a little tab on a website that I, like, just happened to see as I was scrolling through. And I think because of that, only, like, four people signed up for it. And the way you won is by YouTube likes. And at the time, George was host of The Ramsay Show YouTube channel. So really all I had to do

[Matt]

is say, that's really nice, and you

[Whitney Campbell]

go like, this video on YouTube.

[George Campbell]

And we crushed the content. The funny part is, like, I was like, all right, we won. But then no one reached out. I had to email them, be like, hey, guys, seven people entered. There was four finalists. We got the most likes. Like, and they were like, oh, yeah, you won. It was, like, anticlimactic.

[Abby]

Yeah, you had to go collect your own prize.

[George Campbell]

Exactly. But it was pretty incredible.

[Abby]

It was a prize too.

[George Campbell]

I think it was, like a $28,000 wedding package. And so the caveat was you could only have 50 people total. That included us. The bridal party. So it was like, so people all

[Whitney Campbell]

the time are like, oh, you want a free wedding? But we had to pay for a separate reception because we couldn't invite all our friends and family. So as you all know, that's where the real money happens. So at the end of the day, we ended up paying for a wedding, but we still got to have a really nice, smaller wedding.

[Abby]

So you did that for your ceremony and then had the Big reception.

[George Campbell]

It was ceremony reception, and then another reception later that night.

[Abby]

You did two ceremonies? No, it was ceremony, reception, reception.

[Whitney Campbell]

We had a videographer at Ramsey, actually. He did just a quick, like, summary of our wedding. Played it at the second reception so they could see the ceremony, and then we come out for a second.

[George Campbell]

So they got to see the ceremony. They got to see the great moments earlier that day, and then we got to party with them. So it actually worked out.

[Abby]

How long was this wedding?

[Whitney Campbell]

It was an entire day. It was so exhausted.

[Abby]

It was a long day.

[George Campbell]

It was like a 9am to 11:30pm kind of day. Stop. You know?

[Abby]

Yeah, that's.

[George Campbell]

That's intense.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Abby]

Where did the camel come in? Was that part of the free wedding or the free.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, just kind of like photo op, basically, but some great photos.

[Matt]

When you got married, were you debt free or not yet?

[George Campbell]

Yeah. So I started in 2013 at Ramsey as an intern in temp.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

So by 2016, I met her. I was debt free by then. I knocked out my $42,000.

[Matt]

42,000 debt.

[George Campbell]

I had mostly student loans and then probably another four to five grand in credit cards. And so I knocked those out over 18 months. So by the time we met, we were both debt free with an emergency fund. And so it made things real smooth going into marriage. We didn't have to, like, clean up

[Matt]

any messes, walk somebody through who's new to the Ramsey way, what the baby steps are of getting out of debt. Because I feel like there's someone listening right now who probably wants to be out of debt, but they just have absolutely no idea where to start.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, well, a lot of people are doing nine things at once that are. Have good motives, that are good in theory, but they're not making any progress. So the baby steps are meant to cause you to focus on one thing at a time. So baby step one is $1,000 starter emergency fund.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Because a lot of people, they can't pay off debt, and then an emergency hits and it throws them off.

[Matt]

Exactly.

[George Campbell]

And so Dave was like, thousand bucks to start. That'll knock out the ankle biter emergencies. Once you have that, move on to baby step two, which is paying off all of your consumer debt, everything but the mortgage, using the debt snowball method.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And all that says is, hey, pay the smallest balance first and make minimum payments on the rest.

[Matt]

But wouldn't someone. I feel like the. The devil's advocate here would say, oh, well, what if your biggest debt is the highest interest? So shouldn't you focus on the one with the highest interest, what would you say to that person?

[George Campbell]

Great question. We get that a lot and we love to say, hey, if we were doing math, we wouldn't be in credit card debt, would we? And so it's kind of a, we got to focus on behavior. We know at Ramsey that personal finance is 80% behavior, it's 20% head knowledge. We have access to all of the information in the world and yet we are going into crippling debt. And so it's not an information problem, it's the person in the mirror. And that's where the baby steps and the debt snowball really works because it causes you to make progress really fast and it causes you to stop looking at the math and start going, I'm going to make progress, cause momentum to happen by knocking out the smallest balance first. Take all of that payment. I freed up onto the next one. Onto the next one.

[Matt]

I love how you said that it's really a behavior problem because we're going to get to user questions that people submitted for you later. But somebody asked a question about like my husband and I make like a lot of money but we somehow are still like falling behind. What's wrong? And it's, it's because people have behavior problems. And I've fallen into that category too. I mean it's crazy to me how even though I like to think of myself as a frugal person, it's so easy to increase your spending as you make more money. And it's amazing to me how there's like, there's doctors, there's lawyers, there's extremely successful entrepreneurs out there that make so much money and then they lose it all because they over leveraged or they, or they spent too much. Doesn't matter how much money you make, but if you're making a lot and you're spending more than you make, you're still screwed.

[George Campbell]

Oh yeah, we get those calls on the Ramsey show and I tell them on the call I say America has no pity for you. You make $300,000 and you're trying to find the margin to pay off debt. But the problem is as you make more, you go, well, we can handle a bigger payment.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

On the fancy cars, on the mortgage. And then life happens. You lose the income, someone wants to stay home and all of a sudden things are tight.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And that's when they call us. And so that's where the baby steps are really coming to play.

[Matt]

Sorry. Yeah, back to the baby steps. I derailed for saying so.

[George Campbell]

Most people can knock out their consumer debt in 18 to 24 months if they get intense. So this is not a ten year plan to pay off debt. We're talking aggressive intensity. You're doing nothing else but paying off debt.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

No saving, no investing, no vacations. Knocking out debt for two years.

[Matt]

What if I want to go on vacation? What if I really love my trip to Florida every summer?

[George Campbell]

I think you're gonna have to pause. I think we can have a staycation one year.

[Matt]

What do you do for the staycation? What's an idea? Like a cheap, cheap, fun family, you know, camping.

[George Campbell]

Well, you pay so much to live in your house. When you add up what it costs to live in your house, it's like a hotel stay every night. So just think about it that way and treat it like a hotel.

[Abby]

Continental breakfast is included.

[George Campbell]

Breakfast in bed. The husband makes it.

[Matt]

That's the key. Like a date night at home where you do. Oh, yeah, little tent.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. We did like, we would go to Aldi and get like a steak and I would really try hard, like cast iron. You know, the butter.

[Whitney Campbell]

Best eggs I've ever had.

[George Campbell]

Rosemary on there.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And obviously you guys at this stage when you were married weren't trying to like do the debt snowball because you weren't in debt anymore, but you guys were. You guys paid off your house in 26 months. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, so. So did you guys do like at home dates to just, you know, throw a ton of money to pay off your mortgage?

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, I feel like definitely with cooking, George would like, watch. I mean, I feel like that's when TikTok was taking off. So it's like you'd see like the recipes and we would try that. And then I'm trying to think of what were creative ways that we were just. We love like comedy shows and stuff like that. Those are usually pretty cheap or you can watch them on Netflix.

[George Campbell]

So it's just like we didn't have any expensive hobby.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

That's the thing. If you, like, love golfing and it costs you 500 bucks a month. Yeah, that's a, that's a hard thing to give up while you're getting out of debt or paying off the house. Falls into baby step six. So I'll get us there through the steps.

[Whitney Campbell]

You're doing great.

[Matt]

ADHD is getting off right now, so I do apologize.

[George Campbell]

Just so people know where this falls into place.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

So baby step two, we knock out the consumer debt.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Now they're going, well, I need Savings for my emergencies. Let's go back to the emergency fund in baby step three and fully fund it with three to six months of expenses.

[Matt]

Who would be a person that would need to save up six months of expenses?

[George Campbell]

That's a great question. And there's a range for a reason. Some people, they can stomach three months because they're two people with stable jobs. Think about a USPS worker and a teacher. Those are fairly stable jobs compared to someone who's on commission with a regular income. And so the more unstable your life is, the more you want to lean towards six months.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so if it's a one income family, I would lean six months. If there's a lot of health issues in the family, I would lean towards six months. And if it's two people, stable jobs you can lean towards, or if you're a single person, you're like, hey, it's just me. No one's relying on my income but me. I can make this work.

[Whitney Campbell]

With three months or just for me, I have more anxiety around money just because I didn't have as much growing up. So I lean more six months because I want the security. Even though we didn't like have to have that, but I still to this day want the six month.

[George Campbell]

No one's ever complained that they had six months. And they're like, well, that was a waste. Yeah, you know, it's. You always feel better and sleep better at night having more.

[Matt]

No, it definitely feels good. I can speak from experience. We, and this is just speaking to money mistakes I've made. But we got to the end of 2025 and we had like a lot of money in our bank account. And I was like, wow, this is pretty. This is awesome. We're like, we're killing it. We have like more money than I ever thought. The bank account tax guy goes, oh, by the way, like, we actually owe a lot more on taxes. You know, whatever. So like, okay, whatever. So then like, then like 60% of that money just gone. And I'm like, ooh, Actually, no, that was all of it. So all of it went to taxes and we had our six month emergency fund saved up. And then I'm like, oh, shoot, I probably should have done our monthly donations to charity. Like, I kind of saved it for the. I usually save it for the end of the year. And I was like, I think we're gonna have to dip into savings or emergency. So I actually liquidated our emergency fund to make charitable contributions. Cause I was like, I don't. I need to like, be a charitable person. Like, I feel like when you're making money, you need to give back. You need to do good in the world. But a couple weeks ago, luckily brand deals came in, revenue from YouTube and stuff came in, so we built it back up again. But I was like, for a little

[George Campbell]

bit, there's provision for a little bit there.

[Matt]

I was like, oh, gosh, I hope, I hope by like, I hope good karma comes back to me right now because like we literally.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I was gonna say, if you had an emergency, someone needs to be charitable to you. You have started GoFundMe to cover up. I know that is tight. So, yeah, there's baby step three. So if you think about the foundation, it's, let's get out of debt and have money in the bank to protect us. That's the foundation. That's financial piece. Then we can begin building for the future instead of paying for the past. And that's baby step four, investing 15% of your household income into retirement. So household income 100 grand. Invest 15 grand into retirement accounts. Okay, tax advantaged account. And then once you have that going, that's kind of an ongoing thing. So baby steps, four, five, six, you're kind of doing them in order, but simultaneously. And so baby step four, investing 15%. Now, if you got kids, let's start putting some money away for college and a 529 plan or an ESA because from 0 to 18, even 150 bucks a month, you could have 100 grand in there for that kid for college.

[Matt]

Just to make sure on the same page. So baby step one is emergency fund baby, or the starter, starter emergency fund of 1000 bucks. Baby step two is paying off all consumer debt using the debt snowball method. Baby steps, baby step three is

[George Campbell]

three

[Matt]

to six months of expenses for your emergency fund. Baby step four is investing 15% of your take home pay baby step. And then five is investing is college. And investing is baby step six.

[George Campbell]

So six is where you pay off the house early. So basically any money after you're investing for retirement and putting some money away for kids, you can use the excess to throw at the mortgage principal.

[Matt]

Okay?

[George Campbell]

So that's what we ended up doing. That's kind of the stage we found ourselves in when we got married.

[Matt]

I love it.

[George Campbell]

So we got the house, we put a big down payment down on a modest townhome, you know, 15 minutes south of here. And we just had this audacious goal of, hey, what if we were in our early 30s with no payments. What kind of options Would that give us.

[Whitney Campbell]

Well, and also mortgage to me felt like debt. Like it weighed on me as a consumer debt did. I don't know why, because a lot of people that doesn't. But I needed that out of my life.

[Matt]

So I feel that she was more

[George Campbell]

aggressive than I was.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Really?

