George Kamel Breaks Silence on Dave Ramsey Controversy, Early Retirement, & Getting Debt-Free

NetSuite: Download the Demystifying AI Guide for FREE at https://netsuite.com/iced HIMS: Get personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more at https://Hims.com/ICED Airbnb: Find a co-host at https://airbnb.com/host Shopify: Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/ich Follow @GeorgeKamel and @TheRamseyShowEpisodes here! *𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗨𝗦* 𝗜𝗚: https://www.instagram.com/icedcoffeehour 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗠: https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheIcedCoffeeHourClips 𝗫.𝗰𝗼𝗺: https://x.com/TheICHpodcast 𝗧𝗶𝗸𝗧𝗼𝗸: https://www.tiktok.com/@theicedcoffeehour 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆: https://open.spotify.com/show/5c2uoXBQkOjIiCOf60jJj7 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iced-coffee-hour/id1515070058 For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [email protected] Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 1:58 - Credit Cards After Being Debt-Free? 3:01 - When Is It OK to Borrow Money? 4:40 - Would You Borrow $1B at 0% Interest? 5:46 - How Many Millionaires Has Ramsey Made? 6:36 - Biggest Money Misunderstanding 7:43 - People Don't Consider Student Loans Debt 8:58 - What People Waste Money On 12:48 - Personal vs Corporate Responsibility 13:47 - Is the System Rigged? 16:54 - Sponsor - NetSuite 18:21 - $180K in Debt Spending $1K/Day at Disney 24:51 - Should You Ever File Bankruptcy? 26:15 - Debt Consolidation 27:27 - Inflation's Impact on Finances 29:01 - Income Problem vs Behavior Problem 30:55 - Sponsor - HIMS 32:19 - Are People Passionate About Their Work? 33:38 - Supporting a Family of 4 on One Income 39:03 - How Much to Retire in Your 40s? 40:25 - Why Ambitious People Can't Retire Early 45:29 - Five Pillars of a Great Life 46:32 - Savings & Investment Strategy 51:08 - How Much to Retire at 50 53:12 - Advice for 18-Year-Olds 56:23 - Be a Millionaire by 25 1:04:24 - Sponsor - Airbnb 1:05:38 - Sponsor - Shopify 1:07:09 - George's Investment Portfolio 1:15:05 - Fashion & What He "Wastes" Money On 1:19:59 - Ken Coleman Leaving Ramsey 1:23:47 - Would Ramsey Hire Caleb Hammer? 1:29:34 - Paying Off Mortgage vs Investing *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan & Jack Selby will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan & Jack Selby are part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. Like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Want to have money without having money? It's a fancy plastic IOU card that will have you swimming in debt for the rest of your and your offspring's life.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  The system exists to screw you over. The system exists to keep you broke. And then you have a choice. As a human being with free will, you get to decide whether or not you want to be a part of the system.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  Americans are carrying more debt than ever before. 18.6 trillion dollars.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  What are most people wasting their money on? Wants and not needs. And there's all sorts of ways you can get the thing you want now without having the money. And that's the part that scares me. This is proof that the system is rigged? Or it's just a personal failure? Number one villain in this story is the person. And if I can teach people how to budget, how to get out of debt, all of a sudden, they can start affording the things in their life that they want without needing to turn to these companies. There is no magic time in your life or income level in your life when you go, that's when I'm going to get good with money. Get good with money now, no matter what you're making, and then work to get your income up. And then everything will scale.

• 1:26Graham Stephan?

  What happened to Ken Coleman?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  What did he say?

• 1:40Graham Stephan?

  George Kamel, Ramsey personality. Thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  It's an honor. Is this my third time?

• 1:46Graham Stephan?

  I think this might be the third time, maybe.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  We had, well, the first one was with Dave Ramsey. I joined him. Then I think we've done two since then. So this is my fourth.

• 1:53Graham Stephan?

  People love them.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Oh, that's sweet. Well, thanks for having me back on. I always, I love the show, so I'm a fan.

• 1:59Graham Stephan?

  Thanks for coming on. We have so much to cover. There are just some crazy studies.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Have things been happening out there?

• 2:06Graham Stephan?

  A lot of things have been happening. A lot of debt has been happening. We have a lot that we need to disagree on.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:11Graham Stephan?

  But first and foremost, an ex-Ramsey employee, Anthony O'Neal, made a video claiming that he's shifted perspectives.

• 2:19Jack Selby?

  Since working at Ramsey, he said that if you have paid off your debt and stayed paid off for two years, then it's fine to start maybe getting an AMX card, paying that off at the end of every month, having a system in place to make sure auto pay is on and start building credit. What do you say about that?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Well, I disagree. I see his point in that he's saying, hey, once you've had the discipline of not going back into debt, you can sort of reintroduce it. But to me, the same reasons you went into debt, that person is still inside. And you can change, you can be disciplined, but I don't think it makes it better than if you use your own money.

• 2:54Jack Selby?

  So once a borrower, always a borrower.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I had some credit card debt and I haven't been in debt for 13 years. So could I potentially use a credit card, I'm going to put this in huge air quotes, wisely, pay it off every month and maybe accumulate some points properly? I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze and I think I still would spend more than if I stuck to my debit and cash. So I disagree that, you know, that's advice that people should go out there and open credit cards if they've been debt free for two years. I think you're just better off never opening it again.

• 3:27Jack Selby?

  So when do you think it's okay to borrow money?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  The only time would be okay to borrow money where like I wouldn't yell at you for it is a mortgage. And even then that would be a 15 year mortgage with an affordable payment, meaning it's not 50, 60% of your take home pay, which is sadly what we're seeing out there.

• 3:44Jack Selby?

  What if it is an affordable payment, but the interest rate is 20%?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  I mean, at that point, if it's an afford, if it's 25% of your take home pay, regardless of the interest rate, it's a small part of your financial world.

• 3:55Jack Selby?

  Even if it's 20% interest?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, if mortgages were 20% interest at the prices they are now, I think nobody would be buying homes. It would be a terrible deal and it would be very difficult to get that payment low enough. You'd have to be such a high income earner to be able to afford a payment.

• 4:10Jack Selby?

  Is there an interest rate that you say you would not pay?

• 4:13Speaker 02

  For a home? No, because I mean, every time I've ever bought a home, the interest rate wasn't really as much of a factor. I bought a home at 3%. I bought a home at 6%. And so it would just be more, does that interest rate make it unaffordable as part of my take home pay and my after tax income? If it was 50% of my take home pay, regardless of the interest rate, I'm going, this is too much. We're not ready. We need to save up more. We need to change the home we're looking at.

• 4:40Graham Stephan?

  So we had a really viral clip when Jack asked Dave Ramsey if he would borrow a billion dollars at 0% interest.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  If you could borrow $1 billion, 0% interest for 10 years, would you do it? What'd he say?

• 4:53Graham Stephan?

  No. And everyone flamed him because they said, you could just put that billion dollars in a risk-free treasury, making 4% and just pocket the difference. Would you borrow a billion dollars at 0% interest?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I'm happy to be flamed as well from people on Instagram and YouTube comments, but I simply wouldn't do it. And it's, it's not because I'm like trying to be, you know, anti-debt guy. It's because I live by a set of values and principles, and I have found that living debt-free is simply a better life for me. So if someone else down the road, they can take that loan and I wish them the best. They can make all the money in the world. At this point, money is not something that I'm chasing. I got kids. I got crippled dogs. I don't, I'm not interested in playing money games at this point. I like the most boring, slowest ways to build wealth. So if it sounds like, dude, you can make this much in a year,

• 5:52Speaker 02

  that's when I go, I don't, that's, I'm not going to sleep well at night. I already have too much anxiety in other areas. So the idea of owing anybody, any amount of money at this stage is simply uninteresting to me, no matter the dollar amount. And I know that is not a popular take. But again, Happy to get flamed for it. Flame away, my friends.

• 6:12Jack Selby?

  How many millionaires has Ramsey made?

• 6:14Speaker 02

  We're actually trying to track financial transformation as of this year. Because of our EveryDollar budgeting app, we can actually see debt paid off, dollars saved in aggregate numbers. And so we're actually going to start tracking that. But so far, it's just basically self-reported. People in the lobby whispering to me, hey, by the way, we're Baby Steps millionaires. But there's no good way to just track it. My gut says we know that 10 million people plus have been through Financial Peace University. We know that millions and millions more have purchased the Total Makeover in our other financial books. So if you've become debt-free and you follow our principles for, let's say, 10 or 15 years, I think you're going to find that they become millionaires as a byproduct

• 6:56Speaker 02

  from having a paid-for house by following our plan and investing 15% of their income in the meantime.

• 7:01Jack Selby?

  So what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding with money that there is, aside from debt?

• 7:07Speaker 02

  The biggest misunderstanding with money, aside from debt, is that you have to make a lot of it to have any level of wealth. And if you don't have a lot of it, which, again, a lot of it is the squishiest number, because we now know that half of people making over $100,000 are paycheck to paycheck. And so it's not about income. We know that. That's factual. I just took a call on The Ramsey Show this week where they made a $340,000 household income, and they were broke. They were going into the hole every month. And so it's not about income. It's about what you do with it. And the faster you can get control of it, if you make $40,000, the faster you're going to get control of it when you make $100,000.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  So I think it really is about realizing there is no magic time in your life or income level in your life when you go, that's when I'm going to get good with money. Get good with money now, no matter what you're making, and then work to get your income up, and then everything will scale.

• 8:05Jack Selby?

  You've been polling a lot of people on the street, and I really enjoy those videos.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 8:09Jack Selby?

  Curious, what has that told you about the average person's finances?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  The most shocking thing was, number one, people don't consider their debt to be debt. If it's student loans, they go, well, I mean, I don't consider that debt because the government's probably going to pay for it. Crazy, but that's what they say. Or if it's a car payment, they go, well, it's a lease. It's not technically debt, so I'm not going to count that. And so everyone that has debt, number one, may not consider it debt. And number two, they're not concerned about it. I was like, does that stress you out? No, not really. I don't really think about it. Well, are you working on paying it off? I mean, minimum payments. Well, do you have money in savings? Yeah, I got some money in savings. Enough to pay off the debt? Yeah. Why don't you pay off the debt? Ah, I'd rather see my money in savings. And so there's just this nonchalant attitude towards debt that scares me

• 8:57Speaker 02

  because I see the record highs in consumer debt that we're hitting every month. I mean, credit card debt's now at 1.3 trillion dollars. And car payments, I mean, we're seeing 750 bucks is the average new car payment. 1.67 trillion dollars sitting out there in car payments. More delinquencies than ever, more people defaulting on their debts than ever. And so to me, it's scary that people don't have the urgency that I have for them when it comes to getting rid of their debt and creating some peace.

• 9:24Jack Selby?

  What are most people wasting their money on?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Most people are wasting their money on wants and not needs. Like, I don't think renting is wasting money, yet that's the thing people focus on. And then I find out they're spending $300 in DoorDash every month, and they're doing buy now, pay later for Coachella tickets. And there's all sorts of ways you can get the thing you want now without having the money. And that's the part that scares me is we're such in a YOLO mindset of just, well, I'll never have wealth because the boomers took it all. And who knows if the world's even going to be around? Who knows if social security will exist? So let me just enjoy my life now. Index funds are boring. Retirement is a pipe dream. Let's just put it all on black and sports bet and gamble and do prediction markets and buy now, pay later our way into some level of joy.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  And the problem is that wears off real quick.

• 10:13Jack Selby?

  What was the study that came out with Coachella tickets? Like, over 50% of people borrowed money to go to Coachella?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was close to half. I want to say it was 40, 40 something percent. Yeah, borrowed money to go to Coachella. That's crazy.

• 10:28Jack Selby?

  Can someone fact check that?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Over 60?

• 10:31Jack Selby?

  Over 60%. According to what? According to Billboard, over 60% of people that went to Coachella borrowed money in order to get the ticket.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Those just were the ones that were honest. That's the crazy part. They're all mostly young people who are mostly broke.

• 10:46Jack Selby?

  Wow.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  And they're going, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Let me go when I'm young. My favorite artist is gonna be there. It's gonna be this incredible experience. So people can justify it real easily. And when the payment is, well, 0% interest on a payment plan. I mean, I just went to Disney and interviewed people at Disneyland and half of them are going, yeah, I'm on the payment plan for annual pass. It's 130 bucks a month and me and my mom are both trying to pay.

