Unpacking the Biggest Financial Flops in Recent History

🏠 Be prepared to buy or sell your home with our Real Estate Home Base! Ever wonder if you’re secretly missing out on moneymaking schemes that seem too good to be true? Today we’re unpacking the biggest (and most public) financial disasters in recent history. Next Steps: · 🎙️ Catch our episode Ranking Your CRAZIEST Emergency Fund Stories! · 💵 Create a free budget and find more margin with EveryDollar. · 🍸 Follow Smart Money Happy Hour on TikTok: @smartmoneyhappyhour · 📱 Submit a Guilty As Charged question for Rachel and George! Send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it. Connect With Our Sponsors: · Check out the FAIRWINDS Credit Union exclusive account bundle. · Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. · Get 20% off with code SMARTMONEY at Cozy Earth. Today’s Happy Hour Special: 🍷 Full Moon Martini Recipe by: @itscocktailhour_ · 1 1/2 ounces indigo gin · 1 ounce crème de cassis · 1 ounce grape juice · 1/2 ounce simple syrup · 1/2 ounce lime juice Instructions: In a cocktail shaker, combine gin, crème de cassis, grape juice, simple syrup and freshly squeezed lime juice. Add ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Top with some gold edible glitter and stir. Then add your full moon ice sphere! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 💰 George Kamel 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05George Kamel?

  Ever wonder if you're missing out on money schemes that seem too good to be true? Well, today we're unpacking the biggest and most public financial disasters in recent memory.

• 0:13Rachel Cruze?

  George, are you a child? No, you're not a rooter, are you?

• 0:16George Kamel?

  I'm a rooter. Are we not gonna talk about the dwarves?

• 0:19Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:19George Kamel?

  Was that okay?

• 0:25Rachel Cruze?

  Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz.

• 0:27George Kamel?

  I'm George Kamel.

• 0:29Rachel Cruze?

  And this is

• 0:29George Kamel?

  Smart Money Happy Hour.

• 0:33Rachel Cruze?

  Full to the brim.

• 0:37George Kamel?

  Oh, that is pleasant.

• 0:39Rachel Cruze?

  I like that.

• 0:40George Kamel?

  I've never seen a drink served up, but with a big rock in it.

• 0:43Rachel Cruze?

  I know, it's super fun. Super fun.

• 0:46George Kamel?

  I'm not against it.

• 0:48Rachel Cruze?

  Well, this is the show where two friends who happen to be money experts talk about what you're talking about. So everything from pop culture, current events, and money.

• 0:54George Kamel?

  Before we get to the content, let's talk about what we're sipping on here. This is a full moon martini.

• 0:59Rachel Cruze?

  It's so good.

• 1:00George Kamel?

  Where does the full moon come into play? We'll find out. We're gonna give you the rating and reveal the cost per glass at the end of the episode, so stick around for that. All right, Rachel, tell me if you can relate to this. Sometimes I listen to people's financial advice on social media and it's giving like 90s infomercial. They are pitching it hard.

• 1:19Rachel Cruze?

  Buy this.

• 1:20George Kamel?

  It feels sleazy.

• 1:21Rachel Cruze?

  Buy that, yeah, and then you can be millionaire in three months. I know, it's definitely like the too good to be true schemes.

• 1:28George Kamel?

  Get rich quick.

• 1:30Rachel Cruze?

  They're everywhere.

• 1:30George Kamel?

  Nobody wants to get rich slow these days.

• 1:33Rachel Cruze?

  It is tough.

• 1:33George Kamel?

  Who has the patience?

• 1:34Rachel Cruze?

  I know, you know, we get everything so fast anyways. We want the same with our money.

• 1:39George Kamel?

  Two-day shipping and make me a millionaire tomorrow.

• 1:41Rachel Cruze?

  Just make it, make it happen, people, make it happen.

• 1:44George Kamel?

  It would be nice, I'll be honest, it would be nice.

• 1:45Rachel Cruze?

  There's a lot of, I feel like too good to be true stuff, like all the, I got one of those masks and actually they feel great, but they're like jelly feeling, white, and it dries and you peel it off.

• 1:57George Kamel?

  You're supposed to like exfoliate your pores or something?

• 1:59Rachel Cruze?

  Well, no, I think it's supposed to like make you not have wrinkles anymore. You know what I mean? Like the way, the way I believed what this mask was gonna do was like change my face.

• 2:07George Kamel?

  Miracles.

• 2:08Rachel Cruze?

  Then I took it off, I'm like, nope, still me, still me. That happens, you know what else I think is a scam?

• 2:13George Kamel?

  What's that?

• 2:14Rachel Cruze?

  Blue light glasses.

• 2:15George Kamel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16Rachel Cruze?

  I think those are real.

• 2:16George Kamel?

  Well, the only people who are like, no, they work, are the people currently wearing them. They have to convince you it wasn't a waste of money.

• 2:23Rachel Cruze?

  I don't know, they're like, listen, it doesn't affect my retina, because I got these blue light glasses.

• 2:28George Kamel?

  I think it's also placebo.

• 2:29Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:30George Kamel?

  You know the other one? Hangover cures.

• 2:32Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, yeah, like the liquid IVs and stuff people talk about?

• 2:36George Kamel?

  Yeah, I have done the, there's a pill called Party Smart. It's like a little supplement you can get at Whole Foods. They sell it at Whole Foods. I didn't go to like a vape store. They got it at Whole Foods, Amazon, and it's supposed to have like natural ingredients that

• 2:50Rachel Cruze?

  Does it work?

• 2:51George Kamel?

  Help you avoid having a hangover feeling. I think it works.

• 2:55Rachel Cruze?

  Do you take, is it a pill?

• 2:56George Kamel?

  Yeah, you take one like before, during, or right after you've had any alcohol and it's supposed to basically mellow the hangover effects.

• 3:04Rachel Cruze?

  Wow.

• 3:05George Kamel?

  Now, I don't drink enough to like warrant that.

• 3:07Rachel Cruze?

  Sure.

• 3:08George Kamel?

  But sometimes when I know I'm gonna have a couple of drinks out, I'll take one beforehand and I do feel better.

• 3:13Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 3:13George Kamel?

  But again, is it placebo? Is it all in my head?

• 3:15Rachel Cruze?

  Does Advil work too? Yes.

• 3:17George Kamel?

  That might do the trick. And just, I don't know, drinking water? Having a water betadine?

• 3:21Rachel Cruze?

  Not intaking.

• 3:23George Kamel?

  That's God's remedy right there.

• 3:24Rachel Cruze?

  That could help too.

• 3:25George Kamel?

  Or Waffle House, I've heard that does wonders. Just grease the old pipes, soak up that alcohol.

• 3:33Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, man.

• 3:34George Kamel?

  The same thing applies to money. Time shares, for example. That seems too good to be true, and it is. They only show you the benefits and they're like, look at the brochure, look at the place you could stay.

• 3:45Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 3:45George Kamel?

  They don't tell you all the fees and the upfront cost and the maintenance and how you can't get out of it.

• 3:50Rachel Cruze?

  No, it all feels like this is just the most amazing gift ever that they're providing you with. You know, I heard something about the Extreme Home Makeover, remember that show?

• 3:58George Kamel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:59Rachel Cruze?

  They'd go in and like redo these people's houses, like all the way.

• 4:03George Kamel?

  Was this the bus reveal?

• 4:04Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, move that bus, yes. Okay, and then all these families were getting in financial trouble after. And so here's the crazy thing, it's like the property taxes, the value of the home, all of that, they had to pay, right? After it was all said and done. And one family reported their first electrical bill was $2,200. So they built this like amazing home and then they can't afford the upkeep, basically. Because these families were already struggling financially, that's why they chose them to do this like home makeover. And then when it's all said and done, they can't, they can't even keep up with some of it. I know, with some of it, I heard that and I thought, oh, break my heart.