[Whitney Campbell]

George made this plan. It was like a five year plan.

[George Campbell]

I thought that was aggressive.

[Whitney Campbell]

I was like, we're going to cut

[George Campbell]

mortgage off in five years.

[Whitney Campbell]

And I was like, no, we're doing it in three. And so. And we did it in 26 months.

[Matt]

That was your wife's idea to pay the house off early?

[George Campbell]

Yes. Yeah. Even earlier than I wanted to.

[Matt]

No way. What? Okay, speak to me about that. Whitney, like, you seem. You seem like a risk averse person. And you said that you grew up being around money problems of some kind.

[Whitney Campbell]

I mean, we lived on the outside, the, like, normal life, but there would be times, like in college where I literally had $5 for the week to eat. And I'm like. And I didn't. And I danced in college, so I didn't have time to go get like a side job or anything. But yeah, I don't. I don't want to, like, knock anyone in my family, but it's like they didn't have, like, excess money to also give me to live.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

And so I just hated that feeling of, like, not knowing where, like, how am I gonna get food the next week or whatever. And it's not like I was, like, majorly struggling, but I didn't like to always be, like, having that feeling that everything's about to just be like, I'm about to be just totally broke. And so even growing up, seeing that, like, money problems and stuff, like, my mom would work weekends and just try and, like, stay on top of things for our family and my dad, too. But yeah, I think I just always. Even after college, I started racking up, just like I told y', all the consumer debt so fast and it just like, would keep me up at night. And I remember some of my family said, like, after college, you will just always have debt. That's just part of being an American.

[Matt]

And so. Who said that to you?

[Whitney Campbell]

My mom.

[Matt]

Your mom said that? That's so sad.

[Whitney Campbell]

But. I know it is sad, but that's how they lived. Like, they just always were under, like, insane amounts of debt.

[Matt]

And that stress probably takes so many years off your life.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah. So I don't know why I just was different than that. Like, I can't tell you why, but I just didn't want to live that way. And so obviously, when I saw Dave and Rachel speaking about, like, not living in debt, I was like, I want that, you know?

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

I don't want that anxiety in my life. So I don't know. I just didn't want to be, like, always wondering, like, where the next paycheck's coming from, what it's going to like. I wanted us to be able to live our life.

[Abby]

This is just a personal opinion question, like, both of your opinion. So say someone, like, met someone, went on a first date, they really hit it off and say, like, a couple months down the line, they find out that this other person has, like, a ton of debt. Is that, like, a red flag? Like, you need. You can't take it any further, in your opinion?

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, definitely not. I would say it's like their mindset of what are they doing about the debt? Do they care about it? Are they, like, actively paying it off? Do they have a plan? Or are they just like, this debt's going to go with me to the grave? I feel like that would be the red flag.

[Matt]

Let's say it's like $90,000 in student loans or maybe it's like, you know, 70,000.

[Abby]

I'm saying, like, credit card debt, earn

[Matt]

20,000 credit card debt. What's the green flag and what's a red flag? Like, if you ask about the debt and what response should you be looking for to know that they're the right person?

[George Campbell]

You're right there. The different types of debt speak to behaviors. And so 20,000 in credit card debt is different than 20,000 in student loans. Okay, now both are bad. Hear me say that. But if I had to force rank them about, like, what's going to take more behavior change? It's the credit cards. It's the, you know, spending more than you make versus, well, I was told I need to take out student loans for college as an investment in my future. Both things are still wrong. But I do think the type of debt matters and their mindset around it matters because if they're going, well, I'm not worried about it. I'll just maybe. Maybe it'll get forgiven one day or, you know, this is not a big concern for me. I'm still going to use my credit cards. I'll work on paying it off at some point. That, to me, is the red flag. But the fact that they have debt, it would be insane to be like, I'm not going to date you because you have debt. Now we get the calls where they Find out. And so the, the honesty is the, is the key here. Are they honest about the debt? Are they hiding it? Do you find out during the engagement process right before you get married that they've been hiding $200,000 in debt? Yeah, that's the scarier part. To me, that's the red flag. But if they are honest and they're working on getting rid of the debt, those are green flags. So it's not the debt that's the problem, it's the person and what they're going to do about it. And are they willing to live a debt free life? Is that a value for them that they want to become debt free and stay debt free?

[Matt]

Now I am going to be a devil's advocate here because I, this is another trap I fell into. As we started making more money. We had some friends that were way more successful than us. And I was like, do you guys do a car payment? What do you do? And they're like, oh yeah, it's like arbitrage. So we just, we have a car payment and then like the extra money that we could have used to buy the car cash, we just put into the stock market because our payment is like 6%. What were you saying? Arbitrage. So if, if you're making 10% in

[Abby]

the market, what is that?

[Matt]

So if you're making 10% in the market but you're paying 6% on the loan, the difference is 4%. So arbitrage is. Am I explaining that right?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, it's all about trying to make a spread. So you're sort of leveraging the debt to try to make more money over here, which then can maybe pay off the debt later. It's sort of like, well, I'm going to trade, I can make more money over here, so why would I pay off this debt?

[Matt]

What would you say to that person that comes to you like, oh, yeah, I can just take out a car payment and use the extra money to put in the S and P. Well,

[George Campbell]

I'll tell you this, arbitrage, it's a trigger word for me because it tells me that you've been watching too much TikTok. And I believe that a puppy stops wagging its tail when you use the word arbitrage. Because what it says is it's a $10 word for I'm gonna do something risky and stupid to try to get a little greedy.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Because I'm not, I'm not happy with the money I could make over here. So I'm gonna try to leverage debt Add risk to my life so I can maybe make more money. So here's the truth. Your debt has a fixed interest rate that you have to pay every month. There's a forced amount that you're paying for the pleasure. The stock market is risky.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so young people go, well, it's been great so far. And if you talk to someone older, they go, I remember when it was minus 30% or the crash of.

[Matt]

Oh, wait, or drops 50%, didn't it? Like, I want to say there was a time.

[George Campbell]

I mean, crypto has.

[Matt]

In the early 2000s, though, there was a time, like, if you had invested 1000 bucks in the. Into an S&P 500 ETF, you would have literally seen in a matter of a couple months, I believe it go down from $1,000 to 500. Because. Because there's been correction periods and. And downturns in the market that have been that severe. So, yeah, I mean, you're right.

[George Campbell]

And human behavior says you're probably not gonna invest the difference. Now, there are people who are the super nerdy ones who do it, which that was us.

[Matt]

We did do that. But I am proud to say we did pay off our cars.

[George Campbell]

So that is something.

[Matt]

We did that three years ago.

[George Campbell]

Nice.

[Matt]

It did hurt, though, because we bought brand new cars because it was around the time when cars were like. It was almost like the used ones were more expensive than the new ones.

[Whitney Campbell]

Was that the 2020?

[George Campbell]

Yeah. I remember hearing that we got those calls in the Ramsey show. Why wouldn't I buy the new one? It's actually cheaper. And I'm like, is it though? Apples to apples, the used car was still cheaper and there was still depreciation hit on the new cars.

[Matt]

Now, I will say it made me feel less guilty when I heard the Dave Ramsey recommendation that you can buy a new car if you have a net worth of $1 million.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Matt]

But at the same time, it really, really hurt when I looked at the value of our model. Yeah. After buying it brand new in 2022, especially those EVs, they dropped. Elon was like, yeah, let's just drop the. The price of the model Y. Our car depreciated by like 60% in a matter of like, a year or two. It was crazy.

[Whitney Campbell]

I know. It is crazy.

[Matt]

So. But at least, you know, it's paid off. So it would suck if it's like, you know, there's people that have cars that are worth less than what they owe on it.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. They're underwater. And we're seeing that all Over. You hear the Ramsey show for 10 minutes, everybody's underwater on their car. And so here's what I tell them. If you pay cash for a car, you can never be underwater because you don't owe money on it. And so you don't have to worry about the drop in value. And when you buy used, someone else paid the depreciation for you those first few years.

[Matt]

Okay, can we talk about you going to Disney World?

[Abby]

Well, I wanted to bring that up.

[Matt]

Okay, you have to.

[Abby]

I have a bone to pick about the Disney video.

[George Campbell]

I told Matt I didn't know I was talking to a Disney adult. No, you are. I think it's the reason she had me on was to confront me.

[Abby]

I was watching a video and I was like, matt, I know he's gonna debate me and make this my argument so dumb. I think you should be able to go in debt for Disney. To take your kids to Disney.

[Matt]

Oh, my God, no, Abby Howard, you did not say that in the Dave Ramsey studio.

[Abby]

They're only little kids once.

[Matt]

Abby go into debt for Disney? Come on.

[Abby]

No, if a friend came to me, I would say, send it.

[George Campbell]

Here's the thing. I think a lot of people watching agree with you. And they're like, yas Queen.

[Matt]

Yes, Katie.

[Abby]

Cause their husbands might be like Matt and be like Abby. That is insane. Insane.

[Matt]

Okay, what's your response to people like Abby?

[George Campbell]

Well, here's the thing. What they're not thinking about, all they're thinking about is the starry eyed, wonderful experience of the amazing memories they're gonna have.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

They're not thinking about the payments and what it's gonna cost them for six months or a year after the trip is over. Yeah. And you have that regret of, oh, gosh, we're still paying off this Disney card. And the people I talked to, we did a man on the street at Disney Springs. So not even on the Disney, like in the park.

[Abby]

They probably wouldn't allow that, huh?

[George Campbell]

Well, we filmed on a phone and so we got away with. With more. There's your life hack kid. That's legendary because everyone's got a phone out.

[Abby]

That was a high quality.

[Matt]

That is. That is a legendary move, by the way. That video is so freaking fun.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. It was our top, second top performing video ever on the channel, so. And it was the voyeuristic, like 50 times. Yeah. They were telling me honestly. And here's the funny part, the comments were like, way to ruin their vacation, George. I was like.

[Abby]

I was like, the Grinch of Disney

[George Campbell]

comes now that's a title I can handle. Well, they're telling me, yeah, we're like $200,000 in debt.

[Matt]

Somebody said that?

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Abby]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Well, yeah, we put it on the credit card. We have other. Because that was my theory. Either you paid cash and you're debt free, or you're in crippling debt and you're just adding to the pile, going, what's another five grand gonna do? So that's my fear is it's just, what's another five grand here? What's another five grand there?

[Abby]

Like, it's not just the trip to Disney. Then it like snowballs into.

[George Campbell]

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

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

That feeling of we did a really hard thing and sacrifice to be here versus we did the easy thing, took the shortcut, and we're gonna pay in the long run. And so I want everyone to go to Disney. I'm a Disney fan after going recently, and I went. It is magic.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

But there's ways to do it, you know, without it costing you an arm and a leg. Now, the park tickets are the park tickets, but you can stay off property. You can bring your food in there. There's ways to make it not cost $5,000. Yes, but you want the full. I want to stay in the resort and I want the kids to have the character breakfast. And you know, in your mind, you're like, character breakfast?

[Matt]

If you have a net worth of million dollars, like, send it, you know, if you have the money.

[George Campbell]

Well, the fear is if you can't, if you don't know how to save up $5,000, that speaks to a deeper issue in your life.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Now it might take a year or two to save up for that trip. And the kids don't know any better. You know, whether they're three or five, they're still gonna have a great time. And a lot of the times it's really for the parents. It's for the mom to feel like, wow, I did it. I'm the mom who took their kids to Disney more than it is for the kids. And Rachel Cruz will admit that. She's like, when I went to Disney, it was for me. It wasn't for the three year old.

[Abby]

Our kids ask every morning to go to Disney.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, wow.

[George Campbell]

Where do they get that from?

[Matt]

Train them. We gotta be careful not to spoil our kids too much. Cause they.