• 11:09Jack Selby?

  How much do people spend at Disneyland?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  On average, from talking to people, the trips range from $5,000 to $8,000 for a couple of people. So imagine about a thousand bucks a day per person is what you're gonna spend between lodging, transportation. And it can go up from there, but that's generally what I saw. That tells me there's an epidemic of people going, I don't need to have the money now. I can get it now and I can justify it. And eventually future me will deal with that.

• 11:36Jack Selby?

  What does this tell you about human psychology, human nature?

• 11:40Speaker 02

  I think we're fickle creatures and as much as I want to say people are more disciplined than I think and they can handle debt and handle payments. Time and time again, it's proven that it's just too hard. I mean, the fall of man got us here. And so humans want the thing now and we made it so easy, so frictionless to get the thing now. Because back in the day, to go to Coachella, you kind of had to have a payment form to get that ticket. Now, right there, it'll say, use Affirm, use Klarna, use Afterpay and pay nothing now or pay a small amount now. And you can pay the rest over the next couple of months. And so that level of frictionless payment plans. Have caused us to go into way more debt than we would have otherwise.

• 12:22Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but isn't that just a lack of personal responsibility? I mean, just because it's there doesn't mean you have to go and do it. Like, I wouldn't blame a firm because someone took out a loan to go to Coachella. That's, to me, it's more of a, you know.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Oh, it's on the person. Yeah, number one villain in this story is the person doing these dumb things. The number two villain is the predatory companies that have normalized this and made it so easy. So it's not like a firm, it's not like they're such good people of goodwill. But like, we're just gonna let them go on the trip. They don't care about you. You are a number to them. And even if you default, they'll write it off, they'll come after you, they'll sell it to a collection agency. So either way, the lenders are always gonna win. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, do I want to be a part of the system knowing that I'm gonna make terrible decisions all for a temporary experience or product?

• 13:14Graham Stephan?

  What percent responsibility falls on the person versus the company?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  100% responsibility on the person. I think there's a lot less we can do about Polymarket and Callshi and FanDuel and Bet MGM. There's too many lobbyists out there. Like, I'm not gonna spend my life trying to go after these companies. I'll make YouTube videos about them trying to take them down, but that's nothing to them. They don't care. They're making billions of dollars a year, growing exponentially, increasing their shareholder value at the expense of a broke generation. And so I just know, I don't have the power to go to the White House and fight the lobbyists. But I do have the power to tell that person to stop doing that, to get out of the system, to use their own money, to wait, save up to where they can afford it. And if they can't afford it, it's just a not now.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  And if I can teach people how to budget, how to get out of debt, all of a sudden, they can start affording the things in their life that they want without needing to turn to these companies.

• 14:11Jack Selby?

  So to the hundreds of thousands of people that are watching this right now that are not where they want to be financially, you, George Kamel, money expert, would say this is proof that the system is rigged or it's just a personal failure of the person listening right now that's not where they want to be financially. It's on them.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Yes. Both and, this is like improv. Yes, and so I wrote the book Breaking Free From Broke. And the first two thirds of the book is about the system. How the system exists to screw you over. The system exists to keep you broke. And then you have a choice as a human being with free will. You get to decide whether or not you want to be a part of the system. Whether you want to participate and play the game and play with snakes, hoping you don't get bit. Which is how most people operate their life, right? At 18, we're told, gotta get your credit score, gotta get a credit card. Well, might as well get a car payment because who can afford a new car these days? You want something reliable. You don't want it to be in the shop all the time. Well, who can afford college with the current rates? Let's go into student loan debt, maybe a parent plus loan. Maybe the government will forgive it. And all of a sudden, there's payments all around us.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And we sign on the dotted line. Nobody forced us. Nobody had a gun to your head going, you're going to get in a brand new Kia Sorento. You decided you wanted the brand new car instead of the used one that you could afford in cash. So that's the, the growing gap is the people who decide, I'm not going to do debt. Are thriving because they're not playing the game as interest rates go up. As the costs of all this stuff go up with inflation. Instead, real millionaires are buying four year old used Toyotas and Hondas. And instead of going to the new car lot, saying, sign me up for whatever payment I can afford. Stretch the loan out to 84 months. I don't care. I want to be in that car. So it's really all about fighting the inner child who wants the thing and is whining about the thing. Versus maturity, delayed gratification, saying, I'm going to pause.

• 15:59Jack Selby?

  So then a directly actionable thing to the people watching right now, they're not where they want to be financially.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  The actionable thing is to pay attention to your money, probably for the first time. When I ask people, do you do a budget? They go, yeah, I mean, I do a budget. I, I've, I've looked at my bank statement. No, no, no. Do you do a budget? Do you know what's coming in? Do you know exactly what's going out where it's proactive instead of reactive? That one thing alone, like when you download every dollar, you plug in your income, you list out all of your expenses. If you just do that, you are doing probably better than 99.9% of America. Cause you have a true picture of if you're spending more than you make, or if there should be margin, that's disappearing into money leaks, like buy now, pay later, eating out, and who knows what else?

• 16:42Graham Stephan?

  When you're talking to people, are they doing better or worse than you expected?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  People's a general term, but I would say in the street, they're actually doing better than I expect. When I talk to young people, I've found most of them, they have $2,000 to $5,000 in credit card debt. They're driving cars, you know, 2013, 2016. A lot of them paid off. Some of them have five or seven grand. They're few and far between where I meet someone who's like, "I'm 180 grand in debt." Those are the calls on the Ramsey Show. Those are the extreme calls that we get. But the everyday people on the street, I think, are actually doing better than you would think. And they're driving cars that would not impress you.

• 17:21Graham Stephan?

  And really quick, every business right now is asking themselves the same question. How do we make AI work for us? The possibilities are endless, but guessing is too risky. And sitting on the sidelines isn't an option either, because one thing is certain. If you're not doing it, for sure your competition is.

• 17:37Jack Selby?

  And that's exactly where our sponsor NetSuite by Oracle comes in. It's the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by more than 43,000 businesses to manage everything from financials and inventory to commerce, HR, and CRM, all in one unified system.

• 17:51Graham Stephan?

  When all of your data is in one place, your AI becomes a lot smarter. It doesn't just guess, it knows. NetSuite intelligently automates routine tasks, delivers real-time insights, and helps you make fast, confident decisions that actually drive growth.

• 18:06Jack Selby?

  And this is not just an add-on. It's AI built literally right into the system that runs your business, helping you cut costs, improve accuracy, and stay ahead of the competition. Software, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, you name it, and NetSuite can deliver you a customized solution for your business.

• 18:21Graham Stephan?

  Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite gives you the visibility and control to keep moving forward. Honestly, if I were building a business at this level, this is exactly what I'd be doing.

• 18:32Jack Selby?

  If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide. Demystifying AI at netsuite.com/iced. The guide is free for you at netsuite.com/iced. Again, that is netsuite.com/iced with the link down below in the description. Thanks to NetSuite for supporting the show. Back to the episode. What's the worst story you've seen?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  On the street, I met a guy who, at Disney, they were 180 grand in debt, in consumer debts, and they were at Disney. And they told me they were dropping a thousand bucks a day to be there for a week. And that's the clip that went viral on Instagram. That was the picture of what you expect at Disney, right? This person who's in crippling debt going, I just want to go on a trip. I need a vacation from the reality of my life, which is crippling debt. So that one stuck with me because I felt for them. And I talked to them afterwards and I gave them the EveryDollar budgeting app and kind of coached them a little bit, gave them some next steps. Because I hate to, the point of those man on the street videos is not to make someone feel bad about their vacation. The point is to create a little bit of conviction that I can do better

• 19:34Speaker 02

  and I know how to do better now. And therefore, you kind of, our ignorance was bliss until now. I kind of pointed it out.

• 19:41Jack Selby?

  Have you kept in touch with them?

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I haven't, but I think, I think he's messaged me once before. So I'm going to try to get back in touch to see where are they now? And try to see if I can get them out of this thing.

• 19:51Jack Selby?

  It's interesting because that actually sounds exactly like someone who's addicted to drugs. Because their life is falling apart and it's because of the drugs that they take. But then they take the drugs to escape that life. The same thing goes for this person in $180,000 of consumer debt or other people. Maybe not this person exactly, but like generally speaking, like you're going on this trip to Disneyland. You're taking on more consumer debt in order to escape the stress of being in consumer debt. So it's just a vicious cycle that feeds itself.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, Dr. Arthur Brooks calls that the doom loop. And it happens with all kinds of addiction. And when you translate it to money, it's the retail therapy. I buy a thing, it wasn't enough, the dopamine wore off, so I need to go kind of do more of it, go bigger. And with debt, you see this kind of add it to my tab mentality of, well, I'm 180 grand in debt. What's another 10 grand onto the pile? And even, I have family members who do this. You know, they go to med school and they're 350 grand in debt. So adding a car payment to that is like a drop in the bucket to them. And that's the scary part is this is like monopoly money to us and we don't realize the ramifications. And that's the side we get on the Ramsey show when life didn't work

• 21:01Speaker 02

  out perfectly. When they were laid off, they were fired, a spouse wants to stay home because they had a kid. And all of a sudden, we have to tell them, hey, you got to sell the house or hey, that car is about to get repo'd. You're about to get foreclosed on. So those are the heartbreaking calls. Everyone takes on payments when they're doing okay in life and they can afford the payment, quote unquote. And eventually, they have a misstep. Life happens. They have an emergency that they weren't prepared for. And then the whole house of cards crumbles.

• 21:28Jack Selby?

  So what's the worst thing you've seen on a call?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. The worst thing I've seen on a call, the one that is burned into my memory, is I don't know if you've heard of the sovereignty movement?

• 21:41Jack Selby?

  Sovereign citizen thing?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Sovereign citizen.

• 21:43Jack Selby?

  What is that?

• 21:43Speaker 02

  They believe that the government is basically operating under false pretenses that taxes are illegal. And therefore, I'm not going to pay taxes. I'm not going to pay back my debts. And because I think it's unlawful. And a woman called in and said, my husband is a part of this movement. He's sort of fallen into this cult like mentality. And the car is about to be repo'd. Their house is about to be foreclosed on because he's not making mortgage payments. And he owes the IRS $300,000. And I told her, I was like, hey, you might go to jail too. Like, you might be able to claim innocent spouse if you're lucky. If you get a good attorney and get out of this, but this guy is going

• 22:25Speaker 02

  to drag you into prison with him if you're not careful. So those are the scariest ones where someone is, I mean, I think it's, it's a mental illness at that point of that level of sort of paranoia and, you know, deranged behavior.

• 22:38Jack Selby?

  What was her response?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  I think she was a little bit of, you know, just shock mode of she didn't really know what to do. And there was a lot of next steps to handle all of it. And is, you know, I didn't think the marriage was going to survive in all of this. It's hard, you know, you're so far removed of like, that's not the person I married, you know? And so that that was a really difficult call to take. That's hard to. Nail down in seven minutes on a radio call to help her. And so that's the hard part is you always think about them later on and you kind of have to, like a surgeon or a doctor go like, all right, poof, next caller. You know, you have to kind of compartmentalize it and not let it stick with you too much.

• 23:17Jack Selby?

  This seems to be more of like a psychological question, but that also seems to be the same thing that leads people to believe that it's a good idea to put debt on, to take on debt in order to get a Coachella ticket. It's like all just like being disillusioned, basically, like being deluded, seeing reality for something that it isn't. What do you think?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Think about, we don't see money anymore. When is the last time you guys saw $10,000 in cash? Now, Graham probably has because it's sitting in his safe at home. But most people, money is just like this digital thing. It's just a number in a bank account. And therefore, when we take on debt, like a car payment, it's $50,000 for that new car. You didn't have to actually exchange anything for that. All you had to do was promise to make a $750 payment next month and the month after that. But that balance sitting with that car lender of $50,000 isn't really real to you, similar to a mortgage. And that's what I think we need is to bring friction back, bring the reality back that even if you have 20,000 in savings and you have 50,000 in debt, you are not okay. You are not safe.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  There's a real deficit there and you are, you are in the red.

• 24:22Jack Selby?