• 4:44George Kamel?

  I've seen this too, so we actually entered one of these like home giveaways, have you seen these?

• 4:50George Kamel?

  You like pay a hundred dollars.

• 4:51Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 4:52George Kamel?

  And you can win a home.

• 4:54Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 4:55George Kamel?

  Like it was in our neighborhood, like it wasn't like a, you know, in Iowa, like it was in our neighborhood.

• 5:00Rachel Cruze?

  Really?

• 5:00George Kamel?

  And it's a giveaway they do, I think, I don't know if it goes, part of it goes to charity or whatever it is.

• 5:04Rachel Cruze?

  Did it work?

• 5:05George Kamel?

  Somebody won the house, wasn't me.

• 5:07Rachel Cruze?

  Stop it.

• 5:07George Kamel?

  Much to my chagrin, but then I realized you might not be able to afford that house and the taxes that come with that gift of $700,000.

• 5:16Rachel Cruze?

  Because usually those people that are entering those contests can't just go buy that house.

• 5:20George Kamel?

  They don't have 300 grand sitting around.

• 5:21Rachel Cruze?

  Did you put your name in?

• 5:22George Kamel?

  I put my name in the running, I thought, let me support a good cause and maybe you win a house too. Well, I'm at it.

• 5:27Rachel Cruze?

  Well, I'm at it.

• 5:28George Kamel?

  Because it's one of those, well, someone has to win. And you know, it's not like the lottery where millions of people have entered.

• 5:32Rachel Cruze?

  I wonder how many people entered into that contest?

• 5:34George Kamel?

  Wouldn't I like to know?

• 5:35Rachel Cruze?

  I know, George.

• 5:37George Kamel?

  But again, the property taxes, the insurance.

• 5:39Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 5:40George Kamel?

  Taxes on a gift itself, if that's involved.

• 5:42Rachel Cruze?

  It's a lot.

• 5:42George Kamel?

  The utility bills.

• 5:44Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 5:44George Kamel?

  Even when you inherit a house.

• 5:46Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 5:46George Kamel?

  Just because you inherited it for free doesn't mean it's not gonna cost you a pretty penny. So you gotta make sure you can afford it.

• 5:51Rachel Cruze?

  It's still gonna be expensive, yep.

• 5:52George Kamel?

  That's a big one. Okay, something similar happened with Oprah's favorite things.

• 5:56Rachel Cruze?

  No, I loved those.

• 5:59George Kamel?

  The Christmas giveaways back in the day, you get a car, you get a car, and then there's $7,000 in taxes those families owed on that car. And think about it, how many people just have seven grand laying around in America today?

• 6:12Rachel Cruze?

  So they probably went into debt.

• 6:14George Kamel?

  Yep, this was 2004. She, Oprah gave her entire audience a $28,000

• 6:18Rachel Cruze?

  That was such a great episode.

• 6:20George Kamel?

  Pontiac G6 sports sedan.

• 6:22Rachel Cruze?

  They had, I remember it, they had, wait, well, was it a?

• 6:24George Kamel?

  Pontiac G6, it's a sports sedan.

• 6:30George Kamel?

  People who like sports would appreciate that. Very sporty.

• 6:33Rachel Cruze?

  No, but I, do you remember that? They all had like a key and like a few of them won. And then she was like, all right, there's one more, one more car. Everyone look under and if you have a key in your box, you're the winner. And everyone, everyone starts freaking out because they all had keys and they thought, and they had, I remember they had one lady and she was screaming, saying, it's me, it's me.

• 6:52George Kamel?

  Not realizing everyone.

• 6:54Rachel Cruze?

  Everybody else is screaming, it's me, it's me.

• 6:55George Kamel?

  Do you think that's sort of like, does that make it more exciting if you find out everyone got one?

• 6:59Rachel Cruze?

  Oh my God, because you mentioned the energy in the room.

• 7:01George Kamel?

  Electric.

• 7:02Rachel Cruze?

  Oh my gosh, I'd be screaming, crying, hugging everyone.

• 7:05George Kamel?

  Look at Pontiac now, how are they doing?

• 7:08Rachel Cruze?

  Are they still around?

• 7:10George Kamel?

  No.

• 7:10Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, are they really not? They're, they're not, maybe that was their last ditch effort was like, because Oprah Winfrey, if you were on her show, if you got one of those products or a book on that show, you were set for life. I wonder if they were going downhill and they were like, Oprah can save us.

• 7:24George Kamel?

  I feel like 2004 was the heyday for Pontiac, because my brother's first car was a Pontiac Sunfire.

• 7:29Rachel Cruze?

  A Sunfire, I remember.

• 7:31George Kamel?

  I think he probably got it in 04, somewhere around then. And I left the, the keys in that thing running.

• 7:38Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, oh no.

• 7:39George Kamel?

  Yeah, that was a bad day for me.

• 7:41Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, George.

• 7:42George Kamel?

  Had to call AAA, get jimmy'd in. But each recipient from this Oprah giveaway faced about seven grand in taxes if they choose to keep the car because the IRS treats it as taxable prize winning, not a tax-free gift.

• 7:54Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 7:54George Kamel?

  Same thing with Price is Right, you get that Broy Hill Dynet set, good luck affording the taxes on that. It was always a Dynet set.

• 8:02Rachel Cruze?

  It was a Dynet.

• 8:03George Kamel?

  It was a big thing back then, to have a Dynet set.

• 8:05Rachel Cruze?

  There was always like a kayak, and it was like you get a kayak.

• 8:08George Kamel?

  And I feel like, what was the other one? Wheel of Fortune, it was always like a trip to Hawaii, I think every episode.

• 8:13Rachel Cruze?

  I know, we watched that, we still watch that every night. We love Wheel of Fortune, Ryan Seacrest, what do you think about him as a host?

• 8:20George Kamel?

  You know, I haven't actually watched it with Ryan.

• 8:21Rachel Cruze?

  Have you not? Okay.

• 8:22George Kamel?

  I'm a, I'm a old school.

• 8:23Rachel Cruze?

  He's pretty good, I don't know. And then you see Julianne Hough in Dancing with the Stars like right after, and you're like, oh my gosh, it's like the relationships, you know, show.

• 8:31George Kamel?

  Oh, is there, I don't know the beef there.

• 8:33Rachel Cruze?

  Well, they used to, they used to date.

• 8:35George Kamel?

  Ryan Seacrest?

• 8:36Rachel Cruze?

  And Julianne Hough?

• 8:36George Kamel?

  I had no idea.

• 8:38Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 8:38George Kamel?

  I don't know much about Ryan Seacrest's love life.

• 8:43George Kamel?

  I feel like that's a good thing on my part, but I don't know.

• 8:45Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, it probably is, it probably is, I know, I know. Well, that was a bad day for you and that Pontiac, I bet your brother was not happy. But it's also not a good day when you realize that your information is all over the internet.

• 8:57George Kamel?

  That's always a bad day.

• 8:58Rachel Cruze?

  Bad day in 2026, you know, but companies like Delete Me actually go in and will remove your data from data broker sites. And that's the thing you have to know about all this information is that these companies collect your data and then they sell your data to other companies. And that's when you get all these texts and calls and scams and spams. But having companies like Delete Me go and remove it, oh.

• 9:19George Kamel?

  Helps protect you.

• 9:20Rachel Cruze?

  Worth it.

• 9:20George Kamel?

  Worth it, because that takes forever. And I've tried this back in the day before I knew about Delete Me, of going into these sites, I find my information on Google, go to the site, try to find the form to fill out, then monitor it to make sure they actually removed it, and Delete Me does all of that for you.

