00:00.00 George Kamel ladies go, wow, assisted in sheep earthing. Let's say, all right, first date, here we go. 00:05.17 nextlevelguypodcast It's more put me on a list to don't go near again, ever again. It's um it's an unusual skill, but um yeah, we're we're feeding them just now. 00:10.57 George Kamel Wow. 00:15.67 nextlevelguypodcast So they start lambing in a couple of months, well, a couple weeks. And yeah, it's not a usual thing you see written on a profile, but... 00:20.46 George Kamel Wow. 00:26.22 George Kamel ah ah it's It's one of those fun facts. You've got to stay yeah top of mind unique, and now I'll never forget that. It'll be burned in my memory. 00:33.48 nextlevelguypodcast Well, how's things today? 00:37.41 George Kamel Great. this it's It's Friday here. 00:39.02 nextlevelguypodcast ah 00:40.74 George Kamel you know ah What time is it over there? 00:40.88 nextlevelguypodcast oh It's just gone six minutes past three. 00:46.05 George Kamel Wow. Must be nice to be in the future. 00:49.21 nextlevelguypodcast Well, you know, I'm saving things. I'm like Iron Man here, but what can you do, you know? 00:54.09 George Kamel I love it. Well, I'm glad we finally made this happen. 00:57.16 nextlevelguypodcast So, i right well, do you want to just go straight into it Is there anything you want to ask beforehand? Anything you want to avoid answering? 01:02.84 George Kamel No, unless there's something you want me to have prepared, like if there's a bunch of numbers or something you need me to have, but if it's general financial stuff, I'm ready. 01:10.51 nextlevelguypodcast Well, we'll throw in all the the music and stuff like that, but i'm I'm delighted to have you on. I've been a fan for so long now. And you're one of those guys that you just can't help but trust. 01:18.04 George Kamel means the world. 01:22.94 nextlevelguypodcast But for people who don't recognize you and they should be ashamed, how would you introduce yourself? 01:28.63 George Kamel Oh, man. How would I introduce myself? I would say i'm the i was the average George. I had immigrant parents and grew up falling for all the money traps that most people do. 01:39.73 George Kamel you know Some student loans, some credit cards, trying to build my credit score, trying to get you know education and go to college to... Pursue the opportunity in the American dream. And I found myself frustrated, anxious, stressed out, depressed going. This can't be it. 01:55.39 George Kamel Like sitting there with 40,000 in debt going. This is it. I don't even make 40,000. How am I ever going to pay this off? Like, how am I going to buy a house and and travel and do all the things I want to do? And so I found the Ramsey plan, got an internship here at Ramsey back in 2013, and it changed my life. And I got out of that consumer debt in 18 months, met my wife here at Ramsey. 02:15.66 George Kamel We bought our first home together, started off our marriage debt free, paid off our home in our early 30s and became net worth millionaires a year after that. And so I'm now in my mid 30s going, my gosh, like, 02:27.19 George Kamel If a knucklehead like me who made a bunch of money mistakes can turn it around and go from negative net worth to millionaire in 10 years, like I got to get this message out there that it's possible for all the other average Georges and Joes and Ians out there. 02:39.92 nextlevelguypodcast because I'm a major fan of your Breaking Free from Broke book. I put it on Audible, and it's like you're just talking to me, telling me where I was going wrong all those years. But I find... 02:49.47 George Kamel Thank you. It sounds so much cooler when you say it, by the way. I wish you would have read the audio book. 02:54.75 nextlevelguypodcast I find, well, it's a Scottish accent, of course, you know. I find that a lot of, if we're the first generation where we're actually living on debt. Where, you know, it's cool to owe money, to buy the latest pair of trainers and rather, you know, not be able, like what's it they said in one of the films, it's they can afford a Lamborghini, but they haven't got enough to fill the tank of fuel. 03:15.76 nextlevelguypodcast You know, it's the you living off borrowed image. What did you notice, because your parents are um from the Middle East and Africa, what did you notice about the more traditional values towards money of from those countries compared to this consumerism, all image-driven crap that we have over here? 03:35.28 George Kamel Well, the the funniest thing is I get messages from people all over the world, and they go, George, over here, like it's normal to use debit. It's weird to use credit. like You would be made fun of if you financed furniture. 03:46.32 George Kamel and In America, it's it's celebrated. They're like, oh, you made the wise decision. That's really smart. Get the 0% financing. And so what I found is that there is a unique piece of American culture that says debt is a way of life. 03:57.92 George Kamel Debt is the path to wealth. Debt is normal. It's okay to have debt. Everyone has it. It's just part of your everyday breathing. And I thought that can't be right because it wasn't long ago where we didn't have access to all of this debt. We didn't have the credit score to tell us how we were doing financially. 04:17.19 George Kamel All of this was newer. and Like we're talking a few decades, all everything shifted in America. 04:20.73 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 04:22.66 George Kamel And, you know, it's it's the dark. This is the kind of the dark side of capitalism. But debt makes a lot of money when you charge someone six percent interest on a mortgage and twenty five percent APR on the credit card and nine percent on the car loan. 04:35.19 George Kamel The lenders and banks, if you go downtown, all the skyscrapers have their name on it. All the stadiums have their name on it. And so you're making a lot of money while keeping everyone else broke. And we're sitting here shaking our fists at the sky, wondering who's going to fix it because this all just happened to us and we had nothing to do with it. 04:51.69 George Kamel And inflation and the president, they got it. And it's like you got to look in the mirror at some point and go, man, I i did some stupid stuff. I was of an accomplice in these financial crimes and I'm the one who's going to fix it. 05:02.81 George Kamel I'm the solution. 05:04.44 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's the thing, isn't No one wants to take ownership of it. It's always someone else's fault of why you're bad with money. or But that's the thing. If money is a building block of the world and it makes the world go round, it keeps us fed, keeps us housed, etc., why are men so generally bad with it compared to what our grandfathers were? 05:24.73 nextlevelguypodcast what Have you seen that more attitude now of the the comparison, the likes, the instant gratification compared to proper values like our grandpas would have had? 05:35.32 George Kamel A hundred percent. I think, you know delayed gratification is is starting to just fade away as people go, no, but I want it now. Like everything in my life is now, you know, like I i don't two day shipping. I need it today. 05:47.78 George Kamel Do the overnight shipping. I can't wait that long. And so social media has made it worse. Technology has made it worse because we have access to everything 24 seven all the time. And no one gets to tell me I can't have it now. 06:00.18 George Kamel That's worthre basically like reverting to toddlers when it comes to money. What I found is the people who win with money have a more tortoise mentality versus the hare mentality. they're They're more of the crock pot instead of the microwave. 06:12.57 George Kamel And so they're OK moving at a slower pace, knowing this is the right path. I don't need to move as fast as my buddy over there, even though his life is actually not great. But Instagram makes me think it's great because he took a picture with his new car. 06:25.51 George Kamel But I don't see the $700 car payment he has to make every month. And so that's what's really happened. I think our older generations, they had common sense and they had to move at a slower pace. And now because we can move so much faster, that's all we know and it's all we want to do. 06:40.24 George Kamel But I found that, you know, even the Bible sells wealth wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. And so if you're getting rich slow, that is the best way to get rich fast. 06:52.24 George Kamel And the people who are trying to get rich fast, they're going fall on their face and they get real loud when things are going well. They get real quiet when things aren't going great. And I just want a more peaceful path. And that's what the Ramsey plan gave me. 07:03.34 George Kamel You just go, hey, don't owe people money. Have a bunch of money in the bank for emergencies and for a rainy day. Save up and pay cash for things you can actually afford in full and invest for the future. That's the crux of the Ramsey plan. And it's so controversial now because of how wayward our our culture has gone. 07:21.56 nextlevelguypodcast It's definitely something you see every day. it's like here's the best product ever. you know Yeah, buy that car you need. And then you get the financial statement said, it's supersonic speed with, here's your APR, da-da-da-da-da. And you look at the bottom of the screen, it's like, APR is 32%. And people are you can see people going, yeah, I need a new car. 07:40.91 nextlevelguypodcast And they've got a brand new one sitting out there. and How have you noticed our kind of... our beliefs about money, you know, because we we are dictated by society at the minute. 