[Abby]

No, I will say this because I wanted to have a conversation with them.

[Matt]

Passes. We have the Disneyland passes.

[Abby]

We did.

[Matt]

We've gone a lot recently.

[Abby]

We've gone a lot. And. But they think that. So Goofy's Kitchen is like the character's dinner. Character breakfast, things like that. And they'll like, come down in the morning. They're like, I think I want Goofy's kitchen for breakfast. And so. And I was like, talking, like when we went to Disney this last time, I was like, should we go to Goofy's Kitchen? And they're like, get on your phone. See? Like, they were basically saying, like, see if it's available. And I was like, well, let's have a little conversation about cost and like, expenses. So then we, like had a conversation. And then a couple days later, it became clear to me that my 3 year old deduced from that conversation that you work so you can go to Disney. Wow.

[George Campbell]

For some people, that is the mentality.

[Abby]

He told me he's like, I need a camera and a pewter.

[Whitney Campbell]

So.

[Abby]

And because in his mind, working is like being a YouTuber.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah, that's your life.

[George Campbell]

He sees mom and dad. This is their life.

[Abby]

I need a camera. He wants to go to Disney.

[Matt]

So now it's so cute, you guys. He brings his little camera around with him, like, dad, say cheese. He'll take pictures of me.

[George Campbell]

That's okay. Amazing.

[Matt]

Because like, in his mind, he's like, yeah, I gotta be a videographer guy to.

[George Campbell]

So he's like, mom, Ned, get to work. Yeah, I gotta go to Disney.

[Abby]

That does get bring. You have a similar age, like daughter. Like, how do you already start those money conversations? Do you use real life examples of like, going to Disney, or does that just make it confusing for them?

[Whitney Campbell]

I mean, that's a great question. Like, we're already running into that, like at the store. How she just.

[George Campbell]

Oh, so we go to like a Trader Joe's or a Target, and she just starts throwing things in the carts. She loves just throwing things. And I go, no, we can't get that. That's not what we came here for.

[Matt]

The worst is when you leave a place and they have everything on display and your kid's like, I want that toy, I want that toy.

[George Campbell]

And guess what they do? They put that stuff on the lower shelf because they know marshmallows are always down there.

[Whitney Campbell]

I know marshmallows. What is marshmallows?

[Abby]

Always find their way into it.

[Matt]

The marketing is unhinged, strong.

[George Campbell]

But what we do, she has a little, like, an ice cream stand, like a toy one. And so that came with fake money, and it came with a fake credit card. And so I'm indoctrinating her. Yeah, it's like a little, like, tap to pay, or you can put the chip in. And I'm like. It says credit on it. So I have to keep telling her, hey, we're gonna use the cash today. Okay. We're not gonna. We're not gonna put the credit card

[Abby]

C into a D real quick.

[George Campbell]

Exactly. But I have to teach her, like, hey, if you want the ice cream, you have to give me those $2 in your hand. And so she'll have to pay me to get her fake ice cream so I can teach her that there's a transaction that happens here.

[Abby]

That's good.

[Matt]

That does bother me that they're, like, marketing credit cards to literal Barbie.

[George Campbell]

Comes with a credit card now in her little purse.

[Matt]

Why are they doing that?

[George Campbell]

I think about it. I guarantee you these credit card companies are in the pockets of, you know, Barbie and Mattel going in, indoctrinate them.

[Matt]

Now they're probably. And they have so much money, too. They're probably just like. It was like, $50 million if you can. I mean, not. Maybe not that $50 million, but they're probably giving some serious cash to these toy manufacturers to just put a little credit card in the toy.

[George Campbell]

That's a concern we're teaching our kids. Yeah. That is. I want to run down that rabbit hole with you on a separate date.

[Matt]

Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

I bet we could get to the bottom of it. Let's do that. Some credit card lobbyist is over there at Mattel right now.

[Abby]

Seriously.

[George Campbell]

But here's the problem. Our kids are going to live in a frictionless world where there's no exchange of money. They just wave a wand. You can literally hold your hand over something and then get it.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You hold your palm, and it reads your palm and pays. So we need to teach our kids that we should add friction back into our lives to feel the pain I purchase. Otherwise, they're just gonna spend wildly and go into crippling debt.

[Matt]

Okay, what about this, though? Maybe I'm just an oddball, but when I have cash, I want to spend it. Like, it's like, free money in my mind, because for me, my spending. I just look at our bank account and I look. I do use credit cards. Sorry. But I look at, like, the money coming in, going out. I just, like, Literally give George a heart attack. But that's, like, the one Dave Ramsey principle. I don't follow. Sorry, guys, I'm probably gonna get kicked out here.

[Abby]

That's, like, their main principle, by the way.

[George Campbell]

But if I could have lightning striking in the studio, I might have that.

[Matt]

But let me just say this, though. Like, the principle of spending less than what you make, spending less than what is just like, that is the key. That is like the golden rule of personal finance. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And the debit card is just the tool to make that happen.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

If just you can't spend more than you make if you use your own money.

[Matt]

And to toot my own horn, which I know you disagree with this, which is totally cool. I respect that. To toot my horn, I'll toot it. Like, when. When I first got a credit card in college, I would pay it off, like, literally multiple times a week. I treated it like a debit card because I did want a credit score because I thought it would. It would make, like, maybe buying a house or, you know, using credit to maybe get insurance or rent, like. Cause they asked for your credit score, I thought might make the process smoother for me. So that's why I did it. And I treated it like a debit card. I know your philosophy is so different than that. It's like, you can buy a house without a credit score. You can rent a rental car without a credit score. Speak to the people like me who are like, oh, not having a credit score makes your life way harder.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. Well, I think at the heart of it, there's some justification there of I don't want my life to be any more difficult. And therefore, I'm gonna do another difficult thing, which is trying to manage this credit card debt and pay it off every week.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

I feel anxiety thinking about having to do that.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Instead of just going, I paid for it. It's over. Like, it's out of my brain now. Instead of, oh, I gotta log in and make sure I pay that and make sure it's on auto pay, and I can't miss a payment because it'll charge me 29 APR. That's how most people live their life. And then they wonder why they have so much anxiety.

[Matt]

Is that what the rates are now, 29%?

[George Campbell]

Yes. I mean, the averages are 25%, 27%. So for us, you're right. Like, when we bought that townhome, we didn't have a credit score because we didn't have any debt. We had no open credit accounts, no credit cards. Nothing.

[Matt]

But how did you buy that? Like, isn't the underwriting process a lot more challenging if you don't have a credit score for lenders to look at?

[Whitney Campbell]

We just had to give more documents, but it wasn't.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, you upload a few more documents. So, like tax returns.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Utility statements. Basically, they want to see that you've paid other bills on time.

[Matt]

Got it.

[George Campbell]

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

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So manual underwriting is the process instead of automated underwriting, which is okay, and as long as you truly don't have a credit score. Because people go, can I bypass my credit score to do it without a score? I go, no, if you have a score, they're going to use that. But if you don't have a score and you have the proper documentation, you have on time rent payments for at least a year, you have proof of income, you can get a mortgage, and you got to do it the Ramsey way, which is 15 year fixed rate mortgage, 10% down. At least that's what's going to get you the best rate. So you're not paying more than someone else.

[Matt]

Because still, I know you say all that and I'm like, yeah, it's kind of nice doing not having to do manual underwriting because it seems like a lot more work in my head.

[George Campbell]

It's uploading and click two more documents. That's it.

[Matt]

What about, like renting a car? Like, if I go to rent a car, don't they want to see a credit card so that I can, can just, you know, get moving and get, get grooving. Like, what do you have to show them when you're renting a car if you only have a debit card?

[George Campbell]

That's a great question. And you're right. There are times where it can be more difficult. And I actually outline in my book everything you're talking about. There's a little credit score chat.

[Matt]

Love your book, by the way. I know the answers to a lot of these. I'm just asking them anyway.

[George Campbell]

No, it's great. And the truth is, every major rental car company has a debit card Policy, Policy. There is a way you can do it. You just have to understand it and call that location or contact them and say, hey, I'm renting with a debit card. What are the restrictions? Or guardrails?

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And that's it. And I've been able to rent. We've traveled all over the country with just a debit card. So people make it out.

[Matt]

How do you travel though, without like points and miles? I don't even understand how that works.

[George Campbell]

It's crazy. If you just live on less than you make. You have the money and you just buy the flight.

[Matt]

No, I don't think. See, I think when you travel, you're supposed to use like, points. It's supposed to be free. Because I don't think. Yeah, it's supposed to be free.

[George Campbell]

You need to spend $50,000 on the credit card to get $2,000 back to make the trip free.

[Matt]

It is funny though, looking like we have a 1.5% cash back business card and we spend a lot of money on our business because, like, we buy expensive mics and cameras to, you know, record our podcast and stuff. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. We like, we got like a thousand bucks cash or it's like we got fifteen hundred dollars cash back. And it's like, yeah, cuz you spent a hundred thousand dollars. And I'm like, oh my God.

[George Campbell]

Plus the annual fee.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Plus any fees or interest that was.

[Matt]

I don't like the fee. I don't like the cards with fees. Those are not like, I'm not doing that.

[George Campbell]

Okay. How do you feel about this, Abby? I'm curious.

[Abby]

I try to avoid the topic of money.

[George Campbell]

Well, do you just like relegate it to Matt and go, well, it makes him happy?

[Abby]

I know it's not right. I fully know. I'm like, we've had it a lot. I feel like every year we're like, we're gonna do it now. We're gonna have this conversation. I'm like, I'll just never spend money ever again. And he's like, no, we can't just talk about this.

[Matt]

I will say though, I've actually gone back and forth recently about cutting up our credit cards. And the reason is, did I get in your head? No, I just love for sure. Here's what I love about you on your shoulder. What I love about you and Dave and the whole Dave Ramsey family is it's such a no nonsense approach to finance. It is bulletproof. You cannot eff it up. If you follow all of the baby steps to a table. It is almost impossible to like, screw it up now. Maybe if. Okay, I'm sure there's someone that like, they get cancer and they get crazy medical bills. That's like a, you know, that's rare, right? But like, for most people just following the baby steps, they're going, they can become a millionaire. Like, in your book, you talk about how you are average, George. You're an average dude that was in consumer debt and student loans and you got out of all of it and you became a millionaire by the time you were 30.

[George Campbell]

I think 32.

[Matt]

32.

[George Campbell]

Between our retirement accounts and our house, we had a million dollar net worth.

[Matt]

And that just gets me fired up. I just, I love that for you. That inspires me. That inspires. And so, like, I don't know, listening to your book, I've never been more likely to like, cut up our credit cards than listening to your book. Seriously. Seriously.

[George Campbell]

If I can just get in your head with that book, I think I've done the Lord's work and here's my challenge to you. And I put this in the book. Look, just for 30 days, put the credit card in a drawer somewhere and just use your own money and compare your spending and see how you felt. See the actual numbers. And what I found is people save more than their 2%. They would have gotten cash back just by using their own money. Because you're more. Think about it. If you bought the equipment, you might think twice and go, hey, what? Could I get a better price on the same equipment if I just did a little bit of research?

[Matt]

And you're totally right, because he always does that. Well, like, and look, we, right now we're running like 10 different social media accounts. We're running multiple different, like, media businesses, modern media companies, with our podcast and our YouTube channel and our TikToks and Instagrams. So I effed up recently where I didn't move enough money over to our checking from our savings. I told you this before the podcast. And I got charged. It was the first time ever with our credit card that I paid a couple hundred bucks in interest. Because I didn't. It wasn't. It went unpaid for like, like two, three days. And it made me really mad because I was like, I paid this on time. It's on autopay. It's set up all the time. I called the credit card company. I've been a loyal customer of you guys. Like, I know you make 3% off me, whatever. Like, you guys have made so much Money off of all the spending I've done using your card. Like, can we just waive this? This 400 bucks? Couldn't do it. And look, I guess. Have we made way more than $400 in our. In our points and stuff? Sure. But just the sheer principle of them charging me 400 bucks to. For me going, like, two days without paying it. Cause I needed a. It was just waiting for the savings to process the checking just made me so mad. And that, I think, is. You know, that really was the reason why I was like, screw these credit cards.

