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Tomorrow can be different from today.
Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
Join Jason Gore (Lead Pastor of Hope Community Church) for a fresh perspective, practical steps, and weekly encouragement that hope really is possible… even in real life.
I walked through how budgeting is freedom
and spending is self-control.
And savings is peace and debt as a thief,
and generosity is joy and margin is breathing room.
And all of these principles, um,
that I believe are biblical.
I mean, there was a nod to these fruits of the spirit,
which I think is what we're all after.
Welcome to the Hope and Real Life podcast with Jason Gore.
Our team is passionate
and committed to bringing you more hope in the everyday real
areas of your life.
If this conversation and content is valuable for you,
please do us a favor, like, subscribe, and even share.
You never know how valuable it could be
to share a little bit of hope with someone else.
Let's get the conversation started.
Well, welcome to another edition
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
No, I'm not Jason Gore. I'm Wade Harris.
Um, we're filling in for Jason,
and obviously he has some big shoes to fill.
So there's two of us.
Wess D**e is here with us as well. Wess, what's going on brother?
Hey, Wade, appreciate the opportunity to join
You. Absolutely.
We have a very special guest today.
We're talking about personal finances.
We want to help you get your money right.
And to do that, we have, uh, one
of the Ramsey solutions personality.
Uh, he has been on the Ramsey show a ton.
Uh, he has a new book coming out January 16th called
Breaking Free from Broke.
I love that. The Ultimate Guide
to More Money and Less Stress.
And he has about 70 million podcasts.
I let him tell you about those podcasts.
I didn't wanna get those wrong. Uh,
but he's great on YouTube.
TikTok, his name is George Campbell, and he is with us.
George, welcome.
It's so good to be with you guys.
I feel like a wiener in a steakhouse. You got it. So cool.
You got this dope studio. I want to be in the room with you.
So, uh, but it's good to be
with you virtually from Nashville, Tennessee.
Absolutely. George. We appreciate that.
We would love to get you here, man.
So, uh, let's, let's talk about that when we're done
with this podcast and see how we can,
we can make that happen, man.
Um, I wanna start, yeah, I wanna start here.
Uh, because we're talking about money management.
Let's define it as you see it.
Uh, obviously Ramsey has helped
so many people over the years, self included, get outta debt
and really start to build wealth.
Uh, but just from your perspective,
how would you define money management?
Well, I think money management is an interesting topic
because a lot of people think they're managing their money
when really they,
they've just mastered the art of managing debt.
Mm. And so they, they're really just good at debt management
when they tell you about their credit score
and the fact that they're getting cash
back on their credit cards.
And so to me, money management is having a sense of control
and peace with your money to
where you're planning for the future.
Not just being able to keep up with the past, which is
what most Americans find themselves doing,
uh, in today's day and age.
So money management is going, I know exactly
where my money's going.
I'm hitting all of my financial goals.
I'm getting ahead instead of just trying to keep up.
Hey George, some people are watching this
and they're seeing, wow, that guy looks really
sharp, looks great.
Uh, I bet he's had it all together for his life.
Uh, but that's not your story, is
It, Wes? My new stunt double.
I'm hiring Wess
as my stunt double right after this.
That's not your story though, is it? Oh, yeah.
What's your story?
Well, you know, I grew up with immigrant parents.
My parents are from the Middle East,
and so I grew up as a first generation American,
and I saw them sort of adapt to the American culture,
and that included the money culture.
So very quickly they went, well, we gotta have a house,
so let's get this mortgage.
Mm-Hmm. And well, we don't have money to send you
to college, but we'll take out the student loans
and sign some parent plus loans
and we'll figure it out later.
And that sort of became this American dream
that we were sold,
but we were delivered the American nightmare.
Mm-Hmm. Because I graduated with $40,000 in consumer debt.
Mm-Hmm. Between my student loans and my credit card debt.
And, you know, my parents did a great job raising us,
and they were very frugal.
But the money principles, they were just average.
You know, we were just middle, another middle class family.
And I was just strapped with payments going, is this it?
Mm-Hmm. I'm cynical toward adulthood.
I'm not gonna hit my financial goals.
I'm not making as much money
as they told me I would make if I followed this primrose
path of getting good grades
and going to college of your dreams.
And so it left me frustrated, anxious, stressed,
and truly just kind of angry.
Mm. Just a cynical, angry person.
And all of that turned into getting a job at Ramsey
Solutions and,
and trading in cynicism for hope, realizing
that I don't have to stay like this.
I can get outta debt much faster than I think these student
loans don't have to die with me like many Americans have
sort of just resigned themselves to.