  You think it has to do with delayed consequence? Because back in the day, let's say if you, if you didn't pay the IRS or if you wanted to take on debt, like I feel like the consequence of doing that could not be stretched so far.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, you'd be borrowing money from like the mob or like some from dude. And then your legs get broken when you're like a day late. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. Now what you do is you, you file bankruptcy. You pay a couple of grand, get on a payment plan or they, you know, repo the assets or foreclose the home. And then you got a get out of jail free card. Now your credit shot, your financial world is ruined for, you know, about a decade. But people just go, I'll file bankruptcy again. That's sort of the mentality now. And people see bankrupt, I mean, we get so many calls where people say, should I file bankruptcy? And they are $12,000 in debt. But they just somewhere learned along the way that there was a shortcut out of this thing that did not involve them.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  When should you file bankruptcy? I believe never. And if you know Dave Ramsey's story, he famously filed bankruptcy back in the day. But what happened is he had his back up against the wall. He had done everything he could in the time that he was allotted, 90 days to pay back all of the mortgages that he had. And he couldn't sell them off in time, and therefore had to file bankruptcy. So we've never told someone on air, "You should file bankruptcy." What we tell them is, "Do everything you can to climb out of this thing." And then eventually, if you're a Dave Ramsey situation, it's going to be a natural byproduct because you've run out of options. But too many people make it the first option instead of a last-ditch effort of, "I, man, I tried everything I could, and I couldn't pay it back in time, and there was no way out."

• 26:28Speaker 02

  But rarely is that the case these days. Most of the time, even if it's a couple hundred thousand in SBA loans, that's a big one we get is people took on a bunch of leverage to start a business. The business failed, and yet they're left holding the bag. And that's a scary situation. We go, "Hey, you guys have to go get normal jobs and work on paying this down over time and get on a payment plan." But I still believe that is the best path out because the behavior change and transformation that happens when you have to pay all of that money back and sacrifice and actually have that inner transformation, you'll never go back in. Because what we see is people go into bankruptcy two, three, four times because they just keep doing the same behavior that got them there. They never really learn.

• 27:08Graham Stephan?

  What are your thoughts on debt consolidation?

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Oof, it's another shortcut that I'm not a fan of. People again think this is some magic trick of just like, "I'm going to take my 20 different debts and put it into one debt, and that'll be easier to manage." And the truth is, it makes it harder to pay off because now you're staring at Everest instead of quick win, quick win, knock out one debt, knock out the next, which is the debt snowball method. Debt consolidation makes the debt snowball method near impossible because now you're just paying back one giant loan.

• 27:38Graham Stephan?

  What if you lower the interest rates, and it lowers your payments, and you're able to chip away at it faster? Do you think the psychological aspect just outweighs that?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  I still think the interest savings isn't worth it, especially if you're doing our plan. Cause our plan says gazelle intensity, deep sacrifice for a short period of time. So therefore the actual math on how much you'd save on interest is negligible. When you're going to attack it in 18 to 24 months, which is the average we find people getting out of their consumer debt, following our plan to a T. And so I'd, I've never seen someone go, man, I became debt free and debt consolidation was my ticket. Or even worse, the debt settlement, debt relief companies that are popping up all over the place.

• 28:19Graham Stephan?

  What are you seeing right now with inflation impacting people's finances? Cause right now, gas prices are crazy, even in Vegas, I'm seeing like five, six dollars a gallon.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just in California and I, I wanted to throw up thinking about.

• 28:30Graham Stephan?

  It's like eight dollars a gallon.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Having to fill up a car.

• 28:32Graham Stephan?

  There was one gas station by Beverly Hills where someone posted on Reddit, $10 a gallon for gas.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  That is insane.

• 28:39Graham Stephan?

  $10.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  I think I'd get a bicycle real quick. It's, it's nice weather over there. So you can easily get to where you need to go. Or just, you know, don't leave the house other than going to work and back. Uh, but yeah, that's true. Inflation is real. That's, it's not like a, a boogeyman. There's a real level of prices have gone up and even as inflation has cooled, the prices just don't go back down. They just don't go up at quite the same pace. And so it is a real problem. I don't see it changing drastically anytime soon. And therefore what's the solution? It's your budget. It's cutting back in other places and trying to make more where you can. That's the only real solution is to go, all right, gas is going to cost me 250 bucks instead of 150. Well, where am I going to find that a hundred bucks? I gotta cut it from somewhere else.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  And once you can do that math and start to finagle your own finances, it becomes a lot less stressful. Then just sort of being in denial going, yeah, gas is more expensive, but I'll add it to the tab. I'll put it on my credit card and hopefully I'll be able to pay off the balance at the end of the month. No, instead make a real plan of where that extra money is going to come from. Whether it's from working extra, getting a raise, getting a promotion, cutting back on subscriptions, cutting back on eating out. Because that money is real and you have to account for it.

• 29:53Graham Stephan?

  How often is not making enough money a valid reason for?

• 29:57Jack Selby?

  Someone's dissatisfaction with their finances or being in debt.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  I would say out of all the Ramsey show calls I take, there's probably 10% where it legitimately is an income problem. But even then, they are in a, like the debt to income ratio is off balance. So they have $40,000 in debt, but they make $60,000 as a household. That's a really tough situation. Like as your debt starts to creep up with as much as your income, if not more, the math just becomes a lot harder to pay off. But rarely do I find, I think, once you hit the normal threshold, which most of our callers, they're making the average median household income or higher. They're, they're doing well. They're making 80K, 100K, 150K. Rarely do we get the ones that are, hey, our household income is 40K.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yes, that is a problem. You're not going to be able to have a stay at home spouse with a bunch of kids, with the car you want, life you want, while making 40K as a household. That's just really tight in today's America. So the good news is we always dig in and go, what are you doing for work? Okay, what's the ladder in that field? And if there isn't one, how do we get you out of this like hourly wage position, making 15 or 20 bucks an hour?

• 31:04Jack Selby?

  Do you tell them to be an AI consultant?

• 31:06Speaker 02

  You know, I haven't tried that yet. I heard Grant Cardone say you can make a million dollars a year pretty easily as an AI consultant. I haven't attempted it, but I do tell people, okay, what is the skill set behind the thing that you're doing? And then where can you make a lot of money with that same skill set if you just moved it over here? And obviously, if you listen to Ken Coleman, what is the, you know, the thing you're actually passionate about? So not just the thing that's going to be soul sucking, because I, we also get a lot of calls from young guys who go, hey, I just want to make a lot of money. I want to go into medical device sales because I've heard you can make a lot of money. Well, that's a terrible reason to go into medical device sales. Because you're going to get burnt out, you're not going to last, you're not going to be a good salesperson, you're going to come across a little skeezy if you're only in it for that dollar.

• 31:48Graham Stephan?

  Now, real talk here, but losing your hair isn't just this inconvenience that comes with getting older. It could absolutely wreck your confidence. And there are so many products out there that claim to restore your hair, but in reality, it could often be a big disappointment.

• 32:02Jack Selby?

  In the end, many men just give up on their hair. And even if you aren't ready to give up, trips to Turkey can drain your bank account and leave your hair looking worse than it did before.

• 32:10Graham Stephan?

  If you're already noticing a thinning, your crown's starting to go, or your hairline moving back, Hims makes it simple to actually do something about it.

• 32:18Jack Selby?

  Hims gives you access to doctor trusted hair loss treatments with ingredients like finasteride and minoxidil that can help stop further hair loss and even regrow hair in as little as three to six months.

• 32:28Graham Stephan?

  And it's all done 100% online. There's no waiting rooms, no awkward pharmacy visits, no flying across the world. It's personalized care on your schedule.

• 32:36Jack Selby?

  Plus, there are absolutely no hidden fees or surprise costs when compared to a transplant trip is just a no brainer. For simple online access to personalized and affordable care for hair loss, ED, weight loss, and more, visit hims.com/iced.

• 32:50Graham Stephan?

  That is hims.com/iced for your free online visit.

• 32:53Jack Selby?

  Hims.com/iced.

• 32:55Graham Stephan?

  Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription is required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. Individual results may vary, based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. How often do you think people are really passionate about what they do?

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Rarely. Most people are miserable in their jobs. And sometimes it's a mindset. I've met people who have, because you would say, if you looked at most jobs in America, I go, I wouldn't want that job. I mean, right? 99.9% of jobs out there, Graham Stephan goes, "You couldn't pay me enough to do that." Well, maybe they could pay you enough to do that. Graham's like, "I have a number."

• 33:33Jack Selby?

  Yeah, they absolutely could.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  There's an amount. I have a number. But the truth is, there's also people who, no matter what the work is, they find joy in it. Because they don't look at the face value of the work. Because if you look at face value of the work, for most people, I sit in meetings all day, I'm in front of a computer all day, trying to wordsmith an email, and then you go home. That's soul sucking, but if you actually like to serve people, you like to be around people. If you have coworkers, you actually want to grow, then almost any work can be fulfilling. I mean, I've met Walmart readers that have more joy than the guy making $300,000 at Deloitte.

• 34:12Graham Stephan?

  Oh, because they get really good health insurance.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  That's where it's at, get that health insurance.

• 34:16Graham Stephan?

  Really good.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  But it's true, there's a quality of life that your job affects. And if you have a poor quality of life due to the income or due to the stress, or due to the soul sucking nature of that job, get out. There is work out there for you that you can enjoy and make good money doing.

• 34:32Graham Stephan?

  So how much do you think it takes per year to have four kids with a stay at home wife?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Oof, well, it's very area dependent. Bay area versus Idaho is going to be very different.

• 34:43Graham Stephan?

  So let's just talk then, high cost of living, like metro areas.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Metro area, single income, four kids. Now that I'm going to say you don't have debt, all right? Cause it's going to, now you got to weigh increase the income if you're in crippling debt. You got a bunch of cars, a huge mortgage. Let's say you have a reasonable mortgage, you followed our principles, 15 year fixed, 25% of your after tax income and no consumer debt. You can then survive on a decent, you know, let's say a high cost of living area, $100,000 because if you do the math on that, you're talking six grand a month, probably coming in, maybe five if you're high taxes in California. And you have a reasonable mortgage, that's two grand a month. You got three grand a month to play with to cover food, utilities, insurance, a little bit of fun money.

• 35:27Graham Stephan?

  For four kids?

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Well, it depends on the kid, I mean, how old, how old are the kids? Are they in private school? All of that matters, but I mean, with kids, you're talking about maybe formula, diapers and basic clothing.

• 35:39Graham Stephan?

  Rice and beans.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Like what do kids actually need? Well, we don't need to take them all to Disney every year. We're just making sure that they're, they're fed, they're growing properly, they're healthy. That's about it.

• 35:51Jack Selby?

  I kind of agree with that. Like, I could be totally naive here because I don't have kids, but I-

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Or a wife?

• 35:56Jack Selby?

  For a wife or a girlfriend.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Shout out to Jack, if you're interested.

• 36:00Jack Selby?

  I do not remember being, like, needing expensive things when I was a kid. Like, all of the vacations that we would go on would just be backpacking trips. And so, like, we would just take the car out, load up our backpacks, we'd have a tent, and then we'd just walk somewhere and then boom, set up the tent and sleep. And then, of course, you have food. And then you have, like, I was in soccer, but soccer was maybe like a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars to sign up for a team.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:24Jack Selby?

  And then aside from that, it's, I mean, what, insurance? But my mom was a public school teacher, so that was also-

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Which is, I mean, she's not making the big bucks as a public school teacher. And what you find is, the reality is, a lot of people live in California making a hundred thousand dollar household income. They exist and they make it work. And yet, there's other people who make three hundred and fifty thousand dollars who are in the red every month, paycheck to paycheck. And so, it's really hard to say, well, if they just made this much money, they would be okay. Because as we know, half of those six-figure earners are paycheck to paycheck. So you can't just say, well, if they made two hundred thousand, it'd be reasonable. Because that lifestyle probably necessitates this fancy car that they can't afford, the big house that they can't afford. But when you go, this is the reality of how much we make, what can we actually afford? You just make different decisions and you make it work.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  There's sacrifices made when you have a stay-at-home spouse with four kids. You don't do the things that other people do.

• 37:19Jack Selby?

  Graham is under the impression that, like, to raise a family of four, what do you think it would cost?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Like, over eighteen years or what?

• 37:26Jack Selby?