07:52.12 nextlevelguypodcast But do you have you noticed that people either have a fixed or growth mentality with money? They believe they can change. They believe they're good with money or bad to money. how How would you start even shaping somebody that they could be better with money? 08:05.44 George Kamel Well, a lot of it has to do with your past. I mean, that's what shapes you. So your childhood, the way you grew up with money, the money you didn't have growing up, the way your family handled money, the fights that your mom and dad had, ah the trauma that caused you to make certain decisions in life and go into debt, all of that factors into your mindset and mentality around money. 08:16.60 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 08:23.71 George Kamel And so what I found is we have to get to the root of what's causing it. And there's usually a fear around it. Maybe there's a scarcity mindset where you go, oh my gosh, I'll never have enough. And therefore, I'll never be wealthy. 08:35.27 George Kamel So therefore, I'll just leverage my life to have it now because I'll probably never really afford it. And if I can just afford the payment, I'll be okay for now. And that has backfired for so many Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck now because what they thought they could afford is is crushing them. 08:49.44 nextlevelguypodcast no 08:51.61 George Kamel And so when it comes to mindset, what's interesting on the flip side is we did a study of over 10,000 millionaires, the largest study ever done of net worth millionaires. And we asked an interesting question. 09:03.86 George Kamel do you believe you control your financial destiny? 09:17.49 George Kamel And the average person, we found that it was around 60%. And so that's a huge gap. But the people who actually created wealth believe they had control over it. And so that's a piece where people go, man, the world is going the way it's going. Inflation is crazy. The housing market's crazy. 09:34.49 George Kamel I'll never get ahead. And so if you believe that, what are you going to do? You're going to do nothing. You're going to make your minimum payments, keep accumulating some more payments here and there, and just hope to God that you can afford it for the rest of your life. 09:45.89 George Kamel And the people who win with money, who believe that they can actually build wealth, they go, life's too short to send payments to lenders for the next 30 years. I'm going to get out of this debt and stay out of debt so that I have more control over what happens with my money. 09:58.77 George Kamel No lender is going to tell me what to do. And so that's the biggest shift in mentality is simply believing that you have control over your financial destiny, that you have agency over it. 10:09.05 nextlevelguypodcast Because I was just thinking just now, friends, like you when you were saying that, who were like, oh, yeah, I never save. What's the point of saving? What's the point budgeting? So they'll go and buy 10:17.88 George Kamel Can't save your way to wealth. Oh, boy. yeah it's like Eeyore. It's their spirit animal. 10:22.30 nextlevelguypodcast and it doesn't matter how much money they make on any job, they're always spending even more. It's almost like a license or, you know, they can't just be happy with where they currently are. And I think that, 10:32.70 George Kamel Oh, that discontentment is real. And you're right. It leads to something called lifestyle creep, where the more you make, the more you spend. And the more you go, well, I can absorb another payment here. Let me go into debt a little more, get a nicer car. 10:43.36 George Kamel And you're right. then it's It's the reason why people feel like it's never enough. They always go, well, now I need to make $150,000. I thought when I made $100,000, would be crushing it, and it's not enough. And I go, well, let's look at your financial life. 10:55.71 George Kamel Oh, it's filled with debt payments. No wonder you feel like you're strapped. 10:58.25 nextlevelguypodcast But is it... 10:58.82 George Kamel And you bought way too much house before you could really afford it. No wonder you're strapped. Your mortgage is 65% of your take-home pay. And so it's ah it's a math problem, but a lot of people just, they gotta keep up and it's what's killing us. We gotta just move slower and run our own race. 11:14.22 nextlevelguypodcast but is it ah she like Because we always blame the shadow figure, the deep state, whoever the bogeyman is at the minute. 11:22.36 George Kamel Yeah. 11:23.27 nextlevelguypodcast Do we focus and rightly on the financial giants and say they're bamboozling us with how they're wording their documentation, they're not explaining it properly? 11:25.98 George Kamel Thank you. 11:33.86 nextlevelguypodcast Or is it the problem on the schools that we know about trigonometry and things like that, but we don't know about interest, debt, etc.? what it means to pay something in installments and APR and things like that. 11:46.40 nextlevelguypodcast where Where does the blame lay lie, do you think? And what would you want kids to learn going forward? 11:52.21 George Kamel That's ah a great question. I think it's a mix of a few things. And if you have less of it, the worse it gets. So financial literacy is a big part. Do I understand the basics of how money works, how debt works, how interest works, how compound growth works? 12:06.85 George Kamel And that's a huge part. And we're working on that with our ah high school curriculum. We are now in 48% of high schools in the US teaching kids about how to budget, how to save up and pay cash, the dangers of student loans and car payments, and how it hurts them financially in their adult life. 12:19.41 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 12:21.28 George Kamel And then on the other side, you have a lot of predatory financial institutions and companies and lenders who want you to not read the fine print. They want you to go, i don't i don't even know what the interest, I don't know how the debt worked if I didn't pay it back and what's going to happen and what a repo is. And all of that coming together is the perfect storm. 12:39.82 George Kamel A lack of financial literacy mixed with a bunch of predatory companies that want to go after your wallet. That is the scariest place to be. And so then what is the best option? How do you get out of that? Well, number one, get the financial literacy. 12:52.09 George Kamel Read a book like Breaking Free from Broke that I wrote. And then on top of that, understand that these companies are out to get you. And so here's what I do. I don't play with snakes because eventually you're going to get bit And so I don't try to game the system. 13:05.24 nextlevelguypodcast Okay. 13:05.69 George Kamel and Instead, I just said, I'm going to buck the system. What if I just didn't have a credit score at all and I just paid cash for things? so And I found that my life got so much simpler, so much more peaceful, and that all of the lies that were floating around from society, you know misguided guidance counselors and parents going, oh, you need to get a credit score. soon as you're 18, get a bunch of credit cards to build your credit score so you can get more debt. 13:27.59 George Kamel That's essentially what they're saying. And that that I think is the gateway drug, especially in America today, is the credit score. We've put it on such a pedestal that parents are adding their kids as authorized users on their credit card so that their kids can build a credit history so that when they're 18, they can borrow money at better terms and rates. 13:45.94 George Kamel And I'm going, this is really the path that we're setting up for our kids to just get ensnared into the lender's ah trap at an early age when their prefrontal cortex isn't even developed? 13:56.65 George Kamel Because that's what causes it, right? You get a credit score and you get a credit card and you go, well, that's okay now. I'll take on a student loan. I'll take on a car payment. I'll get a mortgage because my parents said renting is a waste of money. 14:08.04 George Kamel And all this has led to us feeling like we'll never get ahead and that inflation and the boogeyman and the deep state and the politicians are the problem. And I'm going, if you if that's where you're looking for your solution, you are going to die miserable, waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to change your life. 14:22.65 nextlevelguypodcast Definitely. Because that's what i love about your book is you actually teach people how to fix it, but do it in a nice way. You take them through the baby steps. You take them through the A, B, C, D, E, F and how to start. 14:35.29 nextlevelguypodcast Because a lot of us sit just now, I've heard friends say, I'll just get payday loan. What's APR? 14:40.30 George Kamel Oh, gosh, not the payday loan. 14:42.50 nextlevelguypodcast And they have no idea what APR is. I've had somebody say... 14:44.51 George Kamel It's 300% on those payday loans. 