• 9:34Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 9:35George Kamel?

  So it's incredible, they send you a report showing you what they've done, how much time they've saved you. I'm at over 150 hours saved, not to brag. And if you want to check it out for yourself, you can get 20% off their annual plans, just go to joindeleteme.com/smartmoney or click the link in the description.

• 9:49Rachel Cruze?

  Yep, worth it every time. All right, well, we have some other too good to be true disasters on these cards, George. And I'm gonna just, I'm gonna just pick up this first one.

• 9:58George Kamel?

  Pull a card.

• 9:59Rachel Cruze?

  And see if you, pick a card, any card, just pick a card. It's one of my favorite Instagram things right now.

• 10:04George Kamel?

  Is that a thing?

• 10:04Rachel Cruze?

  There's a guy that does card tricks and he goes on like college campuses and different things and all these guys are like, oh, and he like wins everyone over because he does these crazy tricks. Have you seen this?

• 10:13George Kamel?

  This is your algorithm?

• 10:14Rachel Cruze?

  I'll send, I'll send that.

• 10:15George Kamel?

  Is college?

• 10:15Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, it's that guy? Yes, it's that guy. And then it's the guy that goes into weight rooms and he's actually the championship like weightlifter guy, but he looks like a janitor, he wears coveralls?

• 10:28George Kamel?

  Yes.

• 10:29Rachel Cruze?

  And he goes in and he's like, oh, he's a mop, and he's like, I'm sorry, I need to, I need to clean. And all these like huge guys are like, come on dude, come on dude. You could, and he like tries to pretend to lift the thing and he can't. And all the guys like kind of make fun of him, he taunts him and then he like lifts it up and like walks around with it. Have you seen that?

• 10:45George Kamel?

  Yes.

• 10:46Rachel Cruze?

  It's the best.

• 10:47George Kamel?

  I do enjoy those.

• 10:48Rachel Cruze?

  It is the best, those are the best videos.

• 10:50George Kamel?

  That's, I feel like the ultimate prank.

• 10:51Rachel Cruze?

  Those are the magic trick guy.

• 10:52George Kamel?

  That's what we call punching up in the biz, you know?

• 10:55Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 10:55George Kamel?

  He's not making fun, he's making fun of the jocks, the meatheads who are like making fun of him.

• 10:59Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 11:00George Kamel?

  And then he shows them up and they're all like, whoa.

• 11:02Rachel Cruze?

  Exactly.

• 11:02George Kamel?

  Back down.

• 11:03Rachel Cruze?

  It's the best, all right.

• 11:04George Kamel?

  What would that be for you? What would be your thing you could like sneakily and then impress everyone, you know? What's your magic trick?

• 11:09Rachel Cruze?

  Good question.

• 11:11George Kamel?

  Uh, water skiing, scuba?

• 11:13Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 11:14George Kamel?

  I wouldn't know that about you.

• 11:15Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, Islam.

• 11:17George Kamel?

  Yep.

• 11:18Rachel Cruze?

  Islam skiing.

• 11:18George Kamel?

  The craps table?

• 11:19Rachel Cruze?

  Craps table, mahjong, mahjong round?

• 11:23George Kamel?

  She can do it all.

• 11:25Rachel Cruze?

  She's a woman of many talents. All right, here.

• 11:30George Kamel?

  You have to guess what it is?

• 11:31Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, this is so good. This is one of my favorite episodes. All right, here's the picture. Can you guess, George?

• 11:39George Kamel?

  It's a woman saying to another woman, I trust you.

• 11:42Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 11:42George Kamel?

  Not in a million years would I know what that is.

• 11:45Rachel Cruze?

  It's Blake Lively. And she created all this new like hair product the same time It Ends With Us, which was like a domestic violence movie was coming out. And so she was like using all of the promotion of that film to promote this, this hair care. And the worst was like, she would, she would be like with these girls, and she'd spray it and then like fluff it up. And she's like, doesn't it look great?

• 12:16George Kamel?

  And it didn't look great?

• 12:17Rachel Cruze?

  Not really. I mean, not, not really. But yeah, but that was.

• 12:22George Kamel?

  Blake Brown Beauty was the name of the company?

• 12:24Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, Blake Brown Beauty. Yeah. And again, the public was not very happy with her because of all the drama with like.

• 12:31George Kamel?

  Justin Baldoni and then the lawsuits.

• 12:33Rachel Cruze?

  It Ends With Us stuff for sure. But this is from Reddit, so take it with a grain of salt. But the initial projections anticipated $100 million in first year of sales, but the performance dropped to an estimated $4 million annually.

• 12:47George Kamel?

  Wow, wow, we want, that's still pretty impressive.

• 12:51George Kamel?

  I thought it was gonna be like, and she went bankrupt. Like now she's only making $4 million off this random product that's not even good.

• 12:57Rachel Cruze?

  They estimated it $100 million. Hold on, I'm gonna be a card tricker, hold on. Or a magician.

• 13:02George Kamel?

  A card tricker?

• 13:04Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, you pick a card, any card, just pick a card.

• 13:08George Kamel?

  I like this one.

• 13:08Rachel Cruze?

  All right, what's it gonna be?

• 13:10George Kamel?

  It just is Macaulay Culkin's face.

• 13:12Rachel Cruze?

  Oh.

• 13:14George Kamel?

  What did he get wrapped up in?

• 13:15Rachel Cruze?

  I bet it was a child star situation and the parents took all the money. Is that what it was? Let's find it.

• 13:21George Kamel?

  Child actor stolen trust funds.

• 13:23Rachel Cruze?

  That's it. That's it.

• 13:24George Kamel?

  Tell us all this time.

• 13:27Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, man. Oh, gosh, Misha Barton on the OC, Gary Coleman from Different Strokes. So there's a lot of child actors that the parents came in.

• 13:36George Kamel?

  Taken advantage of by a trusted guardian.

• 13:38Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, my gosh. You know who didn't? I don't think.

• 13:41George Kamel?

  Who's that?

• 13:42Rachel Cruze?

  Papa Olsen.

• 13:43George Kamel?

  From the Olsen Twins?

• 13:44Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, never would he ever. I don't think. I think they made those girls work. I think they were pretty good guardians.

• 13:50George Kamel?

  Yeah, I feel like they had trauma, but I don't think it was from a trusted guardian's trust fund situation.

• 13:54Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, but Macaulay Culkin, no good.

• 13:56George Kamel?

  Now, there are laws in place. Did you know this? Like the Coogan Act is, is one. It forces 15% of child actors' earnings to be put in a block trust fund that no one can touch until the child turns 18.

• 14:07Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, okay.

• 14:09George Kamel?

  That way it can't all be siphoned off by some greedy adult.

• 14:12Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 14:12George Kamel?

  But that is kind of messed up.

• 14:14Rachel Cruze?

  I know.

• 14:15George Kamel?

  But like, what are you gonna do? The child's a minor. They can't control the finances.

• 14:19Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, but you can't steal from them. So I guess like, gosh, his parents, you know, he's, I feel like he's everywhere now, though. I see him and his wife.

• 14:27George Kamel?

  He's had a good comeback. I feel like we're all rooting for him and he seems like a really good dad.

• 14:31Rachel Cruze?

  Man, what a good kid he was. Great, and some great movies, too.

• 14:35George Kamel?

  Hope he's doing well financially.

• 14:37Rachel Cruze?

  Me too.

• 14:37George Kamel?

  But there's, I mean, there's stories of these child actors and they're not doing well today, even though they made a lot of money, whether it was their own decisions or there was, you know, other issues.

• 14:45Rachel Cruze?

  To survive as a child in that world, I could, I could only imagine. Protect the children, George.

• 14:50George Kamel?

  Yep. And then you see, you know, Hilary Duff and you're like, wow, what a comeback.