  We had a discussion with the Oppenheim-

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Per month?

• 37:28Jack Selby?

  Per month. We had a discussion with the Oppenheim brothers and they were throwing out, like, ludicrous numbers. And I'm like, there's just, my parents weren't making that amount.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  How many of these people have four kids?

• 37:36Jack Selby?

  Well, no, two kids, because it's a family of four. So how many-

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Oh, family of four. Okay, I have a family of four. Do they have a family of four?

• 37:42Jack Selby?

  No. Graham does not, he's just, he's just like very apprehensive to have kids because he feels like he can't afford it. So-

• 37:46Graham Stephan?

  I'm not apprehensive to have kids. I'm just saying, it's, I just don't think it's gonna be a few grand a month.

• 37:52Jack Selby?

  So how much do you think a family of four needs to be bringing in to support a fam- to support the family?

• 37:57Graham Stephan?

  I think it really is location-dependent, if you own your house. Vegas, I'm gonna say probably one twenty-five K a year minimum for a family of four.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Is that assuming there's no consumer debt?

• 38:11Graham Stephan?

  Correct.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Let's assume there's no consumer debt. What, don't you- Think it's a better way to live at that point, to just have no consumer debt. That way.

• 38:20Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, that's why I said 125K.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  He's saying 125K, no consumer debt. So like, yeah, I think that's a good life.

• 38:25Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but 10,000.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  But he said that's minimum. But that's not to cover the kids. That's just to cover the entire household.

• 38:32Graham Stephan?

  Everything.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:33Graham Stephan?

  Utilities, kids, food.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  They might be.

• 38:36Graham Stephan?

  Some travel.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Five percent.

• 38:37Graham Stephan?

  Other expenses, emergency. I think that's the minimum. I think it could be done for less, but I think that would be the, the amount that would be comfortable.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. As, as someone who is a, you know, we have a four person family. I've got an infant. I've got a toddler. I can tell you what we spend on the kids and it's, it's diapers, it's formula. And honestly, all the toys and books, we didn't purchase. They come from family and friends and birthdays and all that.

• 39:01Graham Stephan?

  It was interesting that Chris Camillo was saying that when you raise kids in a nicer neighborhood, they cost significantly more. Just because if you don't keep up with what the other families are doing, the kids will feel excluded.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 39:13Graham Stephan?

  And that you have to have your kids at the same level. Otherwise they're the odd ones.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Well, I'll give you an example. Our neighborhood, like all of these little kids have these little, you know, these little Jeeps, these little motorized cars they're driving around in. And so we got my daughter one because now she's just watching them drive around, not able to participate. And so for Christmas, my family got her a little motorized Jeep that she loves to ride around in now. But there is a level of you sort of, and that's funny that we learned this at such a young age, that you have to assimilate to the people around you. Otherwise you're, you stick out like a sore thumb. And there is a truth to it in that you want to be a part of this community. You sort of have to be like that community. Otherwise eventually they go, hey, you're, he's not really one of us or they don't want to participate.

• 39:57Jack Selby?

  Would you say Nashville is similar cost of living to Vegas?

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 40:01Jack Selby?

  So you're, you're in Nashville, we're in Las Vegas. How much do you as a family of four spend per month?

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Probably $5,000.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Maybe six if we're really living, but that's our like to cover it like if I had a, let's say I lost my job. We needed our emergency fund and we cut back to like a pretty, just like bare bones budget. We still enjoy our life, but we're kind of cutting out all the extras. I could bring it down. Yeah, I could bring it down to four or five grand easily. Because our actual expenses we have to cover are insurance for the home, taxes for the home, all the other insurances, auto, term life, all of that, and then food, which we could really, you know, just shop at Aldi and meal prep and do all that kind of stuff if we had to. And the kids have plenty of crap. They don't need any more of it. And so I feel very confident that if there was a situation like that, I could trim way down.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  But if you look at the average home in Williamson County, which is the county we're in, it's a million dollars now. It's the average price, which is crazy in Williamson County. And so I assume Vegas is similar.

• 41:07Graham Stephan?

  I would say it's similar.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  And depending on the area, you could probably find cheaper. Like if you went to the most expensive area of Vegas, it'd probably be more like that of average home, at least a million.

• 41:17Graham Stephan?

  I would agree with that. So how much do you think someone would need to retire in their 40s to support a family of four?

• 41:23Speaker 02

  If they retired in 2026?

• 41:25Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Let's say they're 40 years old. Oh, they want to retire early?

• 41:28Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Okay, that's a pretty wild. Well, I wouldn't recommend it, first of all.

• 41:31Graham Stephan?

  Why?

• 41:33Speaker 02

  I've never met someone who can sustain that because the, the personality type to be able to retire at 40 with a pugnest egg, they're just simply too ambitious to just go full stop. It's like a marathon runner doing the marathon and saying, I am never running again. They're just going to be jonesing for that next thing. They're just too goal oriented to then just stop and have no ambition and sit on a beach. It gets old fast. Even if you want to travel internationally, great, you go on the trip and eventually you just want, you know, a McDonald's hamburger and to sleep in your own bed. And so I think there's a fallacy that retiring early, I love the idea of retiring early or being work optional. That's what I love. That's a, it's kind of the like screw you money where you hate everything, you hate your boss,

• 42:18Speaker 02

  your job is toxic, whatever. You can just go, I'm out. I don't need this anymore. And your assets create enough income to cover your expenses. I think it's a great goal to have for your assets to cover your expenses and create spit off enough income to do that. But I think the idea that you're going to do nothing is the scary part because those people have so much value to add to the economy. If they're making probably a couple hundred thousand dollars and socking most of it away to be able to retire at 40. If you think about starting from 25 to 40, 15 years, you are just piling money away, probably to the tune of a savings rate of 50, 60% to be able to do that. So how much would you need? It depends on your lifestyle. Some people want to live the sort of, and you know this, there's the like lean fire all the way to fat fire from financially independent retire early.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  So we're talking, I can live off $750,000 nest egg to I need 10 million plus just to survive. And what I found, because I've been looking into these communities, the goalpost always moves. Everyone is so scared to pull the trigger and all the comments go, dude, the math checks out. You're fine to retire. You've got $6 million and your expenses are a hundred thousand dollars a year. Go enjoy your life if you want to quit. But most people are so scared and it's not about the money. I think it's about the purpose and value they, and identity they feel in the work that they do and what's going to happen on the other side when they're just sitting at home.

• 43:38Graham Stephan?

  I think a lot of it is that they plan for the downside because I've seen a lot of those posts. I'm on Reddit fat fire like every single day and I see those where it's like,

• 43:46Speaker 02

  And they're almost attached from reality.

• 43:47Graham Stephan?

  I have 14 million liquid and you know, I'm doing this.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  The average person went to the fat fire subreddit. They would go, these are the most added touch idiots I've ever met. They got $14 million and they're saying it's not enough. Right? That's essentially most of the posts in there. They're all sort of like, well, I have this much, but I don't know. I'm still a little gun shy because they just, they're scared of the future, which is kind of what got them here. And they wanted to have some control over their future and yet they are so controlled. By their mind, by their, by their own prison they've created.

• 44:18Graham Stephan?

  And what would you tell those people?

• 44:19Speaker 02

  I tell them to let go and let God and go find work you enjoy doing and don't worry about, you know, the dollar amount at this point, because truly they, they have earned their way to financial freedom by all stretches of the imagination. And so now it's going, dude, if you can't learn to live off of $10 million, then you'll never be able to live. And I think truthfully, what they're missing is a real purpose in life because their sole purpose was get to this number. They get to the number and they go, well, I guess there needs to be a bigger number because I can't let go of the one thing that was keeping me alive, this weird financial goal. So that's the part that scares me is there's no real foundation other than, well, I want to be able to work out more or, you know, enjoy travel more. I think you just need a deeper purpose than that. And some people avoid having, starting families. They

• 45:03Speaker 02

  avoid getting married. They avoid having kids because they, they think that is a deterrent to their financial goal.

• 45:10Graham Stephan?

  And what purpose do you recommend for those people?

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh. I mean, I, I think getting married and having kids gives you an immense sense of purpose. And it's not to say that if you're single, like you don't have purpose, but I think there's a newfound sense of purpose that causes, forces you to become more selfless and be less inward focused when you've gotta, you've gotta raise these kids and you want to do it right.

• 45:33Graham Stephan?

  And what if they already have kids? Cause it seems like a lot of those posts, they already have kids.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. If they're, if they're married, they have kids. I do think faith plays a big part of it. I think without faith underpinning a lot of this, it does feel a little bit meaningless. This sort of like capitalistic rat race. We're here for 70 years, then we're in the grave. So what's the point of anything? You sort of have an existential crisis if you don't have a bigger picture and a bigger thing to live for. And so I think faith plays a big part. Family plays a big part. Your health plays a big part because we see a lot of these people are burnt out, stressed, high blood pressure, out of shape. And so if you're able to focus on your health, your relationships, your family, your work and your faith, you are so well-rounded that you're going to have a great life, no matter how much money you make or have.

• 46:23Graham Stephan?

  How much do you think people should be saving who want to get to that point in their twenties, thirties, forties? Is there a percentage that you recommend?

• 46:30Speaker 02

  For like a work optional sort of aggressive savings goal?

• 46:32Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Well, I, I, what I did is I saved 15% of my income into retirement accounts while aggressively paying down the mortgage with anything left over. So that was my plan. I'm not saying everyone has to do that, but being completely debt free in my early thirties then freed me up to go from investing 15% to 50% because I still live the same way. We didn't really increase our lifestyle by much. We may have bought our time back in a few ways, you know, lawn care, a cleaner, whatever it is. But aside from that, I'm still the same George. I don't spend, I don't have this like materialistic, like I just want more stuff. We really focus all of our energy toward our, like buying our house, let's furnish it nicely. But outside

• 47:16Speaker 02

  of that, a vacation's a, you know, it's a pipe dream for us right now with an infant toddler and two dogs, one of which is handicapped.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 47:51Graham Stephan?

  You keep bringing up a handicapped dog. I'm just curious.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the third time.

• 47:55Graham Stephan?

  What's the, what's the handicap? If that's like insensitive to ask, I'm sorry.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  No, I think the dog would be fine with me telling you. He had something called introvertebral disc disease, IVDD, which is fairly common in French bulldogs and other dogs.

• 48:08Graham Stephan?

  You have a French bulldog?

• 48:09Speaker 02

  I got two French bulldogs.

• 48:10Graham Stephan?

  So that's another thing.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  They're born broken. Okay. When you think about dogs that just don't look like they should exist, French bulldogs are at the top of the list. And vets hate and love these dogs. They hate them because of how they're bred and they have so many issues, breathing issues, hip issues, spine issues, and they love them because it pays for their second home. And so French bulldogs are, have common issues like this. So my dog was very athletic, four years old, great shape. All of a sudden exploded disc in his spine, lost all function in his back half. So we had to make the hard decision. Do we see if it heals on its own? Or do we do an expensive surgery to remedy it? They go out and clean the, you know?

• 48:46Graham Stephan?

  That's the hard. I thought you were gonna say a different hard decision.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Of putting him down.

• 48:50Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Well, that's a, that's a byproduct that could happen if you don't deal with it. And so we decided to do the surgery. We had about an hour window to decide. I was live on the Ramsey show. My wife's calling me in tears at the emergency vet going, hey, they need a decision now because there's a window of time where you can actually do the surgery. And so we did the surgery and it was eight months of grueling rehab. And he's doing actually great now as far as all things considered. He can run and walk. He can't bend his back legs. He kind of does like a, just this move on the back.

• 49:22Graham Stephan?

  That's good.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  But he, you know, he's thriving otherwise. Like he still lives a pretty normal life, which is great. But that's taken a toll on us emotionally, you know, financially. It's just super expensive.

• 49:33Graham Stephan?

  Why get that breed of dog?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  There's, there's some things in life you do knowing that it's not a smart financial decision. And I think dogs fall into that category, but especially dogs with known issues. You buy like a mutt from the, you know, the rescue, that dog's gonna live forever with no issues. You buy a purebred French bulldog, it's party's over. And so we just, both my wife and I love French bulldogs. We love their temperament. We love the way they look and their weirdness, their personality. And so we just got one and then decided it needs a friend. And so we got another one and here we are.

• 50:10Graham Stephan?