[George Campbell]

That's why Dave always says, you play with snakes. Eventually you're gonna get bit. Like, these companies are not your friend. And their marketing makes you think, hey, we're always here for you. Here's a more line of credit. You deserve it. You work hard, and they make you think that you're winning because they're letting you go into more debt.

[Matt]

Yeah. And nobody. No millionaire out there is like, you know what the secret is to becoming a millionaire? My credit card. My credit card. Miles and points arbitrage doesn't work. You know, it's just. It's just silly. So I like. I like your principles. I think it's bulletproof.

[George Campbell]

So you're saying you're gonna go without a credit card for 30 days. Would Abby be down for it? That's the question.

[Matt]

I'm serious.

[Abby]

Yeah, he's the. He's the money guy. So I'm like. If you said that, I'd be like, yeah, I'd rather do that than have to figure it out.

[Matt]

Which, like, I don't know. In my. I guess in my head right now, I kind of view it as, like, I know the Dave Ramsey principle is, if you have a net worth of over a million dollars, it's okay to buy a new car. And so in my head, I'm like. I kind of view credit cards the same.

[George Campbell]

But that's in cash.

[Matt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And most people go, oh, $50,000 of my own money right now. It hurts my soul. And I go, maybe let's rethink buying a $50,000 car. You're doing that with payments over time, plus interest.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So you're paying $60,000 for that car over time. And that's the problem is because we spread it all out and go into debt, we don't feel the pain. And I think we need to bring back that pain and friction into our lives.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Because America is just broke and exhausted.

[Abby]

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[Matt]

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[Matt]

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[Matt]

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[Abby]

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[Matt]

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[Abby]

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[Matt]

I want to circle back. I know we talked a little bit about you guys having kids. You guys recently welcomed a new baby five months ago, right? Henry, Congratulations on your son. Henry. That's amazing.

[Whitney Campbell]

How.

[Matt]

How are you guys planning to talk to your kids about money and teach them about these money principles and. And talk to them about it in age appropriate ways?

[George Campbell]

It's a great question. You know, the people think like, well, George probably, you know, drills down mutual funds with his daughter and flashcards at night, but, you know, it's gotta be age appropriate. At two and six months, there's no conversations. And over time, you start to step it up. And so teaching them that, hey, if you do this chore that's outside of the family work, you can get money for that, you can get a dollar. And so just teaching them that principle that money doesn't just come from mommy and daddy's bank account, from the money tree. It comes from you doing something that adds value.

[Matt]

What's the psychology of that with paying your kids for doing chores? Is that something that you think is good?

[George Campbell]

Oh, yeah. I mean, we call it commission around here because that's how the real world works. Yeah, Nobody just gives you an allowance to exist. Like, that's crazy that we just teach our kids that, hey, you just get an allowance, then one day that's on you now, and they go, what? That's where entitlement comes from.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so we teach that, you know, don't punish your kids. Cover all their needs. But if they want something that is outside of that boundary, like they want a video game, teach them how to save for it, because they're gonna treat that video game differently than if it's just another one mom and dad bought. It's gonna go in the trash and unused. But if they had to save up $50 over six months to get that game, it is like gold. They're gonna, like, put it in a frame and not let anyone touch it. And so I think that that shows you that we value things differently when we worked hard for them. Yeah, and that's the thing you want to teach your kids. So for us, we don't have the conversations now, obviously, but I think more is caught than taught. We say that a lot. So the way that our kids see us talk and handle money is way better than anything we could tell them.

[Abby]

That's great. So when do you think that extra allowance time starts, Hurts, like as they

[George Campbell]

get Old enough to actually do things on their own.

[Abby]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

I don't trust my 2 year old to do almost anything right now.

[Whitney Campbell]

But she does love to help.

[George Campbell]

She's a great helper.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Abby]

We started with them is like when I'm putting the clothes from the washer, he transfers them to the dryer.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Abby]

I hand them.

[George Campbell]

Now that to me, that's just a family thing that we're gonna do.

[Abby]

Right.

[George Campbell]

You don't want to teach them that anything you do in this house is commissionable.

[Abby]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

It needs to be the extra activity. And maybe for them, if it's something they hate doing, like brushing their teeth. Hey, I'll give you a quarter every time you brush your teeth. I'm gonna put it in this jar. And they get to see the jar start to grow. So things that are visual really help kids. Because if it's in like a piggy bank, they can't see. It's kind of hard for them to feel it. And so we have clear, clear banks that we sell as part of our financial Peace Junior products where it's clear so they can see how much they save, spend, and give. So that's another principle to teach your kids. Early on. There's only three things you can do with money. Kids can understand that. We can spend some, we can save some, we can give some. All of those things are good and healthy. Let's focus on giving first. Then we're gonna put some money in savings. Then spending comes last.

[Matt]

Did you end up spending splurging on that like, bedjet thing for your bed to cool it down?

[George Campbell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt]

You did. You guys got the bedjet. I know that was like that there's some. It seems like there's some friction.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt]

With. With that purchase in the household.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I forgot about that. I did end up. Here's the thing. Because of my massive influence, I got Whitney a free bed.

[Matt]

No way. Shut the front door.

[Whitney Campbell]

I saw how worth it it was once I had my own. Because he always had.

[George Campbell]

For people that don't know, not a sponsored product, but it just. It shoots like temperature controlled air through a magical sheet.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And now we have one that's separated. So Whitney has her own that shoots heat. So I cannot mine the shoots cool air.

[Abby]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

So instead of putting our house down to like 66 at night, and I'd be so angry now he could just do.

[George Campbell]

I'm sending her podcast. Like, it's actually scientifically better to sleep in a cold house.

[Abby]

Literally. Imagine that. Yesterday in our hotel, I was like, My nose.

[Whitney Campbell]

I'm like, under here.

[Matt]

68 degrees is not that cold. We're under the covers.

[George Campbell]

You guys would have never survived the pioneer time.

[Abby]

Notice how he does it in the hotel so he doesn't have to pay to cool it down to that.

[Matt]

I cool it down.

[George Campbell]

That's frugal.

[Matt]

I'll do 70, I'll do like seven. I'll do between 68 and 70 degrees in our own house at night, depending. I've gotten a little crazy now that we've.

[George Campbell]

That's the one thing I'm not frugal about is air. I'm like, I want to be comfortable in my own home. I'll pay an extra 40 bucks this month to have it at the temperature.

[Whitney Campbell]

That's probably our biggest argument in marriage. When he turns down the upstairs, which is the kids rooms. It's not even ours, by the way.

[George Campbell]

One degree.

[Whitney Campbell]

I go from 70 to 69, I promise. Our newborn now is five month old, sleeps worse when it's cold. And he does it one degree.

[Matt]

And I'm like, dude, that's your child.

[Whitney Campbell]

He's like, it was burning up in there when I was rocking him. I was like, I don't care if you're hot. I need him to be the right temperature.

[George Campbell]

So welcome to parenthood, guys. Your needs don't matter anymore.

[Matt]

Dad, has your electric bill gone up significantly with George's AC addiction?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I mean, it's high. I keep track of it and it hurts my soul.

[Matt]

Have you considered solar panels? Panels?

[George Campbell]

No. I can't stomach the maintenance. First of all, the initial cost, it's

[Matt]

like 50, 60 grand.

[George Campbell]

Right. It's insane. And then to ROI on that and break even on that, and then the maintenance and repair you need to do to keep those, you know, the tiles break and they need to be repaired. And so I'm like, it's not worth it for me.

[Matt]

Right. Well, I got a quote. So I had Tesla quote our house for solar because we live in Arizona.

[George Campbell]

I feel like Phoenix is. Yeah, it's a different ball game.

[Matt]

It's so hot. And with the AC on, we are. Our electric bill is like $800 in the month of July.

[Whitney Campbell]

Wow.

[Matt]

So I. We might send it because I think it'll save us money over time.

[George Campbell]

Here's my thing. If you do it with cash, I will allow cash. Because most people go, well, the guy at the door that came to sell a solar said we can get it on $200 payments.

[Matt]

And don't buy it from the guy at the door because the Guy at the door is making a massive commission off of you.

[George Campbell]

Thank you.

[Abby]

You want to support them?

[Matt]

No, no. I mean, if you're. If you're. If you're rolling it, you just have, like, money to throw away. Sure. But, like, that's your money that you worked hard for.

[George Campbell]

So, hey, if you want of Abby will fall for it. If you go to Abby's door and sell her something, she's like, you need

[Matt]

to support a small business.250 on popcorn for her cousin.

[George Campbell]

What? Your cousin came to the door?

[Abby]

No, he sent me a link. He.

[George Campbell]

The kids aren't even working these days.

[Abby]

He lives in Missouri. He couldn't come to my door.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

He didn't even do a sales pitch. When I was a kid doing door

[Whitney Campbell]

to door sales, George gets upset.

[Matt]

I won the contest. I went to every house in the neighborhood and all the right neighborhoods around

[Abby]

our house nowadays is the Girl Scouts. Every time I go to the grocery store, they have their pitch. And so every time I go, I have to get another box of cookies.

[George Campbell]

I.

[Abby]

That is something I will.

[George Campbell]

I'm a supporter. I agree with that. If you're hustling, I want to support you, but if it's like, your mom sent me a link to support you, I'm like, listen, man, I'm not buying your Tumblr for your school marching band.

[Whitney Campbell]

You say that, but you do.

[George Campbell]

You do say that, but I do.

[Abby]

No, I have a question.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah.

[Abby]

So you. This is something that we talk about

[Matt]

a lot because I actually have no idea what you're about to say.

[Abby]

When we were in our, like, extremely frugal years.

[Matt]

Yes.

[Abby]

There are certain things that were instilled in us that no matter how much money we make down the line, we will probably. Like, it's gonna still. It's. We're never gonna change those things.

[Matt]

Like, not spending money on water, like,

[Abby]

buying water like we want.

[Matt]

We don't buy water.

[Abby]

Buying water, like, really bothers us. Like, we wanna always fill up a water bottle. We're like, water should be free, but

[George Campbell]

is it, like, renewable res? Like, are you trying to go green or is that. It's not that.

[Matt]

It just makes me angry that, like, you're at. Yeah. If you're at Disney or the airport, and it's like, yeah, it's only five to nine dollars to buy. No. Now it's like, I've seen bottles of water for, like, $10.

[Abby]

One day I flexed on Matt. One day I really flexed on Matt, and I drank the water bottle that came in the hotel I was like, to pay for.

[Matt]

Dude. I went to Vegas for F1 with my brother. It was 15 for a Fiji water in the hotel room. I'm like, are you effing kidding me?

[Abby]

Me?

[Matt]

It was more expensive for the water than alcohol was down downstairs.

[Whitney Campbell]

I saw Backstreet Boys in January or beginning of January, and I was so thirsty, I couldn't find water anywhere. So I had to. I've never done 19, but I was that 19.

[George Campbell]

And she even text me like, hey, just FYI, like, I had to do this.

[Whitney Campbell]

And it was also like 11 o' clock at night. I didn't want to go out by myself in Vegas and try and find water.

[Matt]

Don't do that.

[Whitney Campbell]

I just was like, I will eat the Costco. But it crushed me. Even when I checked out and I had to, like, pay for it. I was like, this is insane.