• 14:54Rachel Cruze?

  What a comeback. That's true. She did great.

• 14:56George Kamel?

  Sold out door.

• 14:57Rachel Cruze?

  Lindsay Lohan, she's back, y'all. The prayer list worked. She is.

• 15:00George Kamel?

  Was Hilary Duff on yours?

• 15:02Rachel Cruze?

  No, Hilary never.

• 15:03George Kamel?

  She never.

• 15:03Rachel Cruze?

  Hit rock bottom like that.

• 15:05George Kamel?

  She never was like on the struggle bus in that way.

• 15:06Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 15:07George Kamel?

  All right, we need to find all the child actors who are adults now.

• 15:10Rachel Cruze?

  Now, suddenly a YouTuber sounds great for my kids.

• 15:14George Kamel?

  Yikes.

• 15:15Rachel Cruze?

  Do that. Don't do Hollywood.

• 15:16George Kamel?

  Protect Blippi at all costs.

• 15:17Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. Okay, here, you give me the card. I'll, I'll pick the card.

• 15:21George Kamel?

  Now I'm gonna be the card tricker.

• 15:22Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, card. Don't you always go for the middle?

• 15:25George Kamel?

  Yeah, feels right.

• 15:26Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, speaking of movies.

• 15:29George Kamel?

  Okay, I see Snow White.

• 15:30Rachel Cruze?

  Snow White. So this was a flop.

• 15:33George Kamel?

  High dollar movie flops.

• 15:35Rachel Cruze?

  Gosh, some movie flops. Those are real.

• 15:37George Kamel?

  That's a financial disaster.

• 15:38Rachel Cruze?

  Yep. So here's what's wild. Yes. So Beauty and the Beast grossed over $1.2 billion. The, the real, the live action, okay? The Lion King live action, $1.6 billion. Are you ready for this?

• 15:53George Kamel?

  Okay.

• 15:54Rachel Cruze?

  The Snow White one, because no one really liked this actress. She was a little boo boo.

• 15:58George Kamel?

  Rachel Zegler?

• 15:59Rachel Cruze?

  She watches it. I'm sorry, Rachel, we share the same name. I mean, I'm sure we could be friends.

• 16:02George Kamel?

  You think she watches the show?

• 16:04Rachel Cruze?

  I always get nervous dogging on any person specifically because I don't, I feel bad a little bit.

• 16:10George Kamel?

  Okay.

• 16:10Rachel Cruze?

  But anyways, but she, she just was a little bit like, eh, she was trying to like go beyond the original story. And I think with these, y'all, people are like, just give us what the cartoon was in real life.

• 16:19George Kamel?

  Don't update the plot.

• 16:20Rachel Cruze?

  That's all we want. Just cartoon to real life. That's all we want. And she's like, no, I'm gonna like make it this like.

• 16:26George Kamel?

  I mean, did she write it? Why is she getting all the blame?

• 16:29Rachel Cruze?

  Because she like kind of tanks the movie in all her interviews. Because she was like.

• 16:33George Kamel?

  She's like, yeah, we updated the plot. It's awesome.

• 16:35Rachel Cruze?

  It was the Snow White plot, if you think about it, a little weird. I mean, he's like kissing her and she's like unconscious. So like.

• 16:42George Kamel?

  Are we not gonna talk about the dwarves?

• 16:43Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:44George Kamel?

  Was that okay?

• 16:46George Kamel?

  She was just housing these dwarves? Do they work for her? Were they paid? Nobody knows.

• 16:51Rachel Cruze?

  Nobody knows. But it worked in the cartoon, right? But anyways, but she was just, and she was not falling for the whole, the prince and all of that. So, so she was not helping the movie by any means in the promotion, by any means. And so it tanked. So again, remember, 1.2 billion, 1.6 billion, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Snow White, 205 million.

• 17:17George Kamel?

  Weak. We can do better.

• 17:20Rachel Cruze?

  Wow.

• 17:20George Kamel?

  200 mil, that's still a crazy amount of money.

• 17:22Rachel Cruze?

  Not for Disney, though.

• 17:23George Kamel?

  Now, yeah, I don't know what the budget was for the, I always, I look this up as a nerd. I always look up what the movie budget was and then what the movie made.

• 17:30Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, do you know this one? Children, don't watch this because it's, I don't think it's supposed to be a good movie. I haven't seen it. There was a, there was a, when we were like in high school, middle school, the Blair Witch Project came out.

• 17:41George Kamel?

  Oh, yep.

• 17:42Rachel Cruze?

  And it like broke all these records because it was the lowest budget film, but made and insane. And there was another one that came out like that.

• 17:48George Kamel?

  Recently?

• 17:49Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 17:50George Kamel?

  Obsession?

• 17:51Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, that's it. Yes. And it.

• 17:52George Kamel?

  Yeah, it was like a YouTuber, a streamer or something.

• 17:55Rachel Cruze?

  The budget was nothing. And then it caught winds and like it became this like massive deal and it made all this money. And it was like the same kind of feeling as Blair Witch.

• 18:04George Kamel?

  That ROI, you know, you spend $5 million on a movie that makes a billion, that's pretty crazy.

• 18:09Rachel Cruze?

  Pretty good. But you spend half a billion.

• 18:13George Kamel?

  It's not a guarantee.

• 18:14Rachel Cruze?

  And then you only make 200, you lose money.

• 18:16George Kamel?

  People love Chris Nolan. They'll find, they, they will finance any Chris Nolan movie because they know he's going to, so the budget was like $500 million.

• 18:25Rachel Cruze?

  No, it wasn't.

• 18:26George Kamel?

  Yeah, for The Odyssey. They gave him a blank check and were like, we trust you.

• 18:30Rachel Cruze?

  How much is it made?

• 18:31George Kamel?

  Oh, well over a billion.

• 18:33Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 18:34George Kamel?

  So they just know like.

• 18:35Rachel Cruze?

  They're gonna get an ROI.

• 18:36George Kamel?

  Yeah, the guy doesn't miss.

• 18:38Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 18:38George Kamel?

  So.

• 18:39Rachel Cruze?

  Man.

• 18:39George Kamel?

  There you go.

• 18:40Rachel Cruze?

  Well done.

• 18:41George Kamel?

  If you ever want to finance one of my movies, let me know.

• 18:43Rachel Cruze?

  Let me know. Or your music.

• 18:45George Kamel?

  I get to star in it. That's the caveat, which will tank the movie.

• 18:48Rachel Cruze?

  Man, that is one job. I don't think I could ever be an actress.

• 18:52George Kamel?

  You're acting like you like me right now.

• 18:54Rachel Cruze?

  I don't have range. Middle, I told you.

• 18:56George Kamel?

  Middle. Okay, this is an empty arena.

• 19:00Rachel Cruze?

  Ooh.

• 19:01George Kamel?

  I don't know what's going on here.

• 19:02Rachel Cruze?

  Unused Olympic facilities, I bet.

• 19:04George Kamel?

  Oh, is that a pool? It's a pool.

• 19:06Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, an Olympic sized pool.

• 19:08George Kamel?

  I couldn't tell what was going on there.

• 19:10Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, okay.

• 19:11George Kamel?

  What happened?

• 19:11Rachel Cruze?

  Well, when they, when the Olympics put on all these events.

• 19:16George Kamel?

  It's all clicking.

• 19:17Rachel Cruze?

  They have to build, like, right, all these venues.

• 19:21George Kamel?

  Olympic sized pools.

• 19:22Rachel Cruze?

  Olympic sized pools. And then when they're done, and what's sad is some of these countries, I can't, man, I wish I knew my Olympics. I can't remember what countries they've all been in.

• 19:32George Kamel?