  How much was the surgery?

• 50:12Speaker 02

  The surgery was $6,000.

• 50:17Graham Stephan?

  It's not as bad as I expected.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  It's not horrible. That was just the surgery. The scan and anesthesia, I think was another $5,000.

• 50:25Graham Stephan?

  Oh.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  And then the rehab costs, the medication costs, that just kept adding to it. So it's a, it put a hole in our pocket. Luckily, we did. So I don't advocate for pet insurance for most people. I think you're better off just putting money away in a savings account and using that as your insurance plan for a pet. But knowing that these dogs have so many issues, I got sort of a high deductible pet insurance plan. And so they ended up paying the max for us of a five grand back into our bank account.

• 50:53Jack Selby?

  How much was the pet insurance?

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Uh, it's probably a couple hundred bucks a year for that.

• 50:57Jack Selby?

  Oh.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  So we made, we made out like bandits for this one, but uh, it was still, I mean, that's what made me feel good. What I didn't want was to have to make the decision, as Davis said on air of like, do you cover it or do you put the dog down?

• 51:08Jack Selby?

  Were those the only options? Because I've seen some dogs that have the wheels on the back and they're able to use their front legs and they have like the wheels.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  We do have those for him to help him sort of rehab on walks, but he doesn't need them to, to move.

• 51:21Jack Selby?

  Why couldn't he just have that with his lower half not working?

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Well, there was, there was a chance, that was a possibility, but we wanted to see if he can get back to where he was. Cause he's only four years old. So I was like, he still has a lot of life left in him. If we can get it, get him healed up. And so I feel like we were on the right side of history there. Deloney wanted me to just, he was like, dude, I would have not done what you did. Rachel, same way. They're both not, even Dave would have said, I would not have done what you did.

• 51:46Jack Selby?

  Really?

• 51:47Speaker 02

  They would have ridden it out and just to see what happens, but they're not going to pay for all this stuff.

• 51:51Jack Selby?

  I feel like to see what happens. I feel like a dog's always like a member of the family. It's like.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  I agree. And truthfully, the reason we do the baby steps, the reason I'm so conservative with money is because I don't know what life's going to throw at me. So when a dog has a situation like this, we have the money sitting there. We don't need to get on their payment plan or put it on a credit card. We take it out of the emergency fund and go, that sucked, but I'm glad we didn't have to suffer financially too. And so it's one of the biggest reasons I advocate for a debt-free life, the savings in the bank, building wealth of the future, is because you have more flexibility and options with whatever life's going to throw at you.

• 52:27Jack Selby?

  So then in order to retire, let's say someone does want to retire early, how much would they need in a low cost of living, medium cost of living, a high cost of living area?

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Man, I wish there was a magic number. It'd be so fun to spit it and everyone goes, this guy crushed it. Uh, again, it depends on your lifestyle, your expenses, but if you kind of go, how about this? We can kind of go with like a. Like low, middle, high lifestyle and how much I think is a blanket number. I would like to have in a nest egg retiring in like in your 50s. What are we talking?

• 52:57Graham Stephan?

  Let's do 50, 50 years old.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  I think it's an easy, if you want me to just blanket it, I would say 1 million, 2 million, 3 million would get you very far. That's not to say it's going to cover every situation, every family, every level of household expenses. But I think when you look at the stair step of that, you go, that's a pretty, it would take a long time to deplete that. If you only took out what you needed, 3 million bucks for most people in a nest egg, they'd be set for life. Now, if you spend 20 grand a month, may not get you that far. But for most people, let's say the average household expenses are between 3 and $7,000. For most people, that's plenty if they're not, you know, just milking this nest egg.

• 53:36Graham Stephan?

  Suzy Orman says 5 million.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  That's, that would be comforting, but I think to tell someone that they need $5 million by the age of 40 is insane.

• 53:46Graham Stephan?

  50.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  By 50, still, that's a, that's a very aspirational goal that only personal finance nerds. Now, if there's an 18 year old who watches your channel or my channel, even in their 20s, it's very achievable. If you can make a good income, household income of let's say 80 to $150,000. You have a great investment rate, you have no consumer debt, you get that mortgage paid off and then invest that mortgage payment for the rest of your life. You can get there and I plan on having more than $5 million when I retire. So it's not to say that I couldn't live on less, but the more I have, the more impact I can have. The more I can create generational wealth, the more I can give to my church or nonprofits that I care about. And so I think making money has been villainized and having a ton of money has been put on an unhealthy pedestal.

• 54:32Graham Stephan?

  So if someone's 18, what advice would you give them? Would it be to go to college? Would it be to become a consultant? What would you recommend?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  I think I would have them figure out the, the work they're wired to do first, because that will then show you the path. Cause for too many people, and I just went to a high school a couple of weeks ago and I interviewed all these high schoolers about their plans after school. And it was shocking to me how many people just went, well, I'm going to college because I don't know the next step. So they're just sort of falling into this herd mentality of I go to college because I'm told that's going to be my best path. When the truth is, it's not, especially in 2026. As you know, most people want to be YouTubers. You don't need a college degree to be a YouTuber. It probably won't even help you at that point. You're probably better off spending that four years creating content than sitting in a classroom. And so depending on what you want to do, college might be the next step. It might be trades. It might be an entrepreneurial,

• 55:26Speaker 02

  you know, venture. But I do think the faster you know the work you're wired to do, the faster you can fail when you're young, the better off you're going to be. Because too many people wait until they're in their 30s, 40s to figure out, man, I really hate this. Well, I hope you have figured that out at 22 instead of 42. You save yourself a whole lot of time and heartache. But the 18 year olds I talked to, the number one question they have is, how do I get a million dollars by 25? That's my most viral TikTok was a call on the show. 18 year old calls in says, I want to turn 100 grand into a million by the time I'm 25. And I said, why? And then he backed out. He went, ah, it was just a question. I went, no, I just want to know truthfully, why? And at the heart of it, they're all scared that they'll never

• 56:08Speaker 02

  get ahead. They'll never build wealth. They'll never own a home. Therefore, they need to do something crazy risky and high leverage in order to make a lot of money now because they're never going to have it. And that's the heart of it. If you ask someone why, or, and then what, they generally don't have an answer after one or two rounds of that.

• 56:27Graham Stephan?

  Here's interesting. Let's just say he had to do it. He had to turn 100 grand into a million at 25.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 56:35Graham Stephan?

  How would you do it?

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Go make a lot of money and sock a lot of it away.

• 56:39Graham Stephan?

  How would you make a lot of money? Let's just say his life depended on it. He turns 26 and he doesn't have a million.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  I think starting a business is the best path for a young person to make a lot of money quickly. Because I don't know a lot of companies looking to hire an 18 year old unless there's some kind of prodigy working in tech or AI who's going to pay them $200,000. But you can make $200,000 with a lawn care business at 18. And I've met those people. They're crushing it. So find a business that is not sexy, that is not highly promoted on TikTok, and go. All right. How do I scale this thing with the time that I have in a smart way that doesn't involve debt? And the people that do it debt-free just have a much, they have much more room to play with. And the people that are highly leveraged, well, now they just own a job with a bunch of payments on the other side.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  But if you can scale this thing, hire a couple of guys under you to start doing the lawn care, you scale into Christmas lights during the winter, you start to get resourceful, you can make money in these little niches over here and compete with the big guys.

• 57:42Jack Selby?

  If someone were to listen to every single thing you tell them to do, let's say you called them every single morning for five minutes, you're like, do this, do this, do this, do this. They're 18, they want to be a millionaire by 25, what's the likelihood of them doing that?

• 57:55Speaker 02

  The likelihood, okay, give them seven years. Now, this is largely dependent on their income, because we always say your income is your greatest wealth building tool. So making $40,000, you're not going to get there from 18 to 25 to a million. I mean, it's a $900,000 gap we're talking about in seven years. That's over $100,000 a year you need to be putting away or growing for you. So I think it's just a, it's a terrible goal. And so my number one thing with that person would be to adjust their goal, not to help them get to the number.

• 58:24Jack Selby?

  But let's just say like, if, if you could put your mind into the mind of an 18-year-old, what's the likelihood that they could go to becoming a millionaire in seven years?

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Likelihood, I would say 10%.

• 58:36Jack Selby?

  If they called me every day? Every single day, five minutes with you. And you just, or however long, you know, if you said, hey, today I want you to spend 14 hours going door to door trying to sell this. And then once you have this money, report back to me how much money you have. I'll tell you exactly how to reinvest it. Okay, that you only made this much, we're going to try doing this. Do this, study this, read this book. And if they just listen to every single thing and they did, let's say, eight hours to sleep, two hours for taking care of themselves.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  They need Alex Hermosy for this. They need to scale 100x.

• 59:01Jack Selby?

  I'm just, I'm just curious, what's the likelihood that they become a millionaire?

• 59:04Speaker 02

  And they really followed it.

• 59:05Jack Selby?

  Yep, exactly, to a T.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  And they're motivated every day.

• 59:07Jack Selby?

  Yep.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  I would give it.

• 59:10Graham Stephan?

  Forty percent.

• 59:11Jack Selby?

  Oh.

• 59:12Graham Stephan?

  Forty percent. And the reason I say forty percent, not fifty percent, is because there is an element of just the person and randomness.

• 59:20Jack Selby?

  No, let's say the person listens to every single thing you say.

• 59:22Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but even then.

• 59:23Jack Selby?

  Okay, so randomness is like they get into an accident, yes.

• 59:25Graham Stephan?

  There could be like random things that just come up that that I'm not equipped to handle either. So I would say a forty percent. I'd be confident.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Well, the key is they would need to be, because I'm not a guy who's gonna, I'm not a betting man. So most people would say, leverage, take a bunch of risks, and hopefully it works out. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be the the tortoise instead of the hare and go, well, what is a six-figure job or business you could create? And then sock away that level of income. Live off twenty percent, thirty percent of that, keep living so frugally and sock it away. Which again, is not a good quality of life, which is why I would not recommend it. I would go, hey, what's behind this? What happens at twenty-five with a million dollars? What then? They probably don't have an answer.

• 1:00:09Graham Stephan?

  I'd take it to ninety percent if I could have more than five minutes a day with them.

• 1:00:14Jack Selby?

  You can have as much time as you want.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Why isn't this a new channel, Graham? You should start this series.

• 1:00:18Graham Stephan?

  No, because I, we would do social media consulting. And I would have this person nonstop throughout the day.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Creating content.

• 1:00:25Graham Stephan?

  Not creating content, finding people who need social media consulting, like corporations.

• 1:00:30Jack Selby?

  You can't pay this person or go into business with them.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  It's not Shark Tank.

• 1:00:34Graham Stephan?

  I just have to coach them. They can't come to me and say like, Graham, what do I say? They need a thumbnail. What do you think about this thumbnail?

• 1:00:40Jack Selby?

  You can't get, well, then they would just be marketing. Graham, no, that's, you're destroying the premise, because then they could just say, oh, yeah, I'm basically Graham.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, Graham, you're destroying the premise of this random hypothetical. Come on, man.

• 1:00:50Jack Selby?

  I'll just ask Graham, you know, and because I'm Graham's closest friend.

• 1:00:53Graham Stephan?

  Then it's back down to forty percent.

• 1:00:55Jack Selby?

  Okay, that's interesting.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to answer because I think it's just a useless goal. Because I think once you have a million dollars at twenty-five, your life is not necessarily better. You probably have no relationships at that point because all you did was grind. So now you're just single, no friends, with some money, and you probably have bought some nice things along the way. Let's be honest.

• 1:01:19Graham Stephan?

  But you could make friends at any age. And to be fair, a lot of the people I hung out with from twenty to twenty-five, I never see them. None of it really mattered. And now I have great friends.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  And now you have at least one friend.

• 1:01:31Graham Stephan?

  No, I have one friend.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  And a wife.

• 1:01:34Graham Stephan?

  And a wife.

• 1:01:35Jack Selby?

  One quality friend is worth a hundred.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Non-qualitative.

• 1:01:39Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  That math hurts my head, but I'll go with it. I'll go with it. Yeah, I just, I just think that that person has their, their goals out of order. I would rather them go, what is a problem in the world that I would love to solve? That's a much better question to ask than how much money can I make? Or how do I get to a certain number? That number needs to be a byproduct of something that you added to as far as value to someone or a group of people. And that, we talk about that at Ramsey. One of our core values is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. That's what Dave's done. I mean, most of our content's free. We're not asking you for money at every turn. You could buy a course or a book, but it's not like we gatekeep it.