[Abby]

Do you have things like that that you're like, no matter what, we will still, like, never spend money on this or never.

[Whitney Campbell]

It's so funny. You do mention the water things when I'm at the airport now. I've just recently, like, in the past year let myself start buying waters. I know, it's crazy. Feels crazy. It is more convenient.

[George Campbell]

I will say I still am the frugal research one. Even if it's like, on principle, I can save $3. I'm going to do it.

[Whitney Campbell]

Tell them about your Publix store. Just the other day, the dollar at the customer service.

[Abby]

Oh, yeah, you went to customer service?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, so? Well, it was supposed to be a dollar off in my Publix app. And so it didn'. And so then I'm like, I checked out and I gotta go wait in the line for customer service. And I go, hey, I just checked out. We're supposed to take a dollar off. And he's like, fighting me on. He's like, well, it's a dollar. And I was like, yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

And he goes, do you really want a dollar?

[Matt]

Oh, I'm the same way, dude.

[George Campbell]

So he finally rings it up and gives me a dollar bill, dude. And he was, like, miffed by it. And I was like, I don't know how you were rich.

[Abby]

Hello. You're shopping at Publix.

[George Campbell]

Like, it's supposed to be a pleasure, man.

[Abby]

That's kind of expensive.

[Matt]

So Abby and I. Abby and I were servers at a pizza restaurant in college. And I studied, Like, I studied our pay stub. Cause I was like, something that's not lining up here. Realized that I was shorted 20 bucks

[Abby]

by our employer when our Hourly was less than $3.

[Matt]

Yeah, our hourly was, like, around 3 bucks an hour. Because you make tips at the restaurant. This was. Gosh, seven years ago. Anyway, we ran. We went back to pizza restaurant recently, and my boss brought it up. He was like, I still think about how you came to me wanting me to pay you the money that I owed you. And I'm like, like, yeah, love the guy. But I'm like, yeah, dude, like, when you're getting paid $3 an hour, yeah, I'd like to be paid the $20.

[George Campbell]

I have an injustice thing. I don't know if I was like, because I was bullied growing up, but

[Whitney Campbell]

I feel like taking advantage of your Arabic.

[George Campbell]

Well, first of all, Middle Eastern. So my dad, like, growing up, we. Sunday, we would get the paper with all, like, the coupons in it for the groceries, and we would sit there and cut up.

[Abby]

Oh, yeah, coupon.

[George Campbell]

It was, like, a fun experience.

[Matt]

Yeah. Mama had a coupon drawer in our house.

[George Campbell]

Yes. And so I just love those days. And it was exciting to, like, see

[Abby]

how, you know, they still have coupons.

[George Campbell]

They still exist. A lot of their digital now, and they're like, you scan them in an app or whatever. But that's still instilled in me that frugality of, like, don't get taken advantage of. Get the best deal you can negotiate, which makes Whitney cringe.

[Matt]

Abby hates negotiations too. I kind of love it, though.

[Abby]

I love it.

[Matt]

I love.

[George Campbell]

It's a sport for me. I'm not athletic, so this is all I have as far as sports goes.

[Abby]

Oh, no, that. No.

[George Campbell]

So, yeah, Whitney stays in the car or just doesn't go. If I need to make a big

[Whitney Campbell]

transaction happen, I know when to walk away.

[Matt]

Whitney.

[George Campbell]

What's that?

[Abby]

Car dealership.

[Matt]

What's an uncomfortable situation you've been in, Whitney, because of George trying to negotiate something down?

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, gosh. So many. I feel like the most recent.

[George Campbell]

Well, I don't know anything that's, like, a return.

[Matt]

I'm so curious.

[George Campbell]

She doesn't go with me to make returns. She'll be like, hey, I bought a bunch of stuff. I'm gonna return most of it. Who gets to make the returns and fight me?

[Matt]

Maybe if you're not comfortable sharing the recent one. But, like, what's a story of a negotiation George did that made you uncomfy?

[Whitney Campbell]

Gosh. Can you think of one? I'm trying to think. There's so many, but I feel like

[George Campbell]

they're, like, maybe big, small, because I have no. I'm. I'm Fairly petty when it comes to these things. So it's not about the dollar amount now. The bigger the dollar amount, the more I'm gonna fight, you know, with like, a car, which I did. I didn't go in a dealership. Cause it was across the country. So I had to fight over the phone.

[Whitney Campbell]

I think the ones that. That stick out to me the most, I can't think of a specific situation right now, but it's the ones where the person, like, the customer service person can't actually do anything about it. Like, they're literally telling George, like, yeah, I don't have the power to do one. Was like, at Apple, and he was getting charged extra for something. And the guy was saying, like, I cannot give you that discount. And so George is still like, come on, there's like, gotta be something. And he keeps pressing then. And so I feel bad for that person. I'm like, they're just doing their job. So I get that they're like, being like a stickler on this. But he does usually win in the end because they'll call over a supervisor or something.

[George Campbell]

Well, then I just say, well, is there a manager I could speak to?

[Whitney Campbell]

I never, like, mean or rude.

[George Campbell]

I'm just firm.

[Whitney Campbell]

It's not unreasonable stuff. It will be.

[George Campbell]

I'm not making a seen. I'm not like, yelling at anybody, right? It's just like, well, is there a manager I could speak to?

[Whitney Campbell]

And usually George is right. It's like a fee was added that shouldn't have been.

[George Campbell]

That happened to us with Internet or just incompetence. Like, I tried to return something at Target, and they said, no, it's not in the system yet because I bought it at a different Target that day. And so they're like, I'm like, I have the receipt. Can I return this item? And so they said. So I said, wait, if I don't have a receipt, I can do a no receipt return. So I literally crumpled up the receipt, put it in my pocket, and said, now can I do the return? And the Target employee stared at me like, did he just find a glitch in the matrix? And they. They did the return. Whoa. So it's just like, that's. I'm just like, be it. Be a competent person and think, if this was me, what would I do for that person? So if I was in customer service and I've worked those jobs. Yeah, just do what you do for one, what you wish you could do for many, regardless of a policy. I think everyone's just so by the book now. And they don't want to get in trouble.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

That they just are so scared to treat someone like a human being.

[Matt]

Some of our viewers submitted questions for you guys, which I think are really, really great questions. Very practical to 2026. And then I also have some agree to disagree questions. That's okay because agree to disagree is like a really fun game we like to play on the show. But first off, this is from Abby. She said advice for buying your first house. In today's economy as a young couple making $100,000 combined, what the bank says

[George Campbell]

they'll loan you is not the amount you should be taking out on a loan. And so we have to reset expectations. And that's really hard to do. To go, yeah, I wanted to live in this neighborhood in this kind of house. House. And so I always tell people, don't get starry eyed scrolling Zillow going, that has to be the house.

[Matt]

Yep.

[George Campbell]

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

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And you know, yes, the boomers did have it easier as far as income to house ratio. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that we can go take out a bunch of debt just because we want it now.

[Whitney Campbell]

Like we've moved three times to get to the house that we want.

[George Campbell]

Three times every three years we've moved.

[Matt]

And do you always buy the house cash whenever you move into a new house?

[George Campbell]

We try.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

The first one, we, we paid it off, we got another one. That one got paid off even faster. And then the next one was cash.

[Matt]

Did you turn your old houses into rental properties or did you move the money over?

[George Campbell]

No, because we wouldn't have had the cash to do it. So the way we did it is you buy the house, it appreciates, you know, and we pay it off. So we have 100% equity. We take all of that, roll it into the next one, which means smaller mortgage. We knock that out fast.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And then we're able to save up and pay cash for the next one. So it took time. I mean this is, you know, it's been what, seven, eight year journey.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

And where a lot of our friends like just bought their forever home first, but they're going to have a mortgage for 20 years because they put very little down.

[George Campbell]

It's a bigger mortgage. So we always wanted a small mortgage that we could knock out fast.

[Matt]

So we. Yeah, we did 20% down. But I didn't realize that you guys recently updated your recommendation that you can do that. It's okay to do five. Right.

[George Campbell]

Five to 10% down if you're a first time home buyer is okay.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Now you still follow the other parameters.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And you're still gonna have pmi, which is private mortgage insurance. That extra fee every month to protect the lender if you don't do.

[Matt]

Why did 20%.

[Abby]

Why did Dave Ramsay always warn me about that?

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Why was like don't do drugs and avoid pmi.

[Matt]

But why the, why did the recommendation change?

[George Campbell]

I think just realizing the current state of affairs in America that a 10% down payment could be $60,000.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so that might be unattainable. So if you can get, you know, 5 to 10% down on a $250,000 home, that's a little further out. That's more reasonable to get in a home faster because we know like it's a moving goalpost. I don't want people waiting 15 years to buy their first home.

[Matt]

Well, it's sad. I mean, the area where we love the family area, we're in of Arizona. But the average home price is like $750,000.

[George Campbell]

And just look at the payment. Because if you make five grand a month and the payment's three grand a month, that's unsustainable.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And what happens is like Whitney wanted to stay home when she had her first kid and it wasn't a financial decision for us because we didn't have a mortgage payment. And so it just gives you more options later. It's not about being gung ho to pay off the mortgage to make Dave happy. It's.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

This is going to give us flexibility down the line. And too many people become inflexible because they took on this giant mortgage.

[Matt]

And this question comes from Ashley. It's actually for you, Whitney. It says, I would love to know if Whitney has any frugal hacks she uses in motherhood.

[Whitney Campbell]

That's a great question.

[George Campbell]

So many book on this.

[Whitney Campbell]

Well, I do feel like when you're first about to give birth, I don't know if you just too. But if you sign up for a million different registries, like any of them that you can do, like Target Amazon, you get a certain amount off, like 15 off for Amazon, for example, for like the first year. So I would just keep adding diapers or things like that to my Amazon registry.

[George Campbell]

Anything remaining, I like it.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah. So then I can just keep getting the percentage off even though it's not someone else buying that for me.

[Abby]

Wait, actually, curious question. What's your favorite diapers?

[Whitney Campbell]

We've switched. We're actually at Millie Moon now.

[Abby]

And there's. They're surprisingly not like they're a good price.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah. Actually they were cheaper than Pampers.

[George Campbell]

That's why we're a Pampers pure family.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah. Forever. And we switched. Yeah. It was more because my daughter's skin issues.

[Matt]

This is from Lexi. She says a mortgage would be cheaper than my rent. Is it dumb to buy a house even though I have debt?

[George Campbell]

Ooh, this one is so tough. Because if you just in a vacuum look at those two numbers on paper, you're like, no, duh, I should buy a house.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

The mortgage is going to be cheaper based on what I could get get number one. Homeownership is not for the faint of heart. It is expensive. It's a headache. You are the landlord that you have to call to fix the issue.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so people don't think about that when you're in debt and you have a mortgage that's right up to the line and it's on a 30 year now that emergency hits and it's $5,000 to replace the H vac. Well, now you're going further into debt.

[Matt]

Well, George, we have, we have two rental properties. We have one that was built in like 2020. The other one was built in 1958. Something breaks at this 1958 house, I swear to you, every week. It is brutal.

[Abby]

And it's not like a little thing. It's like a.

[Matt]

It's been the biggest thorn on my side. So I agree with you. It's like home. If you're gonna. Yeah, it's. It's not a one size fits all for homeownership because depending on the age of the house or who built it, there could be some serious stuff that goes wrong that then you have to front the cost for.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And it's just again, it's inflexible. Like you bought a house, you can't just get out of that easily. Like you could renting words. I broke a lease and we're good.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so there's a lot more responsibility and, and finances that you need to think about when it comes to homeownership.