  Or something. You're like, they, these places can't necessarily afford to put on the Olympics.

• 19:36Rachel Cruze?

  That's why I'm wondering from like an economic standpoint.

• 19:37George Kamel?

  The Olympics isn't paying them. They're just like, well, your economy will get a big boost tourism and all that.

• 19:43Rachel Cruze?

  I wonder if World Cup is the same way.

• 19:45George Kamel?

  I think it is.

• 19:45Rachel Cruze?

  Or they just use standard, do other countries build stadiums for the World Cup?

• 19:49George Kamel?

  I don't know that anywhere built.

• 19:50Rachel Cruze?

  Okay. Not here.

• 19:52George Kamel?

  Good question.

• 19:52Rachel Cruze?

  Because they use all football stadiums when they came to America. But yeah, so that's a, too good to be, yeah, the Olympics come to your country. You spend all this money and now there's all these empty facilities everywhere.

• 20:04George Kamel?

  Yeah, I don't want to host the Olympics. I'm good.

• 20:08George Kamel?

  I'm good. I don't need to.

• 20:09Rachel Cruze?

  We'll take your name out of the, out of the hat, George.

• 20:11George Kamel?

  Although there is gonna be an Olympic soccer game here in Nashville.

• 20:14Rachel Cruze?

  Is there really?

• 20:14George Kamel?

  My buddy got tickets. I think they were like 400 bucks a pop and he could already resell them for a couple of grand. But what would you rather see? An Olympic soccer game or the Backstreet Boys?

• 20:26Rachel Cruze?

  All day. Heal my inner child.

• 20:28George Kamel?

  Because the Backstreet Boys, there's only winning. Olympics is like your team could lose. And it might not even be the US team. It might just be two random teams, most likely.

• 20:36Rachel Cruze?

  I know. I've, yeah, I know. I'm.

• 20:41George Kamel?

  But then sports people are like, I wouldn't pay any money, money to the Backstreet, you know, everyone's got their thing.

• 20:45Rachel Cruze?

  I know. I think I would rather go to like a football game. Like I'd pay money to go to.

• 20:50George Kamel?

  An American football game.

• 20:51Rachel Cruze?

  To a UT, sorry, thank you, yes. To a UT.

• 20:53George Kamel?

  We have a very global audience.

• 20:57Rachel Cruze?

  To like a University of Tennessee Knoxville, good game, like a Auburn and Georgia. Yes. And I'd pay good money to do that. Like, that's fun to me.

• 21:06George Kamel?

  Is it not loud and annoying?

• 21:08Rachel Cruze?

  So loud. No, it's the annoy. No, I don't put loud and annoying together. I put loud and exciting. It's like Oprah and all the people screaming, "I got a car!" Same feels.

• 21:18George Kamel?

  No earplugs?

• 21:19Rachel Cruze?

  George, are you a child?

• 21:22George Kamel?

  Do you not care about your hearing?

• 21:24Rachel Cruze?

  George, you wear in-ears for a, for a three-hour radio show.

• 21:27George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Rachel Cruze?

  Or YouTube show, Ramsey Show.

• 21:30George Kamel?

  And your poor dad has lost most of his hearing because of 30 years on the radio and the BT games.

• 21:35Rachel Cruze?

  But he's turned up his up too loud.

• 21:37George Kamel?

  He turns his up too loud?

• 21:38Rachel Cruze?

  That's what I think.

• 21:39George Kamel?

  Oh, like his volume? He cranks everything to 11. That's just the kind of guy he is.

• 21:43Rachel Cruze?

  Do you know what else is an 11 in my book?

• 21:45George Kamel?

  What's that?

• 21:45Rachel Cruze?

  Cozy Earth products.

• 21:47George Kamel?

  Is that out of a score of 1 through 11?

• 21:49Rachel Cruze?

  1 through 10, and then they go above and beyond. So, anything from Cozy Earth, honestly, it is worth it, y'all. Like, and some of you are like, okay, well, I don't know. We, I see comments sometimes, like, I don't know, I don't know.

• 22:01George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 22:02Rachel Cruze?

  Listen, the investment pieces that you can make from like your sheet, things that you use every day, for real. Robes, for me, towels, sheets, it is worth getting good quality products. And Cozy Earth provides it. If you go on their website, there's so many options.

• 22:17George Kamel?

  Eventually, we all succumb to realizing that we don't want single-use disposable clothing anymore. We're done with it. We're adults. We want nice things, and it's okay to do that, to buy it. It's in the budget. And so, that's what we've done. And I'm adding to the collection every month. I'm trying to just like, add a little piece here.

• 22:34Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 22:34George Kamel?

  PJ set for my wife over here, and it makes a great gift, because I struggle with gifts, as we've talked about in the past. And so, it's so nice to go, let me just go to cozylearth.com/smartmoney, shop for my mom, and use our own discount code.

• 22:46Rachel Cruze?

  I did Christmas gifts from Cozy Earth last year.

• 22:48George Kamel?

  Genius.

• 22:49Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. And everyone loved it. It's like a, it's a fur-

• 22:52George Kamel?

  It's unique. It's not something that they were like, "Oh, I want this very particular thing." But when they get it, they go, "Oh, my gosh, the material, bamboo."

• 23:00Rachel Cruze?

  That's right. So, make sure to go to cozylearth.com/smartmoney, and you get 20% off your purchase. And make sure you put in the post-purchase survey that you heard about Cozy Earth from Smart Money.

• 23:13George Kamel?

  Yeah, don't lie. Don't lie. Just tell it like it is.

• 23:16Rachel Cruze?

  We like it. All right. Are you, am I next? I'll just pick one.

• 23:20George Kamel?

  Just pick one. There's only two, so fifty-fifty shot. No right answers.

• 23:25Rachel Cruze?

  Here we go. Oh, I know what this is.

• 23:29George Kamel?

  Oh, that's gotta be Fire Fest.

• 23:30Rachel Cruze?

  Fire Fest. Oh, my. What a disaster. That documentary about it was one of my most entertaining. I love it.

• 23:38George Kamel?

  I miss the days when we all saw the documentary. You know what I mean? Like, that was the last documentary that everybody saw.

• 23:43Rachel Cruze?

  The Fire Festival.

• 23:44George Kamel?

  This is 2017.

• 23:46Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 23:46George Kamel?

  Roughly 5,000 people spent hundreds to thousands on tickets to what they thought would be a luxury music festival in the Bahamas. Influencers were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for promo posts on social media. And when guests arrived, there was no event, no food, no accommodations to be found.

• 24:02Rachel Cruze?

  Like, horrible. On a random island, and they can't get off, and there's nothing there for them.

• 24:09George Kamel?

  That's a horror movie, right there.

• 24:10Rachel Cruze?

  I mean, terrible. Absolutely terrible.

• 24:12George Kamel?

  And the founder, Billy McFarland, defrauded investors out of over $26 million.

• 24:16Rachel Cruze?

  Good night.

• 24:17George Kamel?

  That is wild.

• 24:18Rachel Cruze?

  And he went to jail.

• 24:20George Kamel?

  I would hope so.

• 24:21Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah. I think, yeah, I think so. Too good to be true, y'all.

• 24:25George Kamel?

  And I heard they were gonna bring it back. Did you hear about this?

• 24:26Rachel Cruze?

  I did hear that.

• 24:27George Kamel?

  But hopefully, that didn't happen.

• 24:29Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 24:29George Kamel?

  Would you ever go to one of these festivals, like a Bonnaroo?

• 24:32Rachel Cruze?

  Nope, not a festival gal. I need a chair.

• 24:34George Kamel?

  Okay.

• 24:35Rachel Cruze?

  I don't like, I don't like standing in a field.

• 24:37George Kamel?

  Fields aren't for you.