• 1:02:19Graham Stephan?

  See, I agree with that, but my mindset was always from 18 to 30. You head down work. You sacrifice everything you don't need and you just head down work because the value of money when you're 20 years old is so high compared to the value of that same dollar at 50.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  Agreed. Can I tell you the math on it?

• 1:02:37Graham Stephan?

  Tell me.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  At 20 years old, every dollar you invest is a 73X return at 65. So $1 at 20 turns into $73 at 65.

• 1:02:47Graham Stephan?

  At what rate of return?

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  That's, I believe, nine or 10%. Now, when you invest that same dollar at 55, maybe a 4X return if you're lucky at 65. So you can see from 73X, it starts to go down, down, down over time because you have less time for compound growth to work its magic.

• 1:03:03Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. So that's why I always thought that it didn't matter if you see friends or not. It doesn't matter if you're not going on vacations because you could do it when you're at 32. Like the difference of experience, I think, between 25 and like 35, very little. Like I still feel internally 25.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you look at great skincare. That really helps.

• 1:03:24Graham Stephan?

  Thank you. Macy's got me moisturizing.

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:03:27Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, she's got this.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:03:28Graham Stephan?

  She's got all these serums.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Dude, marriage will do that. I will say I got a huge glow up when I got married. There were so many things I didn't know were wrong with me until my wife lovingly pointed them out and said, we can fix that.

• 1:03:38Graham Stephan?

  What was the biggest one?

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Hair was one thing. I think I upped the hair. Clothing was a huge one. I was not dressing very well when I met her and she helped me step up that game. My teeth, I think I was using a sort of mouthwash that was making my teeth sort of have a... Almost like dark lines in between these two.

• 1:03:56Graham Stephan?

  Oh, that's plaque.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  It wasn't plaque, though. It was like I listerine too much. And it affected my, so all of that stuff. Glasses, I got different glasses that really helped.

• 1:04:06Graham Stephan?

  Those look nice.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  They're a little more modern, that fit my face better, all of that stuff. So marriage will do that.

• 1:04:10Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  So get ready, Jack. One day, you're gonna have the glow up, nobody expected. You're gonna be looks maxing.

• 1:04:15Graham Stephan?

  I appreciate that.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  Have you interviewed that guy, by the way?

• 1:04:17Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, yeah. Jack has ascended a little bit over the last month and a half.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Was he nice to talk to?

• 1:04:25Jack Selby?

  Uh, yeah, he's very friendly. Uh, he's socially interesting, I would say, like.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  It's a nice way to put it. I was just curious. I just think that I'm a, like, I don't get in that world, like the manosphere, the looks ma- I have to be told by Gen Z people what's happening right now, and it makes me feel like a boomer, but I just think there's a, there's a level of just vanity and grossness and flexing that's happening right now in culture that I'm just not at all interested in.

• 1:04:53Graham Stephan?

  I noticed that you were mugging us when we came in.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  I don't know what that means, but it sounds like it's a bad thing that I did.

• 1:04:59Graham Stephan?

  It's not a bad thing. It's just, it is what it is. You were mugging Jack and I.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  What does that mean? Can you even give me the definition of mugging?

• 1:05:06Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, you were kinda like one-upping us. It's like you're kinda showing-

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  Oh, like a little-

• 1:05:10Graham Stephan?

  Like status a little bit, like with the way you were dressed.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  I didn't mean to. I think you guys just usually, generally underdress. That's all.

• 1:05:18Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  So it wasn't me flexing, but you guys look great, honestly. And you wore my jacket on my YouTube channel when you did my show.

• 1:05:25Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Jack Selby?

  Are you wearing socks?

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm a no-show guy, which I know is a big faux pas in the Gen Z world.

• 1:05:31Graham Stephan?

  It is.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  I'm told that no-show socks have not been cool for 10 years.

• 1:05:34Graham Stephan?

  Correct.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  But I simply refuse to wear thick, white socks in the summertime or when it's warm out here in Tennessee.

• 1:05:40Graham Stephan?

  But you'll wear a jacket.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm indoors.

• 1:05:42Jack Selby?

  So what does your current portfolio look like? This episode is in partnership with Airbnb. So Graham and I just wrapped up a trip. We were in Austin for a few days. We filmed episodes with Togi, Chris Camillo, and Caleb Hammer. And honestly, every time we're on the road, we're staying at homes on Airbnb. It's just become the default.

• 1:05:58Graham Stephan?

  And here's the thing most people don't think about. When you're the one traveling, your place back home is just sitting there empty, and that's a real- Missed opportunity.

• 1:06:05Jack Selby?

  Whether you're gone for a long weekend or a few weeks, you can list your space on Airbnb and let it work for you while you're away.

• 1:06:11Graham Stephan?

  If you've ever thought about hosting but weren't sure how to manage everything from the road, Airbnb now has the Co-host Network. You can connect with a vetted local co-host who has real hosting experience and can take care of the day-to-day for you.

• 1:06:24Jack Selby?

  A co-host can manage reservations, handle guest communication, and even provide onsite support so you don't have to think about it while you're traveling.

• 1:06:30Graham Stephan?

  So instead of your home sitting empty, you could be generating some extra cash, whether that helps you cover the next trip, your flights, or it just goes towards something that you've been putting off at home.

• 1:06:39Jack Selby?

  I actually listed a spare room in my house on Airbnb, and I was genuinely so surprised how easy it was to set up, how seamless the entire process was, and it actually made me some pretty good money. I would actually recommend this to anyone out there that wants to make a little extra cash on the side. It's honestly phenomenal. If you're thinking about hosting but want some help getting started, find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host.

• 1:06:59Graham Stephan?

  And when Jack and I started the Ice Coffee Hour, in the very beginning, we were winging it. We were trying to figure out everything ourselves, and that's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you get it and how frustrating that could be. But that is why our sponsor Shopify is so incredibly helpful.

• 1:07:15Jack Selby?

  Realistically, you probably already know what Shopify is, but if you don't, Shopify is essentially an all-in-one business platform. They support millions of businesses worldwide, from huge brands like Mattel and Jimm Shark to entrepreneurs who are just getting started. And here's a fun fact: if you've shopped online in the US, there's a really good chance it was actually on a Shopify store because they power about 10% of all e-commerce in America.

• 1:07:36Graham Stephan?

  One of the best things about Shopify is that they give you access to a complete design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates to build a beautiful online store that perfectly matches your brand. There's no coding needed, and their AI tools even help you write product descriptions and enhance your product photos.

• 1:07:51Jack Selby?

  Shopify also makes marketing simple with easy-to-use email and social media campaigns, helping you connect with customers wherever they're scrolling. And it gets even better because they handle literally everything, from inventory to shipping to returns, so you can focus just on the strategy and the important stuff of your business while they handle all of the complicated backwork stuff that you do not want to deal with.

• 1:08:10Graham Stephan?

  So start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing All you gotta do to get started is to sign up for their $1 a month trial when you go to Shopify.com/ICH. Again, that is Shopify.com/ICH. Shopify.com/ICH. The link is also down below in the description. Thanks again to Shopify for sponsoring this episode.

• 1:08:31Jack Selby?

  What does your current portfolio look like?

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  The same as it always was. It's the home.

• 1:08:38Jack Selby?

  Let's talk percentages.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  The home is probably, let's see.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  The home is probably about half of my entire net worth and then the investments between my wife and I's retirement, checking, savings, all of that is probably another half.

• 1:08:58Jack Selby?

  And then what are the investments look like?

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  My, we have, my wife now stays at home. So she had a 401k at Ramsey and we rolled those over to IRAs, a traditional IRA for the traditional side, Roth IRA for the Roth side. So we have that just sitting there. I've got my 401k at Ramsey. I have an IRA from a rollover.

• 1:09:18Jack Selby?

  Yeah, but like what have they invested in?

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  In mutual funds. I do have a brokerage account that's not a retirement that's invested in, you know, Vanguard index funds. So that's pretty, that's the only thing that's not.

• 1:09:30Jack Selby?

  Do you do international index funds? Do you do bonds, treasuries, anything?

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  I don't do bonds or treasuries. I'm an equities man. So I like to go 100% equities. I think it's a, the asset allocation theory is kind of bunk and the idea that I need to have 40% in bonds is wild.

• 1:09:44Jack Selby?

  What percent do you have in cash?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Cash, um, probably close to 10%.

• 1:09:51Jack Selby?

  And do you buy the dip or do you just dollar cost average?

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  I dollar cost average across investments. I'm, I like to do things monthly. I might like fund a Roth IRA, for example, you know, in one fell swoop. But other than that, I have, I like to have things automated so that my human brain can't mess with it. So for example, I have my kids' 529 college savings plans. I automate investments to that. I automate the investments to my brokerage account so that the money's gone. Like paycheck hits, the money disappears. I'm basically living like I'm broke, which is great. I keep only as much as I need for household expenses and checking.

• 1:10:25Jack Selby?

  How much Bitcoin do you have?

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  Currently, uh, close to zero. And by close to, I mean I have zero. I don't, truthfully, I don't even know how to buy it.

• 1:10:34Jack Selby?

  You could buy the ETF.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  That still sounds like work to me. Like, if you gave me the choice of a S and P 500 index fund or a Bitcoin ETF, I'm gonna go index fund every time because it's the one that I understand. I understand what's behind it. There's 500 companies, they're weighted, there's market caps. Bitcoin is based on how we all feel about it.

• 1:10:57Graham Stephan?

  Can I buy you one share of IBIT?

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  You can do that. Are you gonna donate it to me? How does that work?

• 1:11:03Graham Stephan?

  No, I would just Venmo you.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Enough to buy, what's one share cost?

• 1:11:07Graham Stephan?

  Forty bucks.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  And what's that gonna do for me?

• 1:11:10Graham Stephan?

  Now, you could say you have a little Bitcoin exposure.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, so it's the flex for me? In case people ask, I go, yeah, I got a little Bitcoin.

• 1:11:18Graham Stephan?

  It's grand, grand bought me some.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  Grand bought me 40 bucks. It was a gift from a friend.

• 1:11:21Graham Stephan?

  Would you take it?

• 1:11:22Speaker 02

  Who am I to say no? I'm not one to block a blessing. So if you want to give me 40 dollars, sure.

• 1:11:27Graham Stephan?

  But with the express intent that you have to buy one share of IBIT?

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you show me how to do it, I don't even know how to create a wallet and all that.

• 1:11:34Graham Stephan?

  No, no, you don't have to create a wallet, it's in your ETF. It's traded on any brokerage. Any brokerage. It's IBIT is the technical.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Oh, so I can go to Vanguard and purchase it?

• 1:11:41Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Okay, great. If I can do it in Vanguard, I can understand that.

• 1:11:45Graham Stephan?

  Okay.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:11:46Graham Stephan?

  Forty dollars, deal?

• 1:11:47Speaker 02

  Deal. So now, George owns Bitcoin.

• 1:11:49Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, there we go.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  Holy cow, we just convinced you to buy Bitcoin here on the podcast. Well, technically, grand bought Bitcoin. Well, I'm just holding it.

• 1:11:57Graham Stephan?

  You own Bitcoin now.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess so. I don't even know what IBIT is. It just represents Bitcoin?

• 1:12:02Graham Stephan?

  Yes, it's an ETF, so it's a fractionalized ownership of Bitcoin, but as a stock.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  So do I actually own Bitcoin or just move up at the same price Bitcoin does?

• 1:12:11Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, you own the stock, you own the company that owns Bitcoin. You're not directly buying the Bitcoin itself.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  What company owns Bitcoin? I thought it was owned by anybody.

• 1:12:19Graham Stephan?

  This is BlackRock.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  Well, now I'm supporting BlackRock? That's scary.

• 1:12:22Graham Stephan?

  Fund.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  Feels like I'm in with the mafia.

• 1:12:24Graham Stephan?

  Well, there's FBTC too, but that's 70 dollars. So I picked IBIT, it's a lower.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  You're not willing to spring the 70 for me?

• 1:12:31Graham Stephan?

  Do you want to split it, Jack? It'd be a nice coffee hour expense.