[Matt]

And I like this question from Mary has, you know, goes right hand in hand with you guys moving to you being a stay at home mom, which is so cool that you're able to live off of George's income alone. That's like, really impressive in today's economy. As Mary said, how can we budget well with the goal of having kids young and being a stay at home mom?

[Abby]

That's like such a hot debate.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Abby]

I know so many moms in this position where it's like they want to stay home, but they don't feel like they can financially or their husband wants them to work because they're like, we need both income because it just gets

[George Campbell]

too tight, too much pressure on that one person's income. Yeah, that's a real. And we see that a lot of, like Whitney has a lot of friends who want to stay home, but it's tough because you need the dual incomes. And so the way you budget for that is you do a test run, just ignore that other person's paycheck, the person who wants to stay home and see if you can live on it. That's. You can't. And that's why we tell people to follow the Ramsey plan. If you become debt free with an emergency fund, it's a whole lot easier to stay home than. Well, we still have our car payments, we still have a bunch of student loans. And so it just gives you more options. And it is tough. And for some people, it makes sense to do daycare. Like, if you make $85,000 a year and daycare is much cheaper, then it might be worth it for you to work. But I always tell people it's more. It's more than just money.

[Abby]

Right.

[George Campbell]

And so if you're willing to make the sacrifices needed and you want to stay home and you're gonna downgrade your lifestyle or maybe move, then it's worth doing.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah. I tell George all the time, like, if he lost his job tomorrow, we just like lost all the income.

[George Campbell]

I would.

[Whitney Campbell]

Because it means so much to me to stay home. I would truly, like, move into like an apartment or something, which that's not a bad thing to do. Just saying, like, going from a home to an apartment would be very hard for some people. There are, like, major lifestyle changes that I would be willing to do just to like, have these years, because I didn't have that with my parents. And I think it does matter a lot for me personally, so.

[Abby]

Right. I think that's the key there, is that, like, people want to continue to have their same lifestyle and not work. And then that's just.

[Matt]

Which.

[Whitney Campbell]

I get it. It's hard.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Abby]

That's just the math problem of it. It's like, well, it's not going to add up then.

[Matt]

And this question is from Diana. How does Whitney put up with George's tight financial decisions?

[George Campbell]

I ask the Lord every day. I still don't know.

[Whitney Campbell]

Let's see your tight ones. I do feel like clothing can be, like, our biggest one that he doesn't understand.

[Matt]

You're kidding. Why clothing?

[Whitney Campbell]

I think it's because as a female and I've had two babies, now I don't know my size.

[George Campbell]

So.

[Abby]

Say it.

[Whitney Campbell]

Sometimes I, like, go to, like, if Old Navy's having a crazy sale, I need to buy, like, three of the, like, of course, these pants in different sizes because I don't know what I am.

[Abby]

Right.

[Whitney Campbell]

And so he just sees the initial, like, coming through. I'm obviously not spending more than we

[Matt]

have budget thousand dollars at Old Navy.

[Whitney Campbell]

Like, it might be. Truly. It might be a couple hundred. But it's because I know I'm going to return almost all of it.

[George Campbell]

It's just the girl math. So she'll immediately tell me, hey, just

[Whitney Campbell]

so you know that I do that. So the. That's where I get, like, you know, I don't ever shop. Like, come on.

[George Campbell]

And truthfully, I'm never angry. It's just more like, wait, what? What was this?

[Whitney Campbell]

That just came up?

[George Campbell]

You know, that's how I think it's

[Abby]

the question of popcorn.

[Matt]

Oh, I was just like, wait. Just making sure we didn't get.

[George Campbell]

That's always what I did. Did you just spend 200? If you get transaction alerts on every.

[Matt]

Every transaction.

[Abby]

And I. So I called him right away. I was like, hey, you're gonna see something crazy. And then literally his response was, you just feeling generous today?

[Matt]

And I was like, whoever this entrepreneur is that started this, like, kids popcorn company, they're probably loaded. Genie, because it was like, 10 bags of popcorn. It's like a teeny little bag.

[Abby]

It was 24 bags of popcorn.

[Matt]

I bet you this cost him 20 bucks to make the popcorn. And this dude just pocketed $230 less good popcorn. I'm sure he gave, like, 20 bucks to the kids that sold the popcorn.

[George Campbell]

Maybe.

[Whitney Campbell]

You know, it does trigger me, though, when he sees a text come through the amount, he'll text me about it. And I'm like, I'm allowed to spend this money. But really he's had identity theft, so he's trying to make sure, like, someone else is.

[Abby]

And I feel like maybe you can, like. Matt is very, like, much a stickler with the finances, but that actually makes me feel safe when he's, like, very, like, strict about things and, like, sees things coming through.

[Whitney Campbell]

I'm like, Like, I prefer the strict over somebody.

[Matt]

Yeah. We invest more than. Than what we spend.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. Like your savings rate.

[Matt]

I'm kind of treating our job like we're professional athletes. Cause professional athletes, like, it all goes away one day. And the longer we do this, I'm like, hey, maybe this actually isn't going to go away. But I'm treating it like it will. Cause I just don't want to be stuck in a situation where me, a college dropout that dropped out of College to do TikToks, like, not much job security there. Yeah. Right. But so we're just playing it safe. And I feel like, well, you never

[Whitney Campbell]

know what's going to happen. Like 2020, some people lost their jobs. So it's like, you never know.

[Matt]

So I rather. And that's why a big goal of our for this next year is to pay off our house. Because I think it'd be. I think I would just sleep better knowing that our house is paid off cash. And it's so nice.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Okay, so this is from Zoe. She said, how do they discuss finances together? Is it weekly meetings? Random times? And I'm honestly curious how you're gonna answer this, because I would love to learn how we can have more money conversations.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. I will say this. We used to do, like, very formal sort of budget meeting.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And now it's become more conversational. Usually like a Sunday check in kind of before the week starts. Hey, what's going on this week?

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

What do we need to be thinking about? Do we need to move any money over?

[Whitney Campbell]

And honestly, with little kid, you're so exhausted, like, say he'll start giving, like, his, like, money rundown. And I just. I was literally telling, I can't handle it right now. I need to go to sleep. Like, it's hard. Like, you have to choose the right time.

[Abby]

If he starts throwing numbers or acronyms at me. No acronyms.

[Matt]

Like, I was gonna talk to you about ETFs mutual funds. And I was like, that. She was like, can we not bring that up in the conversation? Like, I don't know.

[George Campbell]

You basically turn a SW off in her brain.

[Abby]

I said, I accidentally just stopped listening, and I literally just didn't mean to, but it's. I knew it's because you said an acronym.

[George Campbell]

Just call me if you want to talk ETFs. I'll be happy to.

[Matt]

I love Voo. I'm a Vanguard guy. I love Vanguard.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, it's a solid fund.

[Matt]

Huge fan.

[Abby]

We got to get to green.

[George Campbell]

Oh, yeah. Talking about it regularly is better than trying to make one big meeting happen where it feels so formal. So just kind of make it a regular pattern.

[Matt]

And last question before we get to agree, disagree. This is from Shelly Ann. How do you start saving? So many of us are living paycheck to paycheck with no wiggle room. I'm just sensing a lot of fear from Shelly Ann because that's. I think, a lot of people. A lot of people.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Well, 4 in 10 people don't have anything in savings. $0 in savings. And so they fall into that bucket of. When you're paycheck to paycheck, you're like, well, I don't have any money to put in savings. And so that's where the budget becomes your best friend. Because when you lay it all out, number one, you feel better, because it's not all in your mind floating. It's real numbers on paper. It's facts. Because if you know, well, hey, based on what I made this month and what I spent, I'm a 500 bucks in the hole this month. That's six grand over a year if I continue this. So that's when you go, what can I cut from this budget? There's probably subscriptions that I forgot to cancel. There's probably ways that I could be spending less on groceries. I could cut eating out completely. I don't need that gym membership right now. I can scale down. Yeah. I can try to make more and do a side job for a season. And. And so all of those things help, because it's the way to get margin is spend less and make more. Only way to do it. Yeah. And then you take that first. It's like eating your vegetables first. Put the money in savings before it has a chance to slip through your fingers into spending.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So cover your four walls. You know, food, utility, shelter, transportation, cover your insurance. But beyond that, make it a priority to put that money aside so that you don't see it.

[Matt]

That's good.

[George Campbell]

And our new EveryDollar app actually has a really amazing onboarding experience where we'll help make recommendations for how to find that margin in just 15 minutes. And so it's a great one to go download and try out.

[Abby]

Support for today's episode comes from Square. And they've got big news. During Square's biannual release event, they launched a wave of innovative new tools to help local businesses run faster, smarter, and more profitably. From AI that answers your toughest business questions to tech that simplifies food orders and tracks every dollar. It's all live, and it's built for businesses like you are yours. Whether you're starting from fresh or scaling fast, Square helps you keep up and get ahead.

[Matt]

I'm always impressed when there's kids selling hot chocolate in the neighborhoods using Square. Because one time I was like, oh, babe, we can't buy the hot chocolate. And guess what? This kid had the Square ready to go. We could use our credit card. We could use Apple Pay, whatever. If you're shopping around local businesses in your area, chances are they're using Square. Square launched its most powerful tools yet, designed to give local businesses a competitive edge without the complexity. If you're ready to sell smarter, run faster, and stress less, right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com. go unplanned. That's S Q U-A-R-E dot com. Go unplanned. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Okay, and I know we're running out of time, so I want to get into. Agree to disagree if you need to leave. By the way, like, I don't want to leave you hostage, so.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, but this is my top priority.

[Matt]

Wow, thank you. You want to. Do. Agree to. Can we start with this? Okay, you just actually, no, wait, you do it.

[Abby]

Start with which one?

[Matt]

Start with the last one. That one's a fire. One that, like. Okay, agree to disagree. Question. I'm so.

[Abby]

That wants to come in hot.

[Matt]

I'm coming in hot.

[Abby]

The government needs to step in to fix America's housing problem. Agree or disagree?

[Matt]

Three, two, one. Agree.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Matt]

Oh, no.

[Whitney Campbell]

Disagree. But it's because I honestly have not. I don't know enough.

[Matt]

Wait, why? Okay, so why do you say disagree? Why do you say agree?

[George Campbell]

Based on the actual problem with housing right now, which is supply and demand, there's just not enough homes on the market, and so there are things that the government can do. Now, you know me. I'm not a fan of the government solving your life's problems 100%. But I do think government regulation I saw this on could change to free up more homes to be built, which would then actually you know, increase the supply and lower the price.

[Matt]

And couldn't they put a stop to all the. I don't know if it's private equity or investment groups that are just buying up all these single family homes and jacking up rates for everyday Americans.

[George Campbell]

Yes. I just saw that bill come through to stop that.

[Matt]

Now that's happening.

[George Campbell]

When you look into it, it feels like a bigger problem than it is because when you look at the numbers, it's like 1 or 2%. So is it going to move the needle? Probably not. But it is a good thing to do. Absolutely.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so that will help. Obviously the rates coming down, that could help. It could hurt. Because think about it. If rates go down, people flood the market. Well, now home prices are gonna go up. You have more competition.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You get nine people bidding on that same house and they have more buying power. So people will just raise the price and go. People will pay more. So I don't think interest rates is actually the solution. I do think it's looser regulation and allowing home builders to build more homes. That's what we need right now. And we need the boomers to sell their homes they've been sitting on. Yeah. Which, that's where interest rates coming down could help because people go, well, I'm willing to move now because I'm not tied to my golden handcuff, low interest rate. I can actually switch homes, which frees up more inventory.

[Matt]

Yeah. And buying a house for most Americans is where we build wealth. Right. For a lot of people in America, that's kind of like their almost like built in savings account in a way. Not that it should be their only savings account.