• 24:38Rachel Cruze?

  Nope. Nope. I want a chair. I'll be outside.

• 24:42George Kamel?

  What about like a VIP package? It's got its own little trailer bathroom situation.

• 24:46Rachel Cruze?

  Do I get a, do I get a chair?

• 24:47George Kamel?

  There's a chair.

• 24:48Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. Then yes. I don't like standing and just wandering around.

• 24:53George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Rachel Cruze?

  Don't like it. Give me a place where I'm supposed to be. Give me my seat, and then I can enjoy the situation. That's why I backed your boys. I didn't do the floor. You could do the floor seats.

• 25:02George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Rachel Cruze?

  And I'm like, I, I just don't like that. I don't wanna, I, if I, what if I gotta sit? You know?

• 25:07George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Rachel Cruze?

  What if, what if, what if you start to feel faint, and you're like, I gotta sit down? What do I do?

• 25:12George Kamel?

  Like, you've been standing for three hours.

• 25:13Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, I'm locking my knees, you know? Like, you gotta have the circulation going.

• 25:17George Kamel?

  I respect that. At your age, you can't risk it.

• 25:19Rachel Cruze?

  I just need, I just need a seat. I do need a seat. I just do not enjoy, in the hot of all the-

• 25:26George Kamel?

  Yeah, these festivals are always in the summer. And I'm like, guys, what are we doing?

• 25:29Rachel Cruze?

  Fields and grass.

• 25:30George Kamel?

  My cousin invited me. He had a ticket for me, and I was like, I'm just not interested.

• 25:34Rachel Cruze?

  Nothing.

• 25:35George Kamel?

  In sleeping on the, on the ground in 100 degrees.

• 25:38Rachel Cruze?

  The appealing of that, that sounds like this.

• 25:39George Kamel?

  Paying $12 for a water bottle? Listening to seven bands at once? That's not appealing to me.

• 25:45Rachel Cruze?

  No, and it's bands I've never even heard of, too.

• 25:47George Kamel?

  That's true. You're not very, uh-

• 25:48Rachel Cruze?

  They're like, here's-

• 25:49George Kamel?

  Up with the trends.

• 25:50Rachel Cruze?

  Table chair. And I'm like, okay. Don't know who that is.

• 25:54George Kamel?

  You don't know Table Chair? Their second album was okay. Their first one was really-

• 25:59Rachel Cruze?

  All right, last one.

• 26:01George Kamel?

  Last but not least, I know this one well.

• 26:05Rachel Cruze?

  Let me see it.

• 26:08George Kamel?

  Can you guess?

• 26:09Rachel Cruze?

  No.

• 26:11George Kamel?

  You'll never guess it.

• 26:12Rachel Cruze?

  It's a city.

• 26:14George Kamel?

  Okay, good.

• 26:15Rachel Cruze?

  They lost money.

• 26:16George Kamel?

  Yep.

• 26:16Rachel Cruze?

  I'm assuming.

• 26:18George Kamel?

  My hometown.

• 26:19Rachel Cruze?

  Boston?

• 26:20George Kamel?

  Boston.

• 26:20Rachel Cruze?

  What happened to Boston?

• 26:22George Kamel?

  It's called the Big Dig.

• 26:23Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, I've heard you talk about this.

• 26:25George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Rachel Cruze?

  Tell us about it, George. What happened?

• 26:27George Kamel?

  Well, there was a massive project in Boston that planned to move the city's interstate, Interstate 93.

• 26:33Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 26:34George Kamel?

  I-93, if you're nasty. That's what we called it. I didn't call anything interstate. It was always I-93.

• 26:40Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, Interstate 65. Yeah, we go, we're interstaters.

• 26:43George Kamel?

  Route 128.

• 26:44Rachel Cruze?

  No, you're not a router, are you?

• 26:45George Kamel?

  I'm a router. I'm not a router. I'm a router.

• 26:48Rachel Cruze?

  Wow, route. I've never said route in my life.

• 26:52George Kamel?

  Route?

• 26:53Rachel Cruze?

  Route. Route 65.

• 26:54George Kamel?

  Anyways, it was just this massive underground tunnel. Long story short, got way out of hand, ended up costing the city $24 billion, including interest.

• 27:02Rachel Cruze?

  My gosh.

• 27:02George Kamel?

  And the project planning started in 1982. The project finished when I graduated high school in 2007.

• 27:10Rachel Cruze?

  My gosh. Was it worth it? Was it good?

• 27:12George Kamel?

  Seven years before I was even born.

• 27:14Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, that's terrible.

• 27:15George Kamel?

  And I was a grown man.

• 27:16Rachel Cruze?

  Was it good?

• 27:17George Kamel?

  No. It was terrible.

• 27:19Rachel Cruze?

  Is it underground? But like, do, do, do you, they use it?

• 27:21George Kamel?

  I mean, have you been to Boston? The traffic's still terrible.

• 27:24Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:24George Kamel?

  We're supposed to solve all of our problems. No, I imagine it probably would have been worse if they did nothing.

• 27:29Rachel Cruze?

  But people go underground, though. They're, they're driving. They're using it.

• 27:32George Kamel?

  A lot of Boston driving, you're in tunnels. Like, going to the airport, you're always going-

• 27:35Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

• 27:36George Kamel?

  The Summa Tunnel. That was my best Boston accent.

• 27:39Rachel Cruze?

  That's pretty good.

• 27:40George Kamel?

  It is very stressful driving in Boston. I would not recommend it.

• 27:43Rachel Cruze?

  When we went, I loved Boston, though. Boston's a great city. Yeah, it's a great city.

• 27:47George Kamel?

  If you're not driving, you're gonna love it.

• 27:49Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, and I think that's what we did. We walked a lot. The big market, what's the, um-

• 27:53George Kamel?

  Quincy Market?

• 27:54Rachel Cruze?

  Nope. Try again. Fennel, Fenn-

• 27:57George Kamel?

  Faneuil Hall?

• 27:58Rachel Cruze?

  Faneuil Hall.

• 27:59George Kamel?

  Yep, okay.

• 28:00Rachel Cruze?

  I got a lobster roll there. Fantastic.

• 28:02George Kamel?

  Nice.

• 28:02Rachel Cruze?

  So good. Got a seat.

• 28:05George Kamel?

  You had a seat?

• 28:05Rachel Cruze?

  I sat down and ate my lobster roll.

• 28:07George Kamel?

  You go to the North End? Cannoli's? Little Italy?

• 28:11Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. Yes, yes, we did Little Italy.

• 28:13George Kamel?

  Waterfront?

• 28:14Rachel Cruze?

  Beautiful.

• 28:15George Kamel?

  That's great. Hey, visit sometime.

• 28:16Rachel Cruze?

  Great, great city. Great city.

• 28:18George Kamel?

  Wow. Okay.

• 28:20Rachel Cruze?

  So, yeah, Winston and I went to Boston, actually with his brother and my sister-in-law, and it was such a great trip. And one of the myths people always think, like, you can't travel without a credit card. They're always like, you have to have a credit card to check into a hotel, and, you know, all of this. I'm like, no, no, you can use a debit card. And now, when I travel, George, you know what debit card I use?

• 28:37George Kamel?

  Fairwinds.

• 28:37Rachel Cruze?

  Fairwinds debit card. That's right. Dead as normal, be weird, or the live like no one else debit card. Fantastic. Because Fairwinds Credit Union is one of the best places to put your money, you guys. Like, their banking institution is for you. And that is, those are words that don't go together.

• 28:53George Kamel?

  Yep. You're not just an account number there. A real person called me when I opened my account. They didn't know me from Adam, and they just said, "Hey, just wanna check in. Let you, you have any questions? Everything go smoothly?" Like, this is so, I have a concierge from my bank.