14:47.28 nextlevelguypodcast Well, I've had somebody say to me, oh, I'll just go bankrupt. That'll solve all my credits. And you're just like, but that you know, it's shaking your head. But do you believe, you know, Ramit Sethi, do you believe in his approach that we spend too long on saving the pennies, you know, stopping drinking the lattes? 14:59.89 George Kamel Oh, yeah. 15:07.11 nextlevelguypodcast That's the advice we get from traditional figures, whereas you're actually telling the truth of how to reshape our finances, how to know the truth, how to fix it. And we we don't ask for the raise. 15:18.86 nextlevelguypodcast We don't restructure our credit card debts for a more manageable payment. We don't do the big hits. We would focus on the little things to feel involved, but they don't really shift it either way. 15:31.46 George Kamel I think there's some truth to that. You know, if you're if you're driving 48 miles to save five cents on gas, like do the math and go, OK, what is this really adding up to in my life? Is it worth the little cost saving? So I understand what Ramit's saying on that side. 15:43.91 George Kamel But on the Ramsey side, what we found is that, you know, personal finance is 80 percent behavior. It's 20 percent head knowledge. And so that behavior, those habits, it's the drawing the line in the sand and burning the ships that causes you to become debt free and stay debt free. 15:59.44 George Kamel And so the the latte, to his credit, it's not the thing that's going to get you into a house. If I cut my $5 latte, I'll be able to buy a home. Ha ha ha, Dave Ramsey. It's not that at all. 16:10.16 George Kamel It's saying if you're willing to make a sacrifice for a short period of time to win, then you're going long term success. But most people simply aren't willing to give up their little vices in life that they think are what's keeping them happy in order to have true, long lasting joy on the other side. 16:17.15 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 16:26.36 George Kamel And so to Ramit's point, I think he's wrong in that the little stuff does matter and it does add up. And it it's more of a marker and a symbol that I'm done. I'm done living this way. And so, yes, is eating out one time going to cause you to be broke? 16:40.54 George Kamel No, but cutting it out for a year or two tells me that you're actually going to succeed at getting out of debt because nothing is going to stop you. And so the vices are a symbol. it's It's a symptom. 16:51.76 George Kamel But I think he's right that there's a bigger underlying problem to solve and there's bigger fish to fry. But I think it's still part of it. It's all wrapped up in it because habits, whether they're big or small, affect your life. 17:02.75 nextlevelguypodcast And then when you couple that with the social media aspect where they see, you know, Billy with a new car, Gene with a new house, and you think, oh, somebody will think I'm not as valuable as a person of them, despite the fact that you as a person. not It's a sad set of affairs we've got into just now. 17:20.17 nextlevelguypodcast but 17:20.42 George Kamel Yeah. 17:20.68 nextlevelguypodcast But if we flip to the side of nobody understands what debt You know, they think it's just something that we'll worry about in the future. But you're robbing Peter to pay Paul sort of thing. how do we even start understanding debt? Like if we're making a purchase and how do we use like the debt snowball versus the debt avalanche approach? Because you mentioned these in your books and it's such common sense and you outline it beautifully, but everybody thinks, no, no, no budget. I'll give i'll buy my lunch. 17:50.90 nextlevelguypodcast I'll, you know, I'll take my lunch to work. That'll save me the 50,000 pound car I've just bought. We don't seem to be able to understand big purchases versus our small habits, but then we don't understand how to actually start approaching debt. 18:05.71 nextlevelguypodcast So could you talk a little bit about it? It's a very waffled way of saying, could you explain about debt and what it really means to 18:14.24 George Kamel Sure. Yeah. I mean, I debt is one of these things that because it's been normalized and you just think it's a way of life, it just becomes a thing that is ah it's a stepping stone to get to where you want to go to get the thing faster. 18:28.46 George Kamel And we've celebrated it, like I mentioned earlier. And debt is simply owing anything to anyone for any reason. And we've sort of forgot that. And again, like we this this company was founded on a lot of biblical principles. And regardless of your faith background, there's so much wisdom in the book of Proverbs alone. 18:48.33 George Kamel And one of my favorite verses is this, the borrower is slave to the lender. And that like this is there's no context. Proverbs is meant to be like a bunch of tweets. And so you go, OK, the borrower slave to the lender. That means I have a master. 19:02.33 George Kamel i am not in full control of my life when I owe other people money. And we've seen this affect relationships. so If you let your buddy borrow 100 bucks and he doesn't pay you back, He's not going to be your buddy very long. Like that's going to cause resentment on your side. It's going to cause guilt and shame on his side. 19:18.57 George Kamel And we've seen this with family. And so debt in any relationship with a lender, it's going to cause harm to your life. I've never seen debt be a blessing to someone. And so when we talk about things like financial freedom, rarely do we talk about debt freedom as a part of that. 19:34.35 George Kamel We just think, well, if we can just make enough money with passive income in a business, then we're going to be okay and afford our payments on the fancy stuff that we really couldn't afford and propping up our lifestyle artificially. So that's what debt does. 19:46.66 George Kamel And then psychologically, the studies show that when you use someone else's money and you get to pay it back later, you treat it differently. Then if it was your own money, especially if it was cold, hard cash, that adds a lot of pain and friction to your life when you feel that cash leave your hand. 20:02.71 George Kamel Instead, we go tap to pay with the credit card. I get my card back and I get my stuff. Psychologically, you felt no pain. But the statement shows up and you got to make that payment or you make the minimum payment and get charged 25% APR. 20:17.29 George Kamel And so people don't feel the pain immediately. They just feel it in a very just sort of numbing way for the rest of their life. Or they go, this can't be it. Like my life, I've got to be made for more than just paying the bills and making making it rent and living paycheck to paycheck. 20:33.35 George Kamel And you're right, there is more, but debt is the problem. Because what I found is most people don't need to go make more money. Sometimes income is the problem, but it's the debt payments that are crushing them. And when life was going great, they could afford it. 20:45.58 George Kamel And the calls we get on the Ramsey show is when life happened and they lost the job, their income got cut in half, a spouse went to stay home. 20:47.42 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 20:53.77 George Kamel And now these payments that were once manageable are unmanageable. And so we got to start teaching people about money management instead of debt management if we want to see them win financially. 21:04.26 nextlevelguypodcast Because it's terrifying, isn't it? It's like everybody will get their bills, their receipts and all that, and they just stick them in a drawer. Yeah, that's ah it's tomorrow Ian's problem. but We'll deal with that when it comes. And then suddenly they wonder how their $3,000, $8,000, $9,000, $40,000 in debt forty thousand in debt and you know it's just like oh i don't know i don't know how that happened and you're like just look at your expenditure it's simple but there's so much in the book about taking through the you know the baby steps the big purchases how to eliminate the things that but if you asked anybody in the street just now what's an indicator of your financial success they would say the credit score why is that a 21:42.33 George Kamel Mm-hmm. 21:43.51 nextlevelguypodcast and you outline it in the book why it's a false dichotomy, you know, it's it's not a true representation or it's not something we should for use. Why do we fall back on the credit score or believe it to be value of use? 21:59.83 George Kamel Well, the credit score, you know it wasn't developed very long ago. mean, we're talking about like the 90s when this started to become a thing. and And the reason was they wanted an easier way to know if someone was a reputable borrower. 22:12.75 George Kamel Should I give them money? Well, instead of going through all of their finances and their tax returns and their income, and their they could just look at a credit score to go, okay, they've paid other payments in the past on time. So I think we can trust them with this. 22:24.66 George Kamel And so it became an easy way for lenders to make more money. And so it became standardized. so then people went, well, I guess I need a good credit score because I need to look good in the eyes of the lenders. And therefore, we started chasing this thing. 