[George Campbell]

No, it's a forced savings plan. We found in our millionaire study that about a third of their net worth was their home.

[Matt]

No way.

[George Campbell]

And so you think about it, that's a big chunk of your millionaire status and net worth is your home. And it's not going to create income. But you know, it's still something. It's an asset.

[Matt]

I'm actually so curious, what percentage of your net worth does your house make up, if you don't mind me asking right now.

[George Campbell]

It's too much. I would say it's over. It's over 50% right now. Okay. That's because we went so hard. Our focus was, yeah, let's create a beautiful home.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Because that's Whitney's office. Yeah. Like that's where she works. That was our main focus. We don't do big trips. I don't have any hobbies. Our Home was the main thing. So over time, what will happen is compound growth and investments will take over. So the house will end up being a smaller and smaller part of our world every year.

[Matt]

Can we get people fired up for a second about compound interest? Because I think that was the first

[George Campbell]

thing I ever learned about, the last thing they need to get fired up about.

[Matt]

I want to get back to agree to disagree, but I think the reason I became such a big Dave fan when I was 19 and read his book as someone that wanted to get married young, was I learned the numbers of compound interest. And it just, it made me so excited to save. Cause I was like, wait, so you're telling me if I live like no one else right now, and my friends make fun of me for not buying ice cream for a dollar, we go out for ice cream and I just save as much as I can. I'm just a psycho about it, and I put all this money aside. You're telling me that like 20, 30, 50 years from now, it's going to like 10, 20x? I mean, it doesn't 20x?

[George Campbell]

No, I mean, if you're young, think about it. Every dollar you put into an investment, if you're in your 20 twenties, is worth $20. So you put in a dollar, you're gonna get $20 back.

[Matt]

Wait, wait, hold up. So you're talking like 50 years. So you put money aside, assuming 10 interest. Because that's like what the market ish does. You're saying put money aside in your 20s, 50 years later, that $1 will turn into $20.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. Think about if you put a thousand dollars in, it could be $200,000.

[Matt]

That's crazy.

[George Campbell]

Decades from now.

[Matt]

That's crazy.

[George Campbell]

And so as you get older, that same dollar is worth less. If you're in your 50s and you put a dollar in, you might get $2 out.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

For every dollar you put in. And so that's where starting early is so important. And if you're young, like, you have time on your side, that is your greatest asset.

[Matt]

And we're assuming that we're not touching this money. But what about the person that's like 40 or 50, and they're like, oh, shoot, I'm just learning about this now. I need to get money fast. What do they do?

[George Campbell]

It's not too late. You can still. I mean, if you've got another decade or two of a working career, you can build some serious wealth. But you have to get serious and knock out the debt, get the emergency fund, and then start investing Heavily. So you have time to catch up.

[Whitney Campbell]

I'm just so nerdy about this that he lost like hours of sleep the other night just looking at the compound interest of if he kept working this amount of time.

[Abby]

Sleep, interest, calculator right now.

[George Campbell]

And I'm like, how about this? The girls go shopping and we'll crunch some numbers.

[Abby]

Yep.

[Matt]

They go to Old Navy, get some clothes. Yeah. And all the different sizes they want. And we'll, we'll do a compound interest party. Okay. Sorry. Agree.

[George Campbell]

Whoa.

[Abby]

We have so many. Let's just do these quick. Buying a house without a credit score is easy.

[Matt]

Three, two, one. Disagree.

[George Campbell]

Agree.

[Abby]

Agree. Matt, you've never done it, though.

[George Campbell]

It's easy.

[Matt]

Never done it.

[George Campbell]

It's easy if you do the prerequisite steps. Okay.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

It's hard if you're, I mean, if you're in debt, you can't do it. So it's easy if you've become debt free and have savings in the bank to actually do it.

[Matt]

So you're just, you're just basically with manual underwriting, no credit score, you're sending over some extra documentation to prove that you can pay the loan.

[George Campbell]

The actual process of getting the loan is not that difficult if you're, you qualify and follow the steps.

[Matt]

But what if you can get a lower interest rate by. By doing the automatic underwriting?

[George Campbell]

That's the thing. If you do it my way, I will get the same interest rate as you, who has an excellent score.

[Matt]

No way.

[George Campbell]

People don't understand that. That's why I said 15 year fixed with. And I actually worked this math out with a mortgage loan officer, which you

[Matt]

guys, you, you have on the Dave Ramsey website. You have like, like Churchill Mortgage. Yeah. Church Churchill Mortgage. Is that who will do manual underwriting?

[George Campbell]

They're, they're the number one in the country. They specialize in it because our fans go to them.

[Matt]

I love it. That's amazing. I love that we're.

[George Campbell]

That's why I called. I said, hey, show me who's going to get a better interest rate. And if you do 15 year fix, 10% down, at least I'll get the same rate as you. A lot of things considered, it's fine

[Abby]

to keep small financial secrets from your spouse.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, major disagree.

[Matt]

Three, two, one, disagree. Why do you guys say disagree? Disagree.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, that's horrible.

[George Campbell]

I mean, now that obviously, if it's small, it's one thing, but what I found is it starts to spiral. And if there's a problem, there's so much shame and guilt and fear around it that it stays a secret and it eats that person up while compounding the problem. And so I think financial infidelity is. It's. It's the reason people get divorced over money is because someone was hiding something, someone was controlling something, and there's just not that honesty and trans.

[Whitney Campbell]

Well, this is an extreme. An extreme example, but, like, an affair doesn't just happen. It's like these little steps that, like, get to that. So I feel like just the small lies over time is what lead to the big ones.

[Matt]

That's good. Is it. When you guys see this on the show, is it usually gambling? Like, what's the most common reason people are not being financially transparent with their spouse?

[George Campbell]

Well, usually it's. They don't have. They don't have a shared bank account. And so it's easier to cause financial infidelity when. Well, it's my money and his money. We have a shared account we pay bills from, but otherwise I get to do what I want with it. Yeah, that's dangerous because your spouse might wake up and go, wait, you have $7,000 in savings? Savings. And I'm struggling over here to do xyz.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

That's where it causes a lot of friction. And sometimes I dig in. I go, what is he actually spending that money on? Or she's spending that money on? Because sometimes there is a moral failure. There is some gambling happening, some infidelity happening. And so again, if you have total transparency, you have a shared bank account, it is so much harder to screw this up. And that's why we do that.

[Matt]

So then what's your take on prenups? Couples that do a prenup, are you for that or against that?

[George Campbell]

It makes sense in certain situations. For the average couple, it just doesn't make sense.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Now, if one person comes in and they have like, a family business that's worth a ton of money, or they come in with worth $2 million and this person is in debt, yes, it can make sense, but it's more to protect each other from crazy family members than it is of a distrust.

[Matt]

That makes sense.

[George Campbell]

So it makes sense for fewer people than you would think. Okay, but I'm not anti. It's all about the motives and what's the heart behind. Behind it. Because if it comes out of a distrust. Yeah, don't do it.

[Matt]

It's like, why are you even getting married then?

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Yes.

[Abby]

This one says a couple should be financially stable before having kids. This. We just talked about this, and we couldn't come to like 3, 2, 1. They said that's what I said.

[Matt]

Really? Well, we were financially stable before having kids.

[Abby]

Yes, I know, but I was.

[George Campbell]

You said, should they?

[Abby]

Yeah, yeah. Should they?

[George Campbell]

And so we always say that having a baby is not a baby step. If you want to have a baby, have a baby.

[Abby]

I love that.

[George Campbell]

And just know you're gonna have to make sacrifices.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Will it be so much easier if you have no debt and money in the bank? Absolutely. You'll have less stress. But I'd never tell someone, hey, wait until you're completely debt free with savings to have a kid. Because we know in this world it might be really difficult for you to have a kid, especially as you get older. And so if you want to start a family, start it.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

The financial part, we'll deal with that after. We're gonna have to make sacrifices.

[Matt]

I guess speaking from experience, for me, the change of, like, oh, my time is not my own now was, like, hard to get through. Like, I got, like, low key women get postpartum. Somehow I got postpartum. I was like, why am I depressed right now? I don't know. But I got through it. I got through it. And I feel like if I would have had the financial stress on top of that, I mean, I ended up getting on antidepressants. But hey, I mean, like, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do.

[George Campbell]

No, but it's true. It adds more stress if you are in a financial bind. Yeah.

[Abby]

I already know what you're gonna say to this one, but generosity should come after you're out of debt.

[Matt]

Three, two, one. Disagree.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, I love it.

[Matt]

Why? Why should you be generous even if you're in debt?

[George Campbell]

I've just found that if you are a generous person, it's a habit that you have throughout your life. And I love what Rachel Cruz says, give a little until you can give a lot.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so it's hard to actually turn the switch on when you've been so intense to then say, well, I'll be generous when I have this amount.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Because the goalpost always moves. And so I found that if you're generous and when you're broke, you're going to be super generous when you have money. And if you're a stingy jerk when you're broke, you're going to be a stingy rich jerk later on.

[Matt]

If you were in my position in December of 2025, where I liquidated the emergency fund to make our charitable contributions, would you have done the same thing? Would you have kept the Emergency fund and just funded the done charity maybe a month later when the money came in.

[George Campbell]

Precisely.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

I would have not, because what you did is you kind of added risk to your own family.

[Matt]

I did.

[George Campbell]

To be like, well, I have to get. Like, it became almost like. Like a rule of, like, well, I have to give. And I would have just said, hey, let's wait. You can do a big, generous gift later on January once we have money outside of the emergency fund. But it worked out for you.

[Abby]

Renting is throwing money away.

[Matt]

Three, two, one. Disagree.

[George Campbell]

What do you think bothers me?

[Matt]

What do you think about why? Why do you disagree with that, Whitney?

[Whitney Campbell]

Man, I want George to give his Ramsey answer. I feel like he does give boo Ramsey answers.

[Matt]

We got a lot of questions for you. And he. Women want to hear what you have to say. I mean, I feel, by the way, I feel so honored that you came on our show.

[George Campbell]

Can I tell you, I was legitimately shocked. I was like, hey, they asked you if you want to be on the podcast.

[Whitney Campbell]

It's the amount of sleep I don't get these days was made it scary, but it's been fun. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

I told her. I was like, they're going to be a great time.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

But I totally understand if you don't, like, your job is not to be on camera. Yeah. But she has so much more wisdom than me that I was excited for her to come on.

[Abby]

I think people like hearing the women's side of things. Yeah. Because sometimes we have people on. They're like, well, who's buying all the groceries? The daily things for the kids.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, that's true. So to answer your question about renting, like, my parents are in this situation right now. They want to move to this area, but it is so expensive to buy a house. And so to them, they're like, we don't want to rent because it's throwing away money. And I'm like, no, that actually buys you time to keep saving for what you want.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

And also, I know the rent is high, but you're not doing it forever. So it's like, then you can get something more that you want and you have more security around it instead of just throwing all of your money into this big home purchase.

[Abby]

So, yeah, my parents rent so they can live close to us.

[Whitney Campbell]

Oh, that's awesome. See, Mom? Listen to that.

[Matt]

Literally two minutes from each other. It's so fun.

[Whitney Campbell]

Amazing.

[George Campbell]

And the math says that renting mathematically is actually a better move for most people right now.

[Abby]

No, she's literally like, it's a brand new apartment. She's like, something broke. They just come and say, we're losing

[Matt]

money on our rentals right now.

[George Campbell]

There you go. The person who's renting it is.

[Matt]

You know, that's. That's why I changed my strategy at first. I was like, we're going to. The passive income of real estate's amazing. We're going to own all these rentals. And I'm like, actually, it makes way more sense when you look at the numbers to just keep putting money in the market. Keep. We just keep, you know, investing in ETFs, because you don't have to manage an ETF. It's just. You just buy and hold.