• 29:06Rachel Cruze?

  Fantastic.

• 29:07George Kamel?

  And they've got a great, no monthly fee checking account, a great high-yield savings account that are connected, which is so rare in the online world. Plus, you get your choice of debit card.

• 29:16Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, all together. What more could you want? I know. So, yeah, Winston and I, we opened up an account, um, a while ago now, and yes, and we use it. I love it. I know. It's so great. So, Fairwinds Credit Union, you guys, absolutely amazing. Check them out. If you go to fairwins.org/Ramsey, you can open up the Smart Bundle today. All right, George, let's do a rapid fire of the top five too-good-to-be-true financial strategies that we see go wrong. Not good.

• 29:41George Kamel?

  It's probably like the most calls we get on the Ramsey Show, where I'm like, my heart sinks.

• 29:45Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 29:46George Kamel?

  Buying a house before you're ready.

• 29:47Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, so hard.

• 29:49George Kamel?

  We got a ton of calls. This was last week. Every caller was like, "My mortgage payment is 52% of my take-home pay." 56% of my take-home pay. And I'm always going, if there is no sustainable path to getting your income high enough to where that percentage goes down, you're gonna have to sell the house.

• 30:05Rachel Cruze?

  So hard.

• 30:06George Kamel?

  Life's gonna be impossible, and you're gonna hate this house if you don't already.

• 30:10Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 30:10George Kamel?

  When it's eating up all of your income.

• 30:12Rachel Cruze?

  Well, I always think, too, the people that buy a house and they still have debts, they don't really have savings, and then there's a mold problem. Or the HVAC goes out, right? Like, I mean, stuff happens.

• 30:23George Kamel?

  They go further into debt at that point.

• 30:24Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. But if people are ready to buy a house, or sell a house, I would say, check out the real estate hub that we have at ramseysolutions.com. We'll link it down for you guys. Everything's there. The current stats of the market, you'll get articles there.

• 30:36George Kamel?

  Tools, calculators.

• 30:38Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, even our Ramsey Trusted Pros are there. You can link through and find a great agent. So, yeah, we'll put that down below if you're checking that out. How about this? Co-signing a loan for a family member or friend. Oh, that does hurt. And we've gotten these calls of like, hey, I co-signed the car with my ex-girlfriend. Now she's living with my best friend in other state and she hasn't paid her car payments. And now I have to pay it. I'm like, oh, double the relationship. Like, could you imagine?

• 31:03George Kamel?

  Have you heard of this like little meme for co-signing?

• 31:06Rachel Cruze?

  No.

• 31:07George Kamel?

  And they always say significant other stands for sign if I can't significant.

• 31:12Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, no. It's it, though.

• 31:15George Kamel?

  That's it. That's what people are doing out there.

• 31:17Rachel Cruze?

  So remember the bank who loves to give you money in the form of debt, like pushes it, pushes it. If they say, I don't know if I want to give this person money in the form of debt. We need someone else. Red flag, red flag, red flag. So just remember that before you co-sign. The bank itself doesn't even trust them. Come on.

• 31:36George Kamel?

  And family gets even darker sometimes because that destroys the relationship.

• 31:40Rachel Cruze?

  I know.

• 31:40George Kamel?

  Because your family's watching you go on vacation while you owe them $6,000. And now Thanksgiving dinner is a little bit awkward. So I've just never seen it go well. And if you want to give money to family to help them, like a one-time situation, great, do that as a gift.

• 31:55Rachel Cruze?

  For sure. Yes.

• 31:56George Kamel?

  But don't loan anybody money.

• 31:57Rachel Cruze?

  How about going into debt for a car?

• 32:00George Kamel?

  That's a major one. A lot of people guilty of this one. I mean, I think car loans are the number one wealth killer for the middle class.

• 32:07Rachel Cruze?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:08George Kamel?

  The thing's going down in value while you pay interest on it. And very quickly, you're underwater, meaning you owe more than the car is worth. And we get this one on the Ramsey Show all the time.

• 32:17Rachel Cruze?

  All the time.

• 32:17George Kamel?

  We go, so the car. Well, I can't. I owe 16. It's only worth 10. I got to come up with $6,000 out of nowhere.

• 32:25Rachel Cruze?

  So hard.

• 32:26George Kamel?

  It's brutal. Absolutely brutal. So just buy the car you can afford in cash. That's not going to be a fancy car. Upgrade in cash over time. And if you do that long enough, you're going to be driving a real nice car with no payments eventually.

• 32:36Rachel Cruze?

  Absolutely. Student loans. This is one. This is so hard because I saw a stat and it was like 52% of people now don't even finish college.

• 32:47George Kamel?

  Ouch.

• 32:48Rachel Cruze?

  It was like close to half or right over half. So people go into debt, half of them, and they're not even going to get the product right at the end, the degree, the diploma that's supposed to help them in the next job. So not only that, but also it is so, it is so frustrating because I'm like, the ROI of what we're getting right now in education, the tuition just does this, right? And salaries, I mean, are going up like little bit, but not at the rate at which tuition is. So I'm like, okay, so you're paying for something that, oh, my gosh, is probably what, two times what we were paying for?

• 33:23George Kamel?

  Yep.

• 33:24Rachel Cruze?

  For a job market that's like a little bit more, but not crazy, right?

• 33:29George Kamel?

  And you may or may not get a job in that field, even if you do graduate.

• 33:32Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, yes. And so, and nobody really has the fourth thought to think, you know, I'm going to just stay in state, go to a community college, get scholarships and grants, all this. It's an automatic like, hey, this is the school I want to go to regardless of what it costs. I'm just going to do it. And you get out and you're just already in a financial hole. And so it is, oh.

• 33:52George Kamel?

  And parents don't have the conversation with their kids early enough. And so it just sort of like spirals into your kid going to college with debt because nobody talked about it.

• 34:00Rachel Cruze?

  And there's like this like kind of idea of, okay, maybe mom and dad will cover the loan, maybe not. We haven't talked about it. Like, we get that call a lot on the Ramsey Show, too. So.

• 34:08George Kamel?

  Or they took out a Parent Plus loan, but now they want us to pay it back.

• 34:12Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, yes.

• 34:13George Kamel?

  We've seen it all.

• 34:14Rachel Cruze?

  Mm hmm. All right. Last but not least, thanking you can have a credit card and just pay it off every month. So people do this. They do. They will. Yeah.

• 34:23George Kamel?

  Some people can open a sleeve of Oreos and eat one Oreo. You could do that.

• 34:28Rachel Cruze?

  100%.

• 34:28George Kamel?

  But most of us left to our own devices are going to eat the entire sleeve.

• 34:32Rachel Cruze?

  Or half of it.

• 34:33George Kamel?

  So therefore, just don't buy Oreos unless you're okay eating the entire thing in one sitting.

• 34:38Rachel Cruze?

  And the hard thing is, I think with our jobs, George, too, we just get so many calls. I mean, today on the Ramsey Show, I hosted it and it's like $56,000 of credit card debt, $43,000 of credit card debt. You know, and it's just like, hey, they probably went in with great intentions to pay it off. And then life happens. And when you don't plan with your own money to be your emergency fund, plan around it, the credit card is the safety net. And it just builds and builds.

• 34:59George Kamel?

  Bad safety net.

• 35:00Rachel Cruze?

  And they're there to make money, too. People remember that. They're there to make money.

• 35:03George Kamel?

  29% APR, pretty easy to make money off of you because it's unsecured debt. So there's more risk for them. So they charge you a much higher APR.

• 35:11Rachel Cruze?

  Crazy.

• 35:11George Kamel?

  Don't fall for it.

• 35:12Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, too good to be true, George.

• 35:14George Kamel?