22:36.30 George Kamel And in the book, I talk about the old story of Sisyphus, who was tasked with pushing the rock up the hill every single day for the rest of his life for nothing. 22:45.00 nextlevelguypodcast Yep. yep 22:45.55 George Kamel And I try to show people that this is what you're doing with a credit score. What are you really doing when you unpack it? What is the credit score made up of? Well, every piece of it is your relationship to lenders. That's it. It's like, here's all of my ex-girlfriends. 22:58.46 George Kamel They all vouch for me that I was a good guy. And then I made my I took them out on nice dates. I paid for all the dates. That's all it is. It's just a history book of your relate of your bad previous relationships. 23:09.37 George Kamel It doesn't actually tell people how good you are with money. It just tells them how good you are with debt. And every single factor, when you look at it, payment history is 35%. Amounts owed, 30%. 23:21.21 George Kamel Length of credit history, 15%. New credit, 10%. Your mix of credit, got to have a little potpourri, a little variety in there. 23:26.78 nextlevelguypodcast Amen. 23:27.93 George Kamel That's 10%. That's what actually makes up your credit score. It doesn't look at your income. It doesn't look at how much money you have in the bank. All it does is look at your past relationship with debt. And therefore, when I decided, you know what, I'm going to live a better life if debt's not a part of it, my credit score went away. 23:45.52 George Kamel Six to 12 months after I got out of my consumer debt, my credit score became indeterminable. So when I went to go check my score, it says, hey, we got nothing for you, man. You got no credit history here. And the big fear with people is now we've tied it to, well, how are you going to rent an apartment? Because they check. 24:01.06 George Kamel How are you going to rent a car? How are you going to make big purchases? How are you going to get a house? How are you going to get a job? They check your, everyone's checking your credit. And what I found was they, everyone sat on a throne of lies because as I went to go rent an apartment, they went, okay, we might need a little extra in the deposit, but yeah, you can rent as long as you don't have a criminal background and you can make the payment. 24:20.98 George Kamel We're good with it. I went, oh, okay. And I went to rent a car. They all have debit card policies and they don't really care as long as you can pay. You can rent a car. And even for a house, I went through a process called manual underwriting, which like I said earlier, back in the day before credit scores, let's say in the 80s, if you wanted to buy a house, the lender would look at your actual financial picture. 24:41.47 George Kamel What is your income? What is your debt to income ratio? Okay, now we can let this person borrow this money based on all these factors. And so all of that just led me to go, oh, this was just created by thee the financial deep state, if you will, going like the lenders are going to make more money if they standardize this. It makes their life easier. 25:00.27 George Kamel It's going to make them more money, speed things along to get more people into their trap. And then everyone else went, well, I guess this is the game I have to play. And so what I'm trying to get people to learn in the book is that you don't have to play this game. 25:12.06 George Kamel You don't have to fall into the trap that is set before you. There's another way. Yes, it's a little bit harder. There's a few more hoops to jump through, but it's such a simpler, more peaceful life that will guarantee you a path to wealth. 25:24.18 nextlevelguypodcast Because it is a great read, but it's like a favourite uncle standing beside you and saying, and just because everybody's done this, you don't need to do this. you know This is the lie that we we get told. 25:36.66 nextlevelguypodcast You can actually stay out of debt, afford that big purchase later, and here's how you can do this. And you break down a lot of the stigmas, a lot of the misconstrued beliefs about money. 25:50.27 nextlevelguypodcast But what did you find about your own journey from broke to potential billionaire? How did you find, know, what did you find about that as the kind of like, if you were sitting down with the younger George now, what would you say to him about your actions of money then versus now? 25:56.36 George Kamel That's so kind. Thank you. 26:09.70 George Kamel Well, the the reasons I went into debt were, you know, they're they're and it paved with good intentions, right? When I was going to school, well, I was like, I don't have $40,000 sitting around and my parents didn't either, but we could access loans. 26:24.16 George Kamel And so I went, okay, I guess this is what I have to do. And everyone says I'll just be able to pay off the loans. I'll get a great job since I have a college degree. And so I would tell young George, don't fall for the trap. Don't believe that a piece of paper is the key to your financial success in life. 26:39.32 George Kamel You are the key to your financial success. The guy in the mirror. not the piece of paper that you paid $40,000 for. 26:45.39 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 26:45.63 George Kamel And so I truly believe I'd be where I am today, if not further along faster, if I had not gone into that student loan debt, if I hadn't swiped those credit cards to try to up my score. 26:56.19 George Kamel And if we're going to be honest, to buy things that I wanted that I could not pay cash for at the time. And so all of that kind of that instant gratification really stunted my financial growth. 27:08.33 George Kamel And so that's what people don't realize. And I wish I could tell every person who's out there younger or older, hey, the longer you sit in this maze, the more stunted your growth is going to be. And the more guilt, shame, regret, frustration, anger you're going to have toward your past and toward your future. It's going to look bleaker because now you have less time on your side. 27:28.50 George Kamel And time really is the greatest asset that we have. And that's why I love teaching the younger folks, especially because I'm going, man, you are 25. If you get this stuff now and you do this for 40 years, you're going multi, multi, multi millionaire. 27:41.25 George Kamel Because I hear the calls from people in their 50s, 60s, even 70s going, I didn't save a dime. And Social Security is $1,400 a month. And my bills are $3,000. And I don't know how i'm going to eat next week. 27:53.77 George Kamel And that doesn't have to be you. Like with the power of compound growth and debt freedom, there is no reason that anyone can't retire a millionaire in America today. 28:03.62 nextlevelguypodcast because it's terrifying when you see a lot I read somewhere in like the UK something like 45% admitted they didn't have any savings at all no pension, no personal savings at all not even up £1,000 28:15.19 George Kamel Yeah, that's about the stat here. Four out of 10 in the US, zero in savings. 28:19.77 nextlevelguypodcast It's horrific. And you think people have worked their whole life and from paycheck to paycheck, raised families, and then suddenly went, oh, when you actually stop and look to the future rather than what's happening next week and that. 28:31.26 nextlevelguypodcast But how would do we actually come to stock of where we are? um Or be completely honest about all debts, all loans, credit card, because you talk like a... 28:43.32 nextlevelguypodcast a very friendly article in the book, you know, you guide us through it. But could you explain to somebody listening who's maybe panicking about their money situation, how they can actually come to true terms with their true level of debt? 28:56.51 George Kamel Well, I'm going to just say this. that's my It's my favorite place for someone to be is ready, is ready for a change where they're going, all right, I'm listening, man. I'm ready for a change. Because otherwise, you know you're you're throwing all this advice on rocky soil because they're not ready. They don't feel enough pain in their life to where they're ready to make that change. And so when people say, hey, man, I'm struggling. 29:17.12 George Kamel Tell me what to do. I'm ready. I get real excited because I know that they're actually going to do this stuff. And so what the first thing to do to take stock, I would pull a credit report and go, okay, what is all of my debts? 29:29.18 George Kamel For most people, they buried their head in the sand. They don't really know the balance. They don't really know the interest rates. They're just trying to keep up with payments and trying to get to next month. The second thing to do, quit borrowing money. 29:41.96 George Kamel It's impossible to pay off debt if you're continually going into debt. And so you got to cut up the card. 29:45.67 nextlevelguypodcast yeah 29:46.77 George Kamel This is burning the ships, right? This is the, I'm not going back. I'm not going to swipe that card one more time. I'm not going to keep it around as a security blanket while the credit card companies screw me over. And so you have to decide I'm done borrowing money. 