[George Campbell]

That's truly passive income instead of real estate. So I'm a big fan of that.

[Abby]

This one says, financial freedom matters more than loving your job.

[Matt]

Three, two, one. A good. Oh, I say agree. I would say agree. Because the stress of debt and the stress of money problems can be so overwhelming that, like, having the job you love doesn't even matter anymore because you're just so stressed out.

[George Campbell]

I was taking it this way. Financial freedom matters more than loving your job. Is saying, I will work a job I don't like if it gives me more financial stability.

[Matt]

Wait, did I answer that wrong?

[George Campbell]

I think so. I think you're on the.

[Abby]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. No. Okay. I changed my answer to George's answer. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Cheated off of my. But, yeah, I see this a lot. This guy literally called the Ramsey show and says, hey, I only want to make a ton of money. I want to get rich. I don't care what the job is. I said, you are doing this completely backwards to do a job you hate, to make money so that you can have freedom. That's. That was his goal. And I was like, you won't survive it.

[Matt]

I think it's a balance. Like, I think it's you. It's good to take a season of living like no one else so that one day you can live like no one else be. Because that hard season is so worth it. It's like going to the gym five days a week for a month and eating right. And then you look at yourself after a couple months and you're like, look at what I did. I feel great. I'm in an amazing place. That's kind of how I look at it.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I just see them as connected. I think you should do the job you love and have that help you lead to financial freedom, because you're gonna excel in it, you're gonna want to grow in that field. You're gonna want to become an expert, which in turn, you make more money, and that leads to that financial freedom. So don't do a job you hate for the money, please.

[Abby]

I'm kind of surprised you said that. Actually. Splurging on travel is never worth it.

[Matt]

Three, two, one. Disagree.

[Abby]

Oh, but you guys aren't big travelers.

[George Campbell]

I mean, I'd like to be, but right now I can't leave my house. Is the problem with five month old, two babies, and a purple dog.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, but no, we.

[George Campbell]

I think splurging on travel is worth it if you do it with cash.

[Matt]

Yeah. I mean, it's fun to go to Disney World.

[George Campbell]

That's the key.

[Matt]

Vacations.

[George Campbell]

You know, splurging to me feels like I'm gonna splurge and put it extra on my credit card.

[Abby]

I do agree splurging does kind of insinuate you don't have nothing.

[George Campbell]

Feels like a splurge because it's all within our means. And so it's kind of like splurging doesn't exist if you're doing it our way.

[Abby]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You know, but yeah, I do think as you get older and you become more financially stable, take the nicer trip.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Skip the one with a layover. I just did that for Whitney for Backstreet Boys. I had booked her one with a layover over because it was like 200 cheaper.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And then it weighed on me and I was like, gosh, she's finally getting away. She deserves to have a direct flight. And so I ponied up and I switched the flight and paid the difference.

[Matt]

We're a. No, we. Yeah, we fly economy. We don't fly business or anything, but

[Abby]

when we fly frontier allegiant.

[Matt]

But we like to go direct.

[Abby]

Well, just because it can mess up

[George Campbell]

your whole travel, that to me, is a splurge.

[Abby]

College isn't worth it.

[Matt]

Three, two, one.

[George Campbell]

Disagree.

[Matt]

Agree.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, agree. Wait. Saying it is not worth it.

[Matt]

I think it's not worth it.

[Whitney Campbell]

Yeah, same.

[George Campbell]

I am. Listen, you're talking to the guy who thinks most people shouldn't go to college. Wait, no. As a blanket statement to say it's not worth it I think is a little too. You know.

[Matt]

Reading your book, though, I was shocked at how many people have student loans. I was shocked at the average cost of private university is like over 50 grand, and people are taking out debt.

[George Campbell]

So let's caveat it. Going to a super expensive school for a degree that Won't really turn into a great job. And going into crippling debt, not worth horrible decision. But if it's a field that you're going to be working in, this is what you really want to do. And you leave without student loan debt. I would say it's totally worth it. You know, education itself is worth it, but paying the price of 200 grand in student loans to go to some name brand school for the experience, that's the stupidity that I'm seeing.

[Matt]

And isn't it honestly the parents that are pushing their kids into this. I haven't given my mom enough credit. Thank goodness. My mom encouraged me to go to the cheap state school with Abby because we followed each other to college and both went into the acting program at

[George Campbell]

Missouri School, by the way.

[Abby]

No, we just wanted to go together.

[Matt]

We auditioned at 20 different acting and musical theater schools because we wanted to go to school together. And we're like, we need to find one that we both get into. Into. And so my mom encouraged me to go to the cheap state school, which was totally moved because after a semester I was like, I kind of want to get married and acting's not going to pay the bills. So I'm going to. I'm going to like switch this. I'm going to go into finance.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And then the tick tock ended up working out and I dropped out. So it all.

[George Campbell]

And if you dropped out and had 100 grand in student loans, that changes your options.

[Matt]

No debt changes the job.

[George Campbell]

You have to work.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so that's. That's. I. It was a caveat.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

I can't say it as a blanket statement, but I agree. In most cases places, it's a waste of time.

[Abby]

The wealth disparity in America is getting greater because the rich.

[Matt]

The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poor.

[Abby]

I think that's what this is meant to say.

[Matt]

Okay, three, two, one.

[George Campbell]

Disagree.

[Whitney Campbell]

Ooh.

[George Campbell]

Well, because the. Because was the part because the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer?

[Matt]

Maybe. Let's rephrase it. Let's just say.

[George Campbell]

But is the wealth disparity growing?

[Matt]

The wealth disparities growing? Yes, I agree. Which is sad, honestly. Yeah, it's really sad. And I hope we've seen post Covid.

[George Campbell]

What happened is housing skyrocketed. So if you were a homeowner or you had multiple homes, you just got a whole lot wealthier. The stock market last few years has gangbusters 16% up, 23% up, 22% up. So if you are investing, you've done really well.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And if you were broke, not doing any of that, you've sort of stayed where you are while inflation took over.

[Matt]

That makes sense.

[George Campbell]

That is true, that there is a growing gap because of that, but I rebuke the idea of that. It's because of the rich that I am poor.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Now, are there situations where there's corporate greed and private equity ruining things? Sure.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

But you got to look in the mirror and go, I control the job that I have, the skills that I have, the education that I have, the way I spend my money. And so that to me is. You got to take personal responsibility too and go, I'm going to climb above the suck bar and not be average and not stay broke.

[Matt]

Would you say if a poor person came to you right now, like, I want to. To build wealth for my family, I want to be out of debt. What do I do? What would you tell them in, like, one sentence?

[George Campbell]

Your income is your greatest wealth building tool. And so we've got to work on your income. It's really hard to become a millionaire making minimum wage your whole life. And so that doesn't need. People are like, we need to raise minimum wage. I'm like, or just make more than that. Yes. And. But you need to go find a way to make more money and you're not stuck where you are. And so find a way to do something that you love to do. Do that you can make good money.

[Matt]

Would you hand them a copy of your book as well? Like, here's.

[George Campbell]

I honestly would. I would give them every dollar and my book as like a. Here's a primer that I hope encourages you and motivates you, because that's what they need. They need hope. They don't need a game plan and ETF to invest in.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

They need hope that they aren't stuck where they are.

[Matt]

And that's why. That's why the debt snowball is so powerful, because you pay off that smallest debt first and it gets you fired up to keep going. Right.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Matt]

That's good. If someone asks you, should I read Breaking Free from Broke or Total Money Makeover, which one would you.

[George Campbell]

You say, if it's a younger person. I honestly would say Breaking Free from Broke. If they're Gen Z millennial, I think my book would. Because my book is. It was made for that crowd who's like, I need something that is speaking to me for where I'm at in this current economy with humor. And Dave's book is still the goat. I mean, you can't be total money makeover. So I can't compete with Dave.

[Matt]

So maybe should we have George choose the last one?

[Abby]

No, this. There's only one left. And it segues nicely, but it's also really.

[George Campbell]

Is it hot One?

[Matt]

Spicy.

[George Campbell]

Oh.

[Matt]

What is it?

[Abby]

The wealthy don't pay their fair share in taxes.

[Matt]

Oh, dang. That is a hot one. Two, one.

[George Campbell]

Disagree.

[Matt]

I don't even know. I go back and forth because I feel like every time people are like, raise the taxes, the rich figure out a way or they figure out a loophole and then the middle class gets hit with the tax bill. Right.

[George Campbell]

You are correct. So I feel like legal loopholes. Because when you think about it. Because now we gotta define wealthy people. Because I'll tell you right now, I pay a crap ton in taxes. As a W2 employee who doesn't run a business, like, it hurts my soul to see how much I pay in taxes. Now, if you're a billionaire, like, you're Elon Musk. Well, think about it. He doesn't have income.

[Matt]

He doesn't have cash.

[George Campbell]

He owns stock in his company, so he can borrow against that without paying taxes on it and continually avoid paying giant amounts. But his company, I mean, I'll tell you, our business, Ramsey Solutions, the amount we have to send to the government to exist and make money is insane.

[Matt]

Is that public information?

[George Campbell]

I don't know, but I know it's. I know it's millions and millions of dollars, you know, that we paid the government in taxes. So to say that I think people don't understand and they're looking for someone to blame. And it's easy to say, well, if they just paid more taxes, it would be easier on me. But do I think the tax code should change? Absolutely.

[Matt]

How should it change?

[George Campbell]

I think a flat tax would be a good move. Move.

[Matt]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And moving to consumption taxes versus income tax. Tennessee doesn't have state income tax, so it's one of the best places to be.

[Matt]

Consumption taxes.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Whitney Campbell]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

So, like, think about the vices in people's lives. I won't charge more for that. If you want to buy cigarettes, you know, and you want to gamble and buy lottery tickets, let's charge high taxes on that stuff.

[Matt]

But don't poor people fall prey to those things? Like, is. Is it. Don't, Don't. Doesn't. Like the lottery industry and the cigarette

[George Campbell]

industry predatory towards lower income areas.

[Matt]

Yeah. And like, just like the credit card card industry, like, that's another reason why I thought of cutting up my credit card just because it made me mad that when I do get the points and the. The miles and all that, it's because the credit card companies make money off of poor people.

[George Campbell]

It's. It's subsidized by people who paid interest, you know, are broke in part by that, plus their fees that they charge.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Small business owners.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

For people using their credit card.

[Matt]

I hate when the little guy gets screwed. I don't like that.

[George Campbell]

Agree. And so this is not me saying I think the wealthy, you know, should do nothing, but I think this is not the main problem. Problem is that wealthy people aren't paying taxes, and therefore I'm broke.

[Matt]

George Whitney, it was seriously such a pleasure getting to sit down with you both today. Where's the best place for people to connect with you on socials?

[George Campbell]

Oregon is the place to find me. The book is Breaking free from broke. The budgeting tool is called everydollar. You can get it in the app store. And I mean, Whitney's not really.

[Whitney Campbell]

I'm on private.

[George Campbell]

So, yeah, good luck. You can keep up with her through me.

[Matt]

There we go.

[Abby]

There you go.

[Matt]

Well, guys, thanks for tuning in and we will see you in the next episode.

[George Campbell]

Peace out, dude.

[Whitney Campbell]

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[George Campbell]

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[Abby]

But there's just one thing holding you back.

[Whitney Campbell]

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[George Campbell]

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[Whitney Campbell]

What is this place?

[George Campbell]

We help you reach your true potential. How are you feeling?

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It's good to be Hawaii.

[Matt]

Hey, new girl.

[George Campbell]

Hey.

[Whitney Campbell]

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[George Campbell]

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[Matt]

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[George Campbell]

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[Whitney Campbell]

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