  I'm not falling for it. I'm very skeptical these days.

• 35:16Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, we're going to be thinking twice.

• 35:17George Kamel?

  Anytime you hear something, if you get your spidey senses tingling, that gut check, go, yeah, this is not right.

• 35:23Rachel Cruze?

  That's right. All right. Before we spill the tea on our Guilty as Charged segments, what's the rating and the ingredients? Y'all, I, I'm going nine and a half out of 10.

• 35:34George Kamel?

  This is a winner. I'm going nine out of 10.

• 35:35Rachel Cruze?

  I would order it at a restaurant. It was so good. So good.

• 35:39George Kamel?

  It felt like if your church did a cocktail night and they just used the communion grape juice and went, we can make this into a cocktail. Right?

• 35:49Rachel Cruze?

  Gosh.

• 35:50George Kamel?

  It's giving communion.

• 35:51Rachel Cruze?

  Horrible to say.

• 35:52George Kamel?

  But right? It's correct.

• 35:54Rachel Cruze?

  The Orthodox in me, I'm like, no.

• 35:56George Kamel?

  Oh, you wouldn't, you wouldn't like Jesus's parties at all then? Because he made these, basically.

• 36:00Rachel Cruze?

  No, the Eucharist. Don't mess with the Eucharist.

• 36:03George Kamel?

  That's the real wine?

• 36:04Rachel Cruze?

  It's the real body and blood of Jesus. Yes, the real blood of Jesus. Our Catholic and Orthodox friends will appreciate that comment.

• 36:11George Kamel?

  Why are you mad at me? Is the grape juice comment?

• 36:13Rachel Cruze?

  Because you said, we're going to use the communion juice for this.

• 36:16George Kamel?

  Yeah, it has grape juice in it. I grew up Baptist.

• 36:19Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, okay. That's fair. In a Protestant world, we use grape juice.

• 36:23George Kamel?

  In my little Arabic Baptist church, there was no real wine to be found.

• 36:26Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 36:27George Kamel?

  We had Welch's, which is, I guess, ordained. I don't know if it's blessed. I don't know how that works. But listen, this has got a Full Moon Martini. It's got Indigo Gin, which is that nice purple.

• 36:38Rachel Cruze?

  Beautiful.

• 36:39George Kamel?

  It's got Creme de Cassis, which is like a black currant, very berry, dark berry, grape juice, simple syrup and lime juice. Comes out to $3.90. Recipes in the show notes. Give it a try this weekend. And if it doesn't taste like communion, then you can come at me in the comments. But I think this is, it's just a nice frosty.

• 36:59Rachel Cruze?

  No, it was great. It was great.

• 37:01George Kamel?

  Communion-y beverage.

• 37:01Rachel Cruze?

  And it did kind of feel like it could be, and probably because it's the cranberry and the Christmas cocktail rotation.

• 37:07George Kamel?

  This would be a great like punch bowl for Christmas situation and a pitcher.

• 37:11Rachel Cruze?

  Yep.

• 37:11George Kamel?

  I'm going to use this at the next book club for my wife.

• 37:13Rachel Cruze?

  Oh.

• 37:14George Kamel?

  I bartended the last one. Ladies loved it. Talked about me in the group chat.

• 37:17Rachel Cruze?

  I heard. I heard. All right. Now it's time for Guilty as Charged. And this is where we ask each other a guilty as charged question every week. And if we're guilty, we take a sip. All right, George, have you ever hit a purchase from your parents as an adult? This is from Carly on Instagram.

• 37:33George Kamel?

  Thank you, Carly. Going back to my Arabic Baptist roots.

• 37:36Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, tell me.

• 37:37George Kamel?

  Alcohol.

• 37:38Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:38George Kamel?

  It was like, I didn't know anybody that drank alcohol. You know what I mean? Like, I never saw it.

• 37:43Rachel Cruze?

  And that was the 90s, too. People didn't, I do not think drinking culture is what, like today you have cocktail bar, like that.

• 37:50George Kamel?

  And parents are like drinking in front of their kids.

• 37:51Rachel Cruze?

  Yep, yep.

• 37:52George Kamel?

  And if it was, then it was like a bad connotation. You know what I mean? So in my family, I just never saw it. My parents don't drink. I still try to convince them to this day. But I had to hide it more growing up. Now they're used to it.

• 38:04Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 38:05George Kamel?

  You know, I'll make, I'll make a little margarita and have my mom taste it and she'll make a face and.

• 38:09Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 38:09George Kamel?

  My dad will drink an O'Doul's, non-alcoholic beer.

• 38:12Rachel Cruze?

  I drank that when I was pregnant.

• 38:13George Kamel?

  Beverage of choice. Good, great one for.

• 38:15Rachel Cruze?

  And O'Doul's.

• 38:17George Kamel?

  I think it's pregnancy safe. I don't know. Rachel did it. She ended up okay.

• 38:20Rachel Cruze?

  No, it's a no alcohol beer, but it kind of tastes like an IPA.

• 38:23George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 38:24George Kamel?

  So there you go. That's something I had to hide. And to this day, I don't like, want to have a huge collection out when they're over.

• 38:30Rachel Cruze?

  When they come. Yeah.

• 38:31George Kamel?

  Keeping the cabinet.

• 38:31Rachel Cruze?

  I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

• 38:33George Kamel?

  Out of respect. How about you? What did you hide?

• 38:36Rachel Cruze?

  Alcohol to your family is Instacart to my mother. She is ashamed that I do not grocery shop and don't go to Costco.

• 38:45George Kamel?

  Oh, she wants to go physically to the stores.

• 38:47Rachel Cruze?

  Rachel, I just cannot, yes. She thinks I need to walk the aisles, see what, see what they offer.

• 38:52George Kamel?

  Yep.

• 38:52Rachel Cruze?

  She doesn't think you can see it online.

• 38:54George Kamel?

  She wants you to feel that avocado.

• 38:55Rachel Cruze?

  She does. She just does not. Yes. So.

• 38:58George Kamel?

  Let someone else touch your avocado.

• 39:00Rachel Cruze?

  So you hiding liquor bottles, if your parents come over, would be me hiding grocery bags at my front door after Instacart picked it up.

• 39:07George Kamel?

  Get them before Sharon shows up.

• 39:08Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. Because I'm like, oh, I'm going to hear about it. I'm going to hear about it.

• 39:11George Kamel?

  Wow.

• 39:12Rachel Cruze?

  So yeah, I do try to hide my Instacart purchases.

• 39:14George Kamel?

  I imagine, you know, Dave is not going to a lot of stores these days.

• 39:18Rachel Cruze?

  You know what? I don't think so. But someone from the office, who was I talking to like last week? They said they saw Dave at the Publix. I was like, really?

• 39:26George Kamel?

  I would love that. It's like seeing your teacher at the grocery store. So cool. Whoa, you're a person.

• 39:31Rachel Cruze?

  I know. I know. Crazy.

• 39:33George Kamel?

  Well, I get, I'm out all the time at the store. So I'm, you know, if you see me out and about, say hi. Sometimes I get DMs and like, I just saw you in Aldi. I'm like, well, now it's creepier that you were like stalking me.

• 39:43Rachel Cruze?

  You should have said hi.

• 39:44George Kamel?

  Didn't say anything.

• 39:44Rachel Cruze?

  I appreciate that. So good. Well, if you have a great guilty as charged question for us, make sure to DM us at Rachel Cruz and at George Kamel because we see them, we screenshot them and send them to our producer, Jenna. We appreciate it greatly. Now, if you loved this episode, make sure to leave us a review and also check out the episode at 10 real life emergencies ranked. And these are crazy. We're going to link them for you. And make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an all new episode of.

• 40:10George Kamel?

  Smart Money Happy Hour.