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Would you rather have, I mean, I- This video is gonna produce more than 70 dollars for you guys. I feel like I'm worth it.

• 1:12:39Graham Stephan?

  We had expenses flying out here, you know. You know how much our flights were going back to Vegas?

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Let me guess, let me guess, let me guess. Just one way?

• 1:12:45Graham Stephan?

  One way, two people.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  One way for two people. Okay, from Nashville to Vegas, one way, what airline?

• 1:12:52Jack Selby?

  Southwest.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go.

• 1:12:54Jack Selby?

  Total. Total.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Seven hundred eighty dollars.

• 1:12:57Jack Selby?

  Twelve hundred dollars.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  You got ripped, man. You got ripped.

• 1:13:01Jack Selby?

  Gas prices and flights are.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  Jet fuel costs?

• 1:13:04Jack Selby?

  Yep.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  I think they knew it was your account on Southwest and they, he's got the money.

• 1:13:09Jack Selby?

  Probably. So that's why we have to settle for IBIT.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get it. I get it. We gotta save money where we can.

• 1:13:15Jack Selby?

  BTC.

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  No, I'm fine with that. I'm, again, I'm not anti crypto. I just don't understand it enough and I'm not interested enough to be a part of it and track it, knowing that it's 24/7. It's not, there's nothing underlying in it other than maybe utility in the future. That's it. I mean, so I like to know, hey, Apple just released the iPhone 17 and a new MacBook and their revenue went up and therefore the share price went up and therefore I benefited from that. That I can understand. And I love Warren Buffett's take that he wouldn't buy all the Bitcoin in the world for $25. He said that. I don't know if it's still true, but I respect the man for having some principles going, it doesn't produce anything. He's like, what would I do with it?

• 1:13:53Jack Selby?

  Would you buy all the Bitcoin in the world for $25?

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  I would. Yeah, 100%.

• 1:13:57Jack Selby?

  Okay, there we go. If you said, no, I was really gonna push back.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  You got me with your hypotheticals. If someone offered all the Bitcoin in the world, which I assume is like trillions of dollars at this point, I would, I would take it for 25 bucks.

• 1:14:08Jack Selby?

  Bitcoin crashes, it's worthless, and they say you could buy all of it for $25.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would do that. I mean, that's, that's DoorDash money.

• 1:14:17Jack Selby?

  Good.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Wouldn't anybody other than Warren Buffett? Cause he already has billions. He's fine.

• 1:14:22Jack Selby?

  Wouldn't take a billion dollar loan at negative 10% interest.

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  It's a totally different process. That's debt. That's borrowing money. This is money I actually have to purchase something. So that's the difference maker. Happily, I will, I will buy things with my own money, but borrowing money to get anything? Not interested.

• 1:14:40Jack Selby?

  One thing I just realized right now, which I think is very funny, is this shirt I purchased with my Saks Fifth Avenue credit that I get from the MX Platinum.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Look at you.

• 1:14:49Jack Selby?

  Thank you. And these pants I purchased with my Lululemon credit that I get with the MX Platinum. And I didn't even do that on purpose.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  You know who loves that right now? Saks Fifth Avenue Lululemon, which is why they paid MX good money.

• 1:15:02Jack Selby?

  Also, these pants were like $130 and my credit was 75. So I paid an additional, you know, 70 bucks effectively.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Cost you.

• 1:15:09Jack Selby?

  I'm just being honest. And this was also more than 50 bucks.

• 1:15:11Speaker 02

  Well, plus we got the annual fee.

• 1:15:13Jack Selby?

  Saks Fifth.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  You know, what's the annual fee on that card?

• 1:15:16Jack Selby?

  Seven, nine hundred or something?

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  So now we're already over a thousand bucks that we've, we've paid for the pleasure of getting some credits. That you then had to use, cause you, you wouldn't have shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue. You could have got that on Amazon for a fraction of the price.

• 1:15:27Jack Selby?

  This?

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Jack Selby?

  Well, how much did you pay for that jacket?

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  I didn't pay for it.

• 1:15:31Jack Selby?

  How much did you pay for that shirt?

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  This is an old Everlane shirt, probably 20 bucks maybe?

• 1:15:36Jack Selby?

  Those pants?

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  Probably another 50 bucks.

• 1:15:38Jack Selby?

  The socks?

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  Two dollars.

• 1:15:41Jack Selby?

  Shoes?

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  60 dollars.

• 1:15:43Jack Selby?

  Glasses?

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  I'm wearing some money right now. Warby Parker's, 100, oh, I am high index. So they charge you more for the pleasure. Cause otherwise I'd have lenses this thick. So maybe 180 bucks.

• 1:15:52Jack Selby?

  Gram?

• 1:15:55Jack Selby?

  Free. Free. Free.

• 1:15:59Speaker 02

  Two dollars.

• 1:16:00Jack Selby?

  Wow.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  Free. Ding ding ding. So Jack is the high roller here.

• 1:16:05Jack Selby?

  Well, I also, well, yeah, if you account for the credits, I mean, this was a Christmas present. These were free.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  I do like the pickleball socks. That really brings the outfit together.

• 1:16:11Jack Selby?

  Thank you. And I, I actually was hoping that they weren't going to show on camera, but you know.

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  I think you wear those socks to show. You want to show them off.

• 1:16:18Jack Selby?

  No, no, I, I, my, I did a purge of my socks lately and these were some of them ones that I kept and just happened to pack them.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  Wow. Well, I'm glad we're all pretty frugal with our, with our clothing.

• 1:16:28Jack Selby?

  What do you waste your money on?

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  If you, if like what other people would say I waste money on?

• 1:16:32Jack Selby?

  Sure.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Oh man, that's a tough one. If you looked at my bank statement, you would say we waste money on our dogs. A hundred percent. They would say it's a waste of money. To spend money on their specialized food. Uh, we send them to like our friend's house for like a daycare a couple of times a week. We spend money at the vet, you know, rehab visits, acupuncture, all of that stuff. People would say that is a waste of money. And I go, there's about five, six creatures that I am, that I really care about on this earth. And my family and dogs are, that are in there.

• 1:17:04Jack Selby?

  If you came into financial hardship, would you sell your dogs?

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Would I sell my dogs if I came into financial hardship? If it was, um, like life or death or like to avoid bankruptcy?

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  I still don't think I would. I would find a way to make money.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  But people should sell their horse. Well, financial hardship. Well, here's the good news. I physically. There is zero reasons I would ever be able to go into debt. You know what I mean? Like financial hardship.

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  I'm not going to need to borrow money ever. And so that's again, a crazy hypothetical, but if my dog was worth $20,000, $25,000, and I was $135,000 in consumer debt, would I? Knowing that horses are to be bought and sold on the open market? Absolutely.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Now, would I maybe a rehoming fee temporarily while we got our feet, you know, back on track? I might do that. Now that the horse thing has ran its course, how do you feel about it? That's pun intended. Yeah, the horse. I think I'm on the right side of history if you understood the context of that call. I think on what I said, I wish I could take back a thousand times. Explain what happened. Katie called into the show, 136 grand in debt, rural area in Kentucky, working for the USDA, making 36 grand a year. And I was doing the math going, she's never going to get out of this. Cause she's like, well, I can't move. It's a rural area. I have no plans on going anywhere. I'm stuck here because of my horse.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  And I find, we find out the horse is worth 25 grand. It's a prize winning horse. And so finally, the end of the call, after she hit us with excuse after excuse of why she couldn't take any of our advices. Katie, I'm going to give you a hard challenge. Could you sell the horse? And she went, I don't know, 11 years and all that. And I, Katie, the horse doesn't even know your name. And then we went to break. So the part that I wish I could take back was the cruelty in which I threw out, the horse doesn't even know your name. I thought a lot of people agreed with you. There was a small subset. The large majority were in shock at what I said and how I said it. I thought it was hilarious. But I think over time, people are more on my side, which I appreciate. The thing is, if Taylor Hammer was on that call, he would say to sell the horse immediately.

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  Well, when you look at the horse as, as an asset, which by the way, if you are racing your horse for profit, you can't tell me it's just a family member. Okay. I don't race my dog for profit and then try to claim that, you know, it's a family member. So that's the difference maker is horses do go for a million dollars. If it's a prize winning horse for the Derby or whatever. My dog. Barely can walk. And so, you know, it's not really something anybody would want. But French Bulldogs, you know, if you go out in the open market and try to buy one from a breeder, you're paying three grand, four grand, five grand.

• 1:19:54Graham Stephan?

  We have a member of this community. It's called the Index and he breeds horses. And I've seen the prices that he gets for some of these horses. He sold one recently. I think it was like 400 grand. And they go to auction.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  But they have a soul. How could he do that to that poor horse?

• 1:20:10Graham Stephan?

  That's a show horse.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  All horses can be show horses if you put them on a show.

• 1:20:15Jack Selby?

  Is Katie doing okay now? Did she end up selling the horse?

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  Uh, she's doing better. There was a lot of backstory that she kind of filled me in on. But she is chipping away at the debt still. This was years ago and she's still in the debt to my, to my credit. Could have sold the horse and been out of debt by now, probably, but.

• 1:20:30Graham Stephan?

  Did the horse go up or down in value?

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't know how. I need to ask her about that. If she's been tracking the value of said horse. You know, you gotta get a horse appraisal, I imagine, which that's a job. Somebody's out there appraising horses.

• 1:20:42Graham Stephan?

  Maybe that's what the 18 year old should be doing.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  Don't, yeah, don't tell me there's not some opportunity out there. There's no jobs out there. Go appraise a horse.

• 1:20:48Graham Stephan?

  Dude, an AI horse consultant.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  Grant Cardone, get him on the line.

• 1:20:52Jack Selby?

  I think you need to go spend more time around horses. I think you need to, to get a connection.

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  I am going to the Renaissance Fair here in Nashville, uh, coming up. So I'm gonna have to meet some horses. I do have a fear, an irrational fear that I'm going to get bucked by a horse to my untimely death.

• 1:21:08Jack Selby?

  There's no way that has nothing to do with you telling this lady to sell her horse.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  I just think if it happens, we're all going to go, kinda had it coming. Final destination.

• 1:21:18Jack Selby?

  So on the topic of controversy, because that horse issue was a controversy. People online are making crazy speculations of what's going on with Ken Coleman.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:21:27Jack Selby?

  He's left Ramsey.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Jack Selby?

  So now we're all curious.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  We're sitting in, in his studio for his old show, Front Row Seat.

• 1:21:33Graham Stephan?

  What happened to Ken Coleman?

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  The only true story, which at this point, who's gonna believe me when they already have a narrative in their mind that something crazy happened? I've known Ken longer than most people in this building. I've known him since 2010. We were friends before he even worked at Ramsey and we were really good friends when he was here. And he truly did not see this opportunity coming. And if you follow Ken's content, you know that he preaches the proximity principle. That's do the work you want to do, you get around the people doing it. And his whole thing was get better, move up, lead well. And because Ken is such a sharp guy, that he had a lot of friends and those friends were entrepreneurs and business owners and they moved over here and now they're at this company.

• 1:22:18Speaker 02

  And so he tapped Ken on the shoulder for this opportunity to become kind of an executive, you know, C-suite SVP of Communications for this tech software company. This caught Ken off guard, he wasn't expecting it. And the more time went on, you know, a month or two of discussions, conversations, praying about it, talking to his wife, he realized that it was an opportunity that was a once in a lifetime generational wealth building thing for his family that he just couldn't pass up. And Ken loves a challenge, if you know Ken. And his, you know, he had a great, what, 12, 12-year run here? Going from host to personality, multiple shows, carrying Ramsey Show and live events and books and products that have done really well. So there was no animosity.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  He had a great two-hour meeting with Dave at his house and, you know, there was, there was tears, there was hugs, he's still gonna be a family friend to Dave's. And I know that's the least exciting story I could tell, but it's the truth.

• 1:23:14Graham Stephan?

  I've seen, I've seen wild controversies online. There were these theories.

• 1:23:17Speaker 02

  Give me the craziest ones, I'm curious.

• 1:23:19Graham Stephan?

  That viewership was declining and so Dave Ramsey internally is bleeding so much money.

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  Oh, that's hilarious.

• 1:23:26Graham Stephan?

  That they demoted him and that.