29:58.71 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 29:59.35 George Kamel I'm going to take a real look at my financial picture, look in that financial mirror and go, all right, it's not pretty, but I'm willing to deal with this mess that I've created. That's when someone really is going to change. And so the next thing to do is just list out all of your debts from smallest to largest balance, ignore the interest rate and go, that little one, that smallest balance, you're next. 30:19.26 George Kamel I'm going to make minimum payments on the rest and attack that one with a vengeance. And the the way to do all of this, the way to actually lay it out is with a detailed budget. And so if you make your budget and you go, okay, here's my actual income for the month. Here's what comes home after taxes. 30:34.53 George Kamel Here's all of my expenses. The budget will tell you real quick the reality of your financial situation. You make $5,000, but your bills are $6,000. You're going to be $12,000 in debt a year from now, $1,000 a month. You're going to be in the hole. 30:47.29 George Kamel And so that tells you, okay, we need really need to adjust our spending and we might need to adjust our income. And so I have a whole chapter called Margin is Breathing Room in the book where I lay this out. And here's the formula. 30:57.99 George Kamel Spend less and make more. That's the only way to find more margin in your money, to attack debt, to save, to get the house, to do any of that. And so I would do both. And I lay out a bunch of ways you can spend less and a bunch of ways you can go make more. 31:12.20 George Kamel But you've got to be willing to do the work. This is not a fun thing to sacrifice and start chopping out of ah you know all of your expenses that you've enjoyed willy-nilly. 31:14.51 nextlevelguypodcast Good. 31:20.91 George Kamel It's not fun to get the second or third job after you're already exhausted from your first job in order to make that margin happen to get out debt faster. But would you rather be out of debt in two years with sacrifice or sit in it for the next 20, hoping that things are going to change? 31:35.83 George Kamel And for most people that follow the plan, they go, I'm all in two years. Let's do this. 18 to 24 months is the average time it takes to do the debt snowball in the Ramsey plan. 31:45.54 nextlevelguypodcast Because it's definitely true that you have to want to change. And I think that's the thing. People kind of go, look, I'll worry about that later. I've got pay for my kid's christening. I've pay for the birthday, whatever it is. 31:56.40 nextlevelguypodcast But you actually outline a lot of baby steps. And I love that approach of the debt snowball. You attack the small one to start seeing the momentum, to get the easy wins, to let it build and grow like you're rolling a snowball. 32:08.96 nextlevelguypodcast Because everything's pay off the biggest debt first. But like you say in the book, you don't see any movement. So you don't think you're winning. It's like when you start a diet, you don't see the numbers go down. So you think, well, I'm just going to go that you know fish and chips tonight. 32:22.39 George Kamel You'll give them up. Yeah. 32:23.28 nextlevelguypodcast ah 32:24.70 George Kamel The debt snowball does give you that psychological win fast because smallest balance, you're going it out the fastest. 32:24.83 nextlevelguypodcast so 32:30.71 George Kamel That's math. And then with that payment you free up, apply it to the next debt. Now you've got that one knocked out. And so you're right. You build more momentum as the snowball gets bigger. And that's what causes people to actually finish. They actually see light at the end of the tunnel instead of an oncoming train. 32:44.55 George Kamel And that's what you want when it comes to winning with money. You need a quick win to tell yourself, you know what? It's going to work this time. 32:52.00 nextlevelguypodcast Now, there's a ah number of great tips in the book. um I mean, what would you say are the key baby steps, the key principles or the golden principles? Just now, if anybody listening, you said if you did these three to five things, it would actually affect everybody. 33:07.99 nextlevelguypodcast You know, is it budgeting? 33:08.37 George Kamel Absolutely. 33:09.47 nextlevelguypodcast Is it paying debt off? for What would be the the key steps, do you think? 33:15.14 George Kamel The underlying, the crux of it is the budget. that's That's the actual financial reality where you look at what happened this month, what came in, what went out. Imagine you were you were running a business. You were in charge of running the financials for a business. 33:29.77 George Kamel and Anyway, here was the revenue that we made. Here's all the expenses that went out. And your job is to make sure that you didn't spend more than you actually made. And most people, they don't see it like that. 33:40.17 George Kamel They just go, well, I made this much and here's what I needed to spend. And hopefully, fingers crossed, I don't overdraft my bank account. So what the budget does is it gives you a plan. You go, OK, here's the reality. I made five thousand. 33:51.92 George Kamel I got to spend three thousand so that I have two thousand to roll into the debt. And so that roadmap, that's a spit shake with you and yourself where you go, all right, this is what we're doing. Come hell or high water, we're not going to go over these categories for these amounts. 34:05.87 George Kamel Here's how much we're going to make. And I'm going to try to increase the income, decrease the expenses to widen that gap of margin to get out of debt faster. So budgeting is definitely the number one pro tip. 34:16.67 George Kamel Number two is to get out of that debt using that debt snowball. That is the path to do it. And the bonus tip inside of that is to go scorched earth, cut everything out of your life. 34:27.65 George Kamel Don't eat out. Don't invest into your for your whatever retirement plan you guys have, wherever you're listening. You got to go. I'm all in. Every single dime that I can free up is going to go toward my debt. 34:38.53 George Kamel And again, those, that little habits that we talked about with Ramit going, Hey, forget about the latte, focus on the bigger stuff. Well, listen, the latte plus the subscription, plus this, plus that, and all of that adds up to a hundred bucks a month. 34:50.96 George Kamel And a hundred bucks may not sound like a lot of money, but it's going to get you out of debt a month faster. And that's that level of just aggressiveness to go. I can beat that. I can beat that. 35:01.94 George Kamel That really helps you mature financially and emotionally. So that's the other piece is getting out of debt on top of doing the budget. 35:06.74 nextlevelguypodcast that's what 35:10.58 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, that's what of love in the book. You're not saying, oh, you're pathetic. Stop doing this. don't you du That's stupid. You're actually going, here's why that doesn't work. Here's what you should be doing. 35:22.37 nextlevelguypodcast Here's what our readers found. Here's how I found. You're giving the enthusiasm and the support along the journey. You're not just... telling us off like some of these big gurus, you're kind of going, well, come on, let's let me show you why this works. And this is how other people have found success. 35:38.94 nextlevelguypodcast But how do you deal with the the cognitive side of things? Because you'll have people who are stressed, anxiety. You'll have people who need a replacement for the fake and the fake self-esteem for purchasing the items. 35:53.22 nextlevelguypodcast What can we do to those people who are going, but I need this new perfume to show off to my friends. I need this new car. How do we replace that while we're dealing with the financial? you How can we fix the emotional as well as the financial? 36:09.64 George Kamel Yeah, that's ah that's a big part of it. And that that's some of the hardest work to create some boundaries to go. You know what? I got to say no to a lot of people and a lot of things and a lot of fun things and a lot of good things. But it's a no right now. It's a temporary no so that I can say yes to what really matters later on. 36:26.22 George Kamel And that might mean i got to find new friends. a lot of times your friend group, you sort of outgrow them over time as you find that you're trying to grow and mature and they're happy to stay where they're at. 36:36.71 George Kamel And that doesn't mean they're bad people. They could be super fun to hang out with. They could be a great friend. But if they're dragging you back and they don't understand and they don't empathize with the journey that you're on trying to get out of debt, I'm going to go, hey, I'm in a season where I can't really engage because I'm on this path. 36:51.95 George Kamel If you want to be on this path with me, let's do it. Let's get some accountability. But if you're going to be here going out every weekend, I can't be a part of that right now because I'm on i'm trying to get out of debt aggressively. I'm trying to do this for my family. 37:03.74 George Kamel And so boundaries, choosing the right friend group, getting around people who are actually encouraging you instead of shaming you or making fun of you. ah But the good news is if people are making fun of your financial plan, you're on the right track because everyone is broke. And so usually it's it's envy, it's jealousy, it's misunderstanding. 37:21.56 George Kamel And that takes a lot of just emotional and relational maturity to follow a plan that is someone else's. Because I tried my plan. Georgia's plan didn't work back in the day, trying to get out of debt with minimum payments and trying to play the game. 37:35.05 George Kamel And instead, following the Ramsey plan, I went, oh my gosh, if I'm just willing to follow a proven plan that worked for 10 million other people, I can do this stuff. And so that's the cognitive side really has to do with setting an intense goal and being willing to just get that tunnel vision to where you go. 37:43.98 nextlevelguypodcast you 37:51.55 George Kamel Nothing else matters. I'm not going to go on Instagram and be tempted. I'm going to shut off those temptations, turn off the inputs that are causing me to stumble. And I'm also going to delete my cards out of the online stores that I shop the most and out of the apps. 38:05.98 George Kamel I'm going to pass the drive through instead of drive through. And all of that takes a lot of discipline. That's what the plan comes down to. And so, you know, the again, they're a great biblical principle. 38:14.97 nextlevelguypodcast So. 38:16.80 George Kamel No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. And so you got to go This is a temporary short term sacrifice, delayed gratification so that I can have my dream life on the other side. But I can't have my cake and eat it, too. I can't do whatever I want and also expect to retire with dignity and live my dreams. 38:37.67 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's the thing, it's hard to explain to a 20-year-old that you will come to 60 soon. It will go in the blink of an eye, and before you know it, you don't have the the savings because you bought a car along the way that lasted a year to show off to your friend who you don't particularly like anyway. 38:55.87 nextlevelguypodcast But you do talk a lot but in the book about um you know tackling the debt, eliminating that. you know like Here's the target areas to fix to go on. But you also talk about generoy generosity as a joy. 39:07.91 nextlevelguypodcast Where should we be putting money out? What are things that we could actually spend money on you know like to give back, to help us along this journey? 39:18.50 George Kamel Yeah, generosity is such an interesting principle. And anytime I talk about it on my YouTube channel or social media, it's so funny how angry people get. I'm like, you expect me to give a dollar over here and no one, everyone's broke. And why would I give money here? And, you know, how is this a wealth building principle? And what I found is that the people who build wealth, they're generous before they build wealth. 39:42.09 George Kamel They're just generous people. And we found that money is just a magnifying glass. So if you're a generous person when you're broke, you're going to be a philanthropist later on in life when you got a pile of money. And if you're a stingy person while you're broke, you're just going to be a stingy rich person. 39:56.72 George Kamel And so money doesn't actually define you. It just makes you more of who you are. And we're all attracted to generous people. And the byproduct is generous people tend to succeed. 40:07.37 George Kamel They tend to build wealth. They tend to have an abundance mentality. So they don't see it as a finite pie where if I give them a slice of my money, I'm going to have less money. They see it as lighting someone else's candle. 40:19.77 George Kamel I kept my flame. I'm doing okay. But I was able to help someone else light theirs because of what I've created out of the overflow of my life, the abundance of my life. And so generosity is a really interesting financial principle that most people aren't talking about outside of Ramsey. 40:36.22 George Kamel But it's a really good thing to create a habit of giving because it actually is the most fun you can have. Science has proven this, that giving money actually produces dopamine in the brain. 40:48.24 George Kamel It will light up those receptors to go, man, that felt really good to give instead of just to get. And you find that when you buy something, the joy you get from buying a thing is so ephemeral. 40:58.54 George Kamel It's just like it's gone a blink of an eye. You went, oh, now it's just sitting in the closet with tags on it. 41:01.51 nextlevelguypodcast Yep. 41:03.79 George Kamel Felt good in the moment for retail therapy. And then it just fizzles out. Whereas giving, man, you can go back to that memory a thousand times over and remember the look on their face, the tears in their eyes when you gave that money. 41:14.97 George Kamel And so there's a piece of this that is, it's inherently part of money. There's only three things you can do with it. Give it. save it and spend it. And spending is fine. There's nothing wrong with spending money. Enjoy some things, enjoy experiences. 41:26.82 George Kamel Saving is great. Yes, let's invest and save. But if we do too much of one and we don't give, we're going to get a flat tire in our life and we're going to feel a little bit purposeless. And so that generosity piece, it unlocks something within us and it helps us stay balanced for the rest of our life and helps us remind ourselves why we're building wealth. 41:45.99 George Kamel It's not for us. We're planting trees for shade that we may never see. 41:51.83 nextlevelguypodcast I love it. I mean, that's why I keep recommending this book to people because it's one of those books that actually says you don't need to be bad money. You don't need to just accept that ah you'll you'll never have savings. 42:03.48 nextlevelguypodcast No matter position just now, you can follow your journey and go from, like you did, broke to a millionaire. And It's difficult to imagine that just now, but you explain it in by step-by-step analysis of how to do this. 42:17.58 nextlevelguypodcast Here's where to start. Here's how to tackle. But what is the order of importance? I'm assuming debts, number one. But what about an emergency six-month plan, then investments, then saving money? you know How do we balance... 42:32.98 nextlevelguypodcast Because everybody said you've got to have your emergency day fund, your rainy day fund, but you've also got to invest. But you've also got to pay off your debt. you've also build up your credit score. You've also got build da-da-da-da-da. how How do we know what's the order of importance? 42:46.73 George Kamel Yeah, the Ramsey baby steps are laid out in a very simple way. And baby steps one through three are done in order one at a time. And so baby step one of the Ramsey plan before you do anything else, get a thousand bucks saved up really quick, less than 30 days, get a thousand bucks in a starter emergency fund. 43:04.41 George Kamel So that little savings account, that's going to be a buffer between you and life for those little ankle biters. And the reason Dave Ramsey implemented this is because at first he started saying, hey, just get out of debt, get out of debt, debt snowball. 43:15.25 George Kamel But then people would have a flat tire and go, well, now I'm thrown off. Like I keep falling off the wagon because these little emergencies. So that baby step one creates a little buffer between you and life so that you're not falling off every time a little thing comes your way. 43:28.87 George Kamel Once you have $1,000, then you hit baby step two, which is getting out of all consumer debt, pay it all off using that debt snowball method we talked about, smallest to largest balance, ignoring the interest rate. 43:39.67 George Kamel Then once you have all your debt paid off, now we can move to a fully funded emergency fund. So now, you know, baby step one, 30 days, baby step two, 18 to 24 months on average, baby step three to get three to six months of expenses saved up. 43:53.50 George Kamel That takes people about six months, maybe 12 months. And so think about that. We're talking two and a half or three years so to build this amazing financial foundation where you have no payments and a big pile of cash ready in case life happens for the job loss, for the medical emergency, for the car repair, whatever it is. 44:10.21 George Kamel That is your never go into debt again insurance plan. So once you have that foundation built, now we can move on to baby steps four, five, six. 44:14.23 nextlevelguypodcast Thank 44:18.95 George Kamel Now these are done in order, but they're done simultaneously. So what you do is baby step four, invest 15% of your household income into retirement accounts. This is where we start building for the future instead of paying for the past. 44:31.05 George Kamel Once we have the 15% of each paycheck going to retirement accounts or building some wealth, now we can put away money for our kid's college fund and baby step five. So baby step five is just save for kids college, whatever you can do. 44:43.51 George Kamel There's no obligation to fully pay for college, but at least develop a game plan if you have kids about how we're going to go debt free because we don't want to be a part of the student loan crisis where we took a call yesterday. 