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  Well, Ken has the most successful digital product in the Ramsey store. So that's just already like a debunk. His, find the work you're wired to do, the get clear career assessment is top-selling product.

• 1:23:39Graham Stephan?

  Okay, well, apparently Ramsey Solutions was bleeding money, couldn't afford to keep the show going. He was demoted.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  That's hilarious.

• 1:23:45Graham Stephan?

  And because he was demoted, he ended up taking another opportunity to be able to leave on his own terms instead of getting fired.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  Wow, so we let him go with dignity is what happened because he was such a money loss for the company. No, that would have been a cooler story, though. That would have been a lot more exciting than what actually happened.

• 1:24:02Jack Selby?

  I'm curious, why can he not just pop in once a week to film something?

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I mean, when you're no longer employed, we're an all-in or all-out company. We're 40 hours a week. You are representing this company and this brand. And so it gets too messy when you're now working for another company full-time and then just popping in. I'd be mad because like, well, I don't get to pop in. I gotta be here doing this show with you guys. I'm working out here, but Ken will remain a dear, dear friend. We were texting the other day. I asked him if he's making new friends at work and if they're any.

• 1:24:33Jack Selby?

  So he's already, he's already there?

• 1:24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. He was, he had a two, a weekend gap, if that, a day gap before jumping on to the new, just the way the timing worked out. So he wrapped up some great events that we did Ramsey Show Lives, wrapped up a speaking gig and it was sayonara. But he's still gonna always be a pal of mine.

• 1:24:50Jack Selby?

  Who's gonna?

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  He's not moving, so he's still here.

• 1:24:52Jack Selby?

  Who's gonna take his place?

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  Uh, nobody. We're not backfilling his role. It was, he was a once, uh, like a, this role was created for him because of his passion. So it's not like a, a field we're just trying to fill to fill, if that makes sense. But if the right person came along and they had a similar thing, who knows? You know, we're always hiring.

• 1:25:10Jack Selby?

  Would you guys hire Caleb Hammer?

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  I would say if, if hell froze over, we would consider it. I think Caleb and Dave are so at odds with their principles, their values, their faith, the way they carry themselves, their mission, their goals, that it would not make sense. To work here, you have to have a similar like mind, similar values. And Caleb just doesn't have those. It's not a knock against Caleb, but you know, we don't have that, that type of content around here and we have a different mission.

• 1:25:40Jack Selby?

  When you say that type of content, what is the main thing you're thinking of?

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  I would say the, the cussing, it's not family friendly. We have a set of values that are faith-based that I think would be jarring for Caleb to then like adhere to or grapple with in this building. And our mission is not to like scale at all costs, which I think Caleb is just, he's a young entrepreneurial guy. He wants to scale and there's not much stopping him. And this place has been around for 30 something years. We have a thousand people. We represent something kind of bigger than us and we're not willing to. You know, kind of water that down to get more clicks and views, which Caleb would obviously get. The guy crushes it, but to us, it's not worth it. And it's why we don't do that style of content.

• 1:26:27Graham Stephan?

  What do you think Caleb is doing right?

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  What he's doing right? I mean, creating crazy engaging content while sneaking in the teaching. So he's leaning into the edutainment where he's teaching about taxes while yelling at the person and you just learned about how tax brackets work in the meantime. That I think he does really well. But I can't watch the content because I have children at home. And so I'd have to have headphones on at all times to engage in any of it.

• 1:26:52Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 1:27:19Speaker 06

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 1:27:47Graham Stephan?

  At what age would you let your kids watch Caleb Hammer?

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, I wouldn't. Left my own devices, I wouldn't. Now, if they go off and they're doing their own thing and they choose, you know, at some point, you can't control what they're going to watch on the internet. I would hope I raised them enough to go, hey, you don't want that kind of filth in your brain, you know? And I was on Caleb's show. I left needing to take a shower after that. It was just, woof. You know, I'm too much of a prude, I guess, to be in that world. So. You know, my, my kids watch Blippi and I already don't like that.

• 1:28:19Jack Selby?

  What do you think we can improve on?

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  I think you guys, what you've done well is sort of like let anybody in, which is really nice that you've, it's an open forum essentially. You guys stay very curious. I think what you could do is have a, have a sort of a stance, like have a foundational principles that you got, that's clear to the audience of here's what we believe. And therefore that's the basis for the discussion.

• 1:28:44Graham Stephan?

  I'm so fluid with a lot of these things though, that I don't have like very firm beliefs on a lot of things and I'm open to hearing.

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  You're telling me I could convince you to cut up all of your credit cards and pay off all of your debt in one discussion?

• 1:28:54Graham Stephan?

  Convince me. I'm not saying you will convince me, but you theoretically could convince me. If I, if I hear another viewpoint that I'm like, wait a second, that actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe I'm incorrect.

• 1:29:06Speaker 02

  Graham is oddly fluid sometimes, but also I would say you're also very hard headed and very stubborn with some stances that you take. You're a sucker for logic and that's, it's all about the logic, right?

• 1:29:17Graham Stephan?

  So that's why I think I, I don't know what I don't know.

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  And I think the part, the, the, I guess the blind side, if there was one, would be the reality and emotional and psychological side of the principles that we teach. That's the hard part to just like rattle out there of like, well, you'd feel better if you didn't have a mortgage. Like, yeah, but I could make a hundred thousand dollars if I kept it. I'm like, well, yeah, but you'd feel better, like psychologically, emotionally.

• 1:29:44Graham Stephan?

  I'd feel better with a hundred grand though.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  That's the question mark. So you're not willing to try it to see what it's like.

• 1:29:50Graham Stephan?

  Because I can't reverse that. Like, once I pay off the 2.875% mortgage.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  You're a smart guy. You'll figure it out. You'll arbitrage it. You'll box spread it. You'll options call it.

• 1:29:59Graham Stephan?

  I can't get that again.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  See, that's, that's a, that's a short sight of mentality. It's going to limit you in life. Think big.

• 1:30:06Graham Stephan?

  I think thinking big is not paying off the mortgage.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  Jack, agree, disagree?

• 1:30:11Jack Selby?

  I think if. In a perfect world, yes, it makes more sense to not pay it off. I agree. Because I think one is subject to, like, you're adding a layer of complexity, which is someone's emotions and feelings. If you remove that and it's just-

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  By perfect world, you mean if you could control every single variable in your life without fail, then it works?

• 1:30:31Jack Selby?

  Yeah, I would say in a vacuum, it makes more sense to take on the debt.

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  Would you say we exist outside of a vacuum?

• 1:30:38Jack Selby?

  Yeah, and it also depends like how far you want to expand outside of that vacuum. So like, you know, if you're gonna go 10 layers deep, you know, and you add complexities in your life, and then you add emotions, and you add this, and you add that, and you add maybe someone who has a more flippant nature, and they were raised a certain way, then, you know, they have addictive personality, then, then yeah, like, it doesn't make sense. But I don't think that it's necessarily black or white. I think that like, it depends on how many of your variables you can control. For example, for me, I do not even check my portfolio daily. Like, I don't do that. I don't stay super close to my money. I don't idolize money. I just try to do whatever I think is the most rational thing. And so for me, I'll keep my sub 3% interest rate debt,

• 1:31:20Jack Selby?

  because it just makes sense, and I'm aggressively investing into the markets. I don't check my accounts daily. I don't, I don't have like some crazy theme that I try to adhere to in my portfolio. And it's worked out very well for me. And I agree with the math, the math agrees with me. But I'm also like weird, because I'm a little sociopathic in that sense. Like, I just, I don't care as much, I think.

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, we can agree on that, that he's sociopathic.

• 1:31:44Jack Selby?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's a great way to wrap.

• 1:31:49Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  Ending on Jack is a sociopath. That's your tag.

• 1:31:52Jack Selby?

  One last question for you, though.

• 1:31:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:54Jack Selby?

  Thumbs up, thumbs down, selling a covered call?

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  I don't even know enough about that to give you yes or no, but I'm gonna say no, because I don't know how to do it.

• 1:32:04Graham Stephan?

  Do you think it's possible that Jack would be able to make 3% a week selling covered calls?

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  Not consistently.

• 1:32:10Graham Stephan?

  How do you know that?

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  Because if he could-

• 1:32:12Jack Selby?

  I agree with George.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  Everybody would be doing it. And it's so easy to do the math. Well, if I just sports bet, I make 5% per day. If that compounds, I have a million dollars by the end of the year. The problem is the house always wins and there's still risk involved and you're not going to bat a thousand in the, in the financial world. And so therefore I think it's a simpler, I'd rather just leave the money in an index fund and eventually you'll have enough. And even paying off the mortgage, to your point, let's just say you're going to have plenty of money, even if you pay off the mortgage, you're going to have more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime. What's the point of having a little extra money right now? You have plenty.

• 1:32:47Jack Selby?

  Well, if I had all of the money in the world, then I would pay off the mortgage. Yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  But do you have enough to pay it off right now?

• 1:32:53Jack Selby?

  Uh, yep.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  So why won't you?

• 1:32:56Jack Selby?

  Because I don't have all of the money in the world.

• 1:32:58Speaker 02

  What happens if you pay off the mortgage right now? Are you broke?

• 1:33:01Jack Selby?

  No, I'm not broke. The, the way that I see it is that there are certain like tiers of wealth. And once you check those boxes, once you elevate to that level, let's just say a net worth of $5 million. Once you hit 5 million, then you have a new tier of FU money. It's not quite FU money, but it's the amount of money that you need in order to raise a family of four comfortably in most locations in the world. Right? And so like, I kind of want to race to this, this new tier. And then once I get there, I'll be selfish or selfish enough to pay off my mortgage because that reduces the emotional toll of having a mortgage. I'll be selfish enough to spend a little bit more on clothes, to do other things that I wouldn't normally do. But right now I feel like I need to be a little bit more selfless and do the thing that might be a little bit more uncomfortable

• 1:33:45Jack Selby?

  to be financially advantageous to then get to that point of being able to take care of my family better.

• 1:33:51Speaker 02

  Okay. We'll play back the clip. He said, once he gets there, you'll do it.

• 1:33:56Jack Selby?

  Pay off my mortgage?

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  $5 million net worth.

• 1:33:58Jack Selby?

  I would not pay it off at 5 million.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  You just told me you would.

• 1:34:01Jack Selby?

  Well, I would start enjoying other things. Yeah.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  You just told me if you had, if you got to this point, then you would do it.

• 1:34:07Jack Selby?

  No, I said all of the money in the world.

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  No, you said five.

• 1:34:09Jack Selby?

  And then the way that I did say five.

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  That's a wrap.

• 1:34:11Jack Selby?

  Did I say five? Did I say five? I said five, but that was after I said all of the money. I said there are different tiers.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Yes, he did. This is sociopathic behavior. Wow. Well, thanks guys. Is that how we end this episode? That's how you want to wrap?

• 1:34:23Graham Stephan?

  We can tell them about our credit idea, Jack.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  No, I don't want to hear about that. I'm not going to invest. I'm not your shark tank.

• 1:34:29Graham Stephan?

  Do you want to say it's gonna, it's really gonna-

• 1:34:30Jack Selby?

  Easy 3% a week if you invest.

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  You couldn't tempt me. Everything you guys are saying is just making me want to run the other way.

• 1:34:36Graham Stephan?

  Equity.

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  An iced coffee hour?

• 1:34:39Graham Stephan?

  No, in our credit idea.

• 1:34:40Speaker 02

  Yikes, no, I'll take equity and iced coffee hour.

• 1:34:44Jack Selby?

  Well, if you want to check out our credit startup, guys, we're gonna leave it more mysterious. It's incredible.

• 1:34:48Speaker 02

  Check out my debit startup.

• 1:34:49Graham Stephan?

  It's in the description. You're gonna click it to see what it is.

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  I don't cosign any of this, by the way.

• 1:34:55Jack Selby?

  George is not cosign. George, thank you.

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:34:58Graham Stephan?

  Thank you, man.

• 1:34:59Jack Selby?

  Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it, guys.

• 1:35:02Graham Stephan?

  By the way, if you enjoyed this episode, we just posted our next one early for members. So if you click the join button, you could literally begin watching our next episode right now. Really hope you enjoy it.

• 1:35:22Speaker 06

  We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about blinds.com.

• 1:35:30Speaker 07

  Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at blinds.com experience excellent customer service from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.