44:54.12 George Kamel John Deloney and I, this girl was $230,000 student loan debt, making in her career. 45:04.03 George Kamel And we're going, this is going to take 20 years to pay off at the current rate. You have to get your income up. And so the ah ROI just isn't there for college degrees when you factor in student loans. So once we got baby step five, or if you don't have kids, you can skip it and go to baby step six, which is pay off your home early. 45:20.50 George Kamel So this means putting extra payments toward the principal balance of your mortgage to get it knocked out. So instead of 30 years, let's do it in like 10. And I recommend a 15-year mortgage because it really creates a forced savings plan to where you go, in 15 years, worst case, I got this debt paid off. 45:37.47 George Kamel And most people we found, the millionaire study, 10.2 years, they pay off their mortgage. And people following the baby steps, even faster, seven years. And once you get through all those steps, you have no debt, the emergency fund, you've been investing, you get the home paid off. That takes you to baby step seven, which is the final step. 45:55.39 George Kamel And that's it. There's nothing beyond that. This is where you just build wealth and give. And this is a choose your own adventure. You can be way more generous. You can beyond ah invest beyond 15%. 46:05.76 George Kamel Maybe you want to buy some real estate and cash. This is where you get to do some really fun stuff. And the earlier you get there, the better life you're going to have. It's as simple as that. And so those are the baby steps that I followed to go from negative net worth to millionaire and millions of people have done it. And so it ain't broke. 46:22.33 George Kamel Don't fix it. Just follow the plan. 46:25.02 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's why I try not to go too deep into the baby steps because i you put it so well in the book but is that it's so encouraging as well. And that's why I knew you you were going to be great because just listening to you makes me smile and go, I can do it. i can i Even though um I know what I am just now, I mean um i think I'm good with money. 46:44.56 nextlevelguypodcast But just now, um i mean I bought a car. but at the same time while it's getting dental implants. And that was the first time I'd been in proper debt for a while. And I was like, oh, I hate this. 46:52.92 George Kamel mmm yeah 46:53.68 nextlevelguypodcast I hate this. And then was thinking, people spend their whole life doing this. And now I'm basically on the other side of that. I'm kind of just finishing up paying off the last the credit card. But how do we take this and future plan? 47:04.02 George Kamel awesome 47:10.06 nextlevelguypodcast Because would you want people to pay to rent versus buying? what's your What's your take on that? And how do you change as you become a father? How do you change with, you you know, you have kids, a wife to support as much as just yourself? 47:25.04 George Kamel Absolutely. So let's talk about that first piece, home ownership. you know When is the right time to buy a house? How long should I rent for? And you know in the baby steps, you go, wait, where was the home in this? You said pay off the home. Where was the part where I buy the home? 47:37.96 George Kamel Well, there's a... A hidden step called Baby Step 3B. So once you have no debt in the emergency fund, Baby Step 3B is save up a down payment for a home. And so the parameter for this is if you're first time home buyer, it's OK to put five or 10 percent down. 47:53.07 George Kamel But you want to stick to a 15 year fixed rate mortgage that's here in the US. I know across different countries, they have different mortgage types. ah But fifty the shorter the mortgage, the faster you're going pay it off. 48:04.02 George Kamel And so 15 year fixed rate mortgage. And here's the key. You don't want that mortgage payment to be more than a quarter of your take home pay. And so that helps you avoid what's called being house poor, where, man, you got you make $5,000 a month, but your mortgage is $3,000. That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room to eat, to invest, to do much else in life. 48:23.95 George Kamel And so you got to be reasonable with that mortgage. And that might mean that you need to wait longer, save up a bigger down payment. You might need to choose a different house, might need to be a condo or a townhome or apartment instead of a single family home in the best neighborhood in town. 48:37.70 George Kamel Listen, there's no you're not entitled to live wherever you want to live and live whatever house you want to live in. You don't deserve that house unless you can afford that house and afford, in this case, 25%. So I always tell people, renting is not a sin. It's not a waste of money. 48:51.94 George Kamel You're buying patients. So don't listen to the people around you who are pressuring you into buying a house because they're not going to be paying your mortgage. You are. So I don't care what mom and dad said about you're wasting. 48:59.88 nextlevelguypodcast no 49:01.96 George Kamel You should be in a house. by Listen, the house prices have skyrocketed here in the U.S. over the last few years. And so mom and dad got their house for $140,000 back in the 80s and 90s. 49:13.40 George Kamel It's not the case anymore. It's harder to buy a house now than it was back in their day, regardless of interest rates. And so there's some real math there where you got to save a bigger down payment. We got to get our income up in order to stomach this mortgage. 49:26.24 George Kamel And then on the other side, you know becoming a parent, like people are having less and less kids now because they're scared of the cost. They're like, I can't handle my I'm not responsible enough for my own life. You want to be responsible for a baby? 49:37.91 George Kamel And so the the good news is that babies aren't as expensive as people think. You got health insurance. All right. You're not going to pay that much out of pocket to have a baby. 49:46.05 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 49:46.11 George Kamel The budget line item you'll add. Let's add some diapers. Let's add some formula. Now, daycare is going to be the biggest biggest expense if you have two people working outside the home. But what's amazing is if you follow this plan, you know what what happened to my wife and I is we were completely debt free when we had our first kid 18 months ago. 50:04.23 George Kamel And so my wife decided, you know what, I want to stay home and raise our kid. And it wasn't a financial decision. It was just an emotional decision because we had the margin to go down to one income because we didn't have any debt payments. 50:16.90 George Kamel And so that's what I want to tell people is debt freedom is not about let's follow Dave because he's a genius. It's let's become debt free so that we have more options and more freedom, more flexibility with the choices we make in our life. 50:28.60 George Kamel And a lot of people don't have that flexibility because of all those payments in their life. And so when it comes to being a dad, it definitely shapes it shaped me and made me think about legacy more and less about here's what I want to do this month. 50:40.66 George Kamel Everything is now focused on, man, what can I do to... to raise an amazing adult that has things that I never dreamed of having because of the hard work that mom and I put in. 50:51.31 nextlevelguypodcast It's definitely true, isn't it? It gives you that option to make live a life that you want, not the life that you're given. I mean, just now I've just had my mortgage go from about $475 month, $475 think it $616 for a two-year fixed rate mortgage or $635 five years. 51:05.18 nextlevelguypodcast ah think it was six hundred and sixteen for a two-year fixed rate mortgage or six hundred and thirty five for two five years And people, I was going through forum after forum saying, is two year or five year better? 51:16.99 nextlevelguypodcast What's the best thing to do? And people are like, do you want to change it in two years with the extra stress? What happens if this goes out? And you could feel people's blood pressure going up and up and up. And These are decisions we're not taught. 51:29.39 nextlevelguypodcast But like you're saying in the book, if we actually tackle the basics, we can develop the life that we want, get to point where we can afford to, if your wife wants to stay home, if you want to maybe take a less paid job to then follow your dream et cetera. 51:44.81 nextlevelguypodcast But what do you do to relax? What's the guilty pleasure of yours? What's something that you do spend your money on that you think, yeah, people would ridicule me if they knew i was spending money on that? 51:57.40 George Kamel Oh my goodness. I think if you looked at my budget right now, you would go like, you're spending how much on your dogs? And so that's the biggest line item in our budget right now is just our dog. 52:03.57 nextlevelguypodcast it 52:06.63 George Kamel We got two French bulldogs and they have to have specialty, you know, hypoallergenic food. They go to a little doggy daycare twice a week. So they get out of our hair, give my wife a break, get their energy out with some other dog friends of theirs. 52:20.63 George Kamel And so that adds up per month, but we have the margin to do it. And we do love our dogs. you know They sleep in our beds. So that's my guilty pleasure is spending, you know getting the dog groomer to show up in the driveway because they have too much anxiety to go to the pet store to get a bath. 52:35.15 George Kamel Those are the kinds of things we get to do because we have the margin to do it. And I get a lot of judgment for it because of how much my dogs are pampered. ah But that's the biggest one. The other one that is really great is just paying people to do things that I don't want to do. 52:49.37 George Kamel And so, you know, lawn care. I'm like, hey, let's have let's have them come by once a week and mow the lawn. Getting a house cleaner once a month. These are luxuries that I didn't think I'd ever be able to do. But because we followed the plan and we have the margin to do it, I can go, you know what? 53:04.87 George Kamel Either I don't want to do it or my time is worth more than that. And so I'm going to delegate it and pay someone because again, time is the greatest asset. So to get three hours of my life back and not get in a fight with my wife because of who's going to scrub the grout in the shower, I'm happy to pay someone 150 bucks once a month to come and do that for us. 53:21.83 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 53:23.44 George Kamel Who's better at that, who enjoys doing it. And I get to support a small business. And so That's the kind of stuff are my guilty pleasures. It just is trading that money for time back in my life and you know spoiling my family with with great fun adventures, experiences, you know great meals, all of that stuff that back in the day I would have put on the credit card while I was broke. 53:44.64 George Kamel And now it's no problem. We just put it on the debit card and it comes out of our money, our account instantly, and we sleep at night wonderfully. 53:52.36 nextlevelguypodcast suppose that's like the roommate C.T. thing about the rich life. but You decide what it means to you. He's, you know, headsets, getting a PT and a chef. 53:57.46 George Kamel Exactly. 54:00.05 nextlevelguypodcast For you, it might be having a couple extra phone chargers lying around where you need it and your podcasting studio at the back or whatever it is. You know, you decide. 54:07.90 George Kamel Yeah, the little luxuries add up too. Like I got one, there's a, it's called a bed jet and it's just a little machine that like pumps air into your bed sheets at whatever temperature and fan speed you would like. 54:20.50 George Kamel And so I sleep hot a lot of the time. And so I love just having that little, it's, you know, it's like 300 bucks, but it's one of these little luxuries that for someone who didn't have the money, who would have done buy now, pay later on that thing. 54:31.43 George Kamel That's just another payment in their life. And so this little things you can do to where if I just see something and it's in the budget, we go, all right, George's fun money. Let's buy an air purifier. We're really living. You know, this is what you do in your mid thirties. This is what gets you excited. 54:45.85 nextlevelguypodcast Well, I can't believe it's been an hour. It feels like five minutes, honestly. I'd love to have you back on because there's so many areas to go into. And I find you such a nice guy as well. 54:54.15 George Kamel Oh, thank you, Ian. 54:54.18 nextlevelguypodcast But for people who are listening, what do you want them to take from this? Is it just the belief that they can change, that we can go from broke to billionaire, that we can all live financially educated and appropriate life even? 55:10.65 George Kamel Yeah, I think it goes beyond money. I think money, what we found is as people actually follow the Ramsey plan... The debt freedom is a cool thing we celebrate, but what really is happening there is transformation. 55:23.82 George Kamel They now believe in themselves, and before they didn't really have the confidence in themselves. They thought, eh, it's not for me. Wealth isn't for me. Freedom isn't for me. I've done too many dumb things with zeros on the end. I don't deserve. 55:36.90 George Kamel i We got that call yesterday. This woman called the Ramsey Show in tears, and she said, I don't deserve a home. I live in a travel trailer with my daughter. a lot of life has happened to us, and I feel like I don't deserve it. 55:47.82 George Kamel And to give people the hope that they can transform and to drop the guilt, shame, baggage, drop the cynicism that they have, the anger they have deep inside toward the world, toward their past decisions. 56:01.13 George Kamel If we can just choose hope and choose that optimism every day and go, you know what? I'm going to do a little better today than I did yesterday financially. I'm to little better today than I did the other day. 56:12.50 George Kamel That Choosing positivity and optimism, even when the deck feels stacked against you, it's a tall order and it also makes you feel invincible. And that's what I find when people visit us on the debt-free stage to celebrate their debt-free journey. 56:26.14 George Kamel They seem invincible because they know whatever comes our way, we're going to be able to overcome it because they have a belief in themselves. And that's that financial destiny piece. They're going, you know what? 56:36.49 George Kamel If I can get out of debt, I can get control of my health. I can have a better marriage. And so what excites me about following the Ramsey plan is not just the money piece. It's the piece that you believe that you can change every aspect of your life, that you can affect it. And you have agency over way more than you thought. 56:52.32 George Kamel Because most of us focus on the things we can't control. That's all the headlines, the social media stuff, what our friends are doing. Very rarely do we take stock on the things that we can control and go all in on that. 57:03.32 George Kamel And that's exactly what the Ramsey plan does. And hey, if you follow it and you get debt free and you hate it, the lenders will be happy to give you more money and let you borrow for the rest of your life. But I found the people that follow the plan, man, their life is just richer. It's more peaceful. And it's not about how much money they make. 57:18.64 George Kamel It's not about comparing their lives to others. They have found their own race and they are running it freely with so much joy. 57:24.47 nextlevelguypodcast I love ah It's, you know, don't just get a debt, build a life that you want. And I think that's the best thing about your talk show is you, doesn't matter how bad a debt or a financial situation are, you talk them through how to do it. 57:29.82 George Kamel Exactly. 57:38.53 nextlevelguypodcast You might give them a bit more of a stare talking to if they need it, but you then go through with the book, you explain how to build it, we encourage them to do it, and then you celebrate their successes and you love to hear back from them. 57:50.94 nextlevelguypodcast for I ah cannot recommend this book enough for people who won't finally get control their finances. ah What else can we do? Can we follow you on Instagram? What's your website? How do we follow along this amazing journey that you're going on and your own life as well? 58:06.50 George Kamel Absolutely. Yeah, the book is a great start. It's called Breaking Free from Broke. And I did the audio book with some music that I i wrote for it. And I, you know, it we try to make it really fun and palatable. And you alluded to it, I wanted to just have a conversation and where it didn't feel like someone's talking at you, they're talking with you. 58:16.91 nextlevelguypodcast you know 58:23.35 George Kamel And so the audio book is really fun. You can get the hardcover book as well. And you can jump on to George Camel, K-A-M-E-L.com for all the resources. And if you want just some daily inspiration, encouragement, I've got a YouTube channel ah that has over 400,000 subscribers. Now the team's put a lot of effort into it. And so we got three episodes a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 58:43.84 George Kamel have another podcast with my friend, Rachel Cruz. That's Dave Ramsey's daughter. It's called Smart Money Happy Hour. where we share a mocktail or a cocktail and we talk about what's going on in culture and money. So this is a great starting point. If you want to laugh and sort of accidentally learn about money, Smart Money Happy Hour is the show for you. That's on YouTube and podcast as well. 59:02.29 George Kamel And of course, the Ramsey Show airing every day. I'm jumping in there as a co-host a few times a week. I'll be on this afternoon. So if you ever have questions, I'd love to hear from your listeners. They can call the Ramsey show live from one to 4 p.m. Central time ah here stateside and we'll be happy to help them out or send me a DM on Instagram at George Camel. We'd love to hear from your listeners if they enjoyed this. 59:22.57 nextlevelguypodcast Well, had to stop