And so I followed the debt snowball,
followed the Ramsey baby steps, got out of $40,000 in debt,
met my wife at Ramsey.
We got on this plan, debt-free together.
We bought a house with no credit score.
We paid it off early in our thirties.
And we went from broke to millionaire
and under a decade following this plan.
So I'm just here shouting from the rooftops,
if an average George can do it, anyone can.
George, I'd like for you to talk about how you bought
that house with no credit score.
I've done the same thing. So this is not me asking you from
a standpoint of, I don't know.
But I think for a lot of people when it comes
to credit scores, when it comes to debt, they say, Hey,
I need a credit card to establish credit
so I can buy a house so I can buy a car.
And then of course all that stuff with rewards
and all that stuff, that doesn't really matter.
But just talk about that a bit of how you actually bought
that house with no credit score.
Absolutely. And I, I was like everyone else.
I mean, you, my head would go 180 if someone said that
to me 10 years ago.
And so it took a big paradigm shift
to realize once I got outta debt,
you lose your precious credit score.
Once all of your accounts are closed, about six
to 12 months later, your score starts to drop
and then it just disappears.
It's called indeterminable.
And so I thought like everyone else, well, oh my gosh,
how am I gonna buy a house?
And it turns out there's this old timing thing
called manual underwriting.
We all know automated underwriting. Mm-Hmm.
The ai, the software looks up your credit score
and the mortgage company goes,
all right, let's give him a loan.
Manual underwriting on a nosco loan just means a real person
looks at your financial picture
and looks at your tax returns,
and have you paid your insurance bills on time
and your childcare payments
and your cell phone bill on time,
and they grant you a mortgage based on your real financial
picture instead of some magical three digit number
that we've become obsessed with.
And so it wasn't even that hard.
It what didn't take much longer.
I still got an incredible interest rate
and, uh, we became homeowners the right way,
the Ramsey way and paid it off early.
That is awesome. Um, George,
you mentioned you met your wife, uh, uh,
while working at Ramsey Solutions.
And I know that money, uh, is a huge strain area
for couples when it comes to their relationships.
Uh, I believe we have a clip that we're gonna run
of some interviews that you did with some folks on a street,
uh, asking them about their personal
finances, debt, money management.
Um, let's run that clip
and then I got a question or two for you.
Did you combine finances with your spouse? Oh yeah.
Completely. Yeah. No,
We would do a joint account, but I'd have a prenup.
Oh, okay.
Saying, hey, if they go, if something goes down
that's right,
you're not gonna take me to the finance. That's
What, what I put into this marriage I'm
taking out of this marriage.
Would you be more likely to date someone
if they made a lot of money? Is that a factor? Yeah,
Probably. Yes. A
Lot. Thank you for
your honesty.
Love Richmond. Money's not everything.
So I think money's kind of lower down on the totem pole.
It's the intellectual connection that's more important.
Ooh, I like that answer.
Would you marry someone with significant debt? Um,
Yeah.
As long as you're doing something to get out
of it depends on what the debt is for
med school. Yes. Because
You're like, well, if you're a doctor
or something, you're gonna make it
Back. Okay. But like
significant credit card debt because you're
Outta control spending.
Yes. No, probably not. What
About a car loan? Like they have a
car that's way too much of their world.
Honestly, that's just stupid. So probably not.
That's Good. That is good.
I love, I love what she says. Well, it depends on the debt.
Medical debt. Now
that's a doctor, I can go with that. Right.
My my favorite guy was the British
guy that said the intellectual.
'cause he, he sounded, I mean,
he sounded intellectual too, and he said that that's
Good. So
if you had to give, he
Had the, he had the right answer.
If George, if you had to give one piece of advice
to a married couple, uh, about just the first step to take,
uh, in healthy money management
and healthy relationships, that's good. What would that be?
Well, I think it starts before marriage, ideally. Mm-Hmm.
Because a lot of couples get married
and they go, we'll figure that out later.
We don't need to talk about how much debt I have
or how much I make, or what my background is
with money and how I grew up.
And that causes a lot of marital tension. Mm-Hmm.
Because, you know, the way I grew up might be a scar city
mentality, and my parents never had money.
And yours might be, well, we always had money,
but we didn't talk about it.
And dad always managed it and it was kind of under the rug.
And so I think communicating openly
and honestly, even the, the pain, the trauma, the baggage is
so important because what it does is create empathy in the
marriage for me to go, oh, she's got the scarcity
security gland flaring up.
We need to have a bigger emergency fund.
This is even more reason to get outta debt faster. Hmm.
So all of that helps you get on the same page
and start communicating about money, which is the key.
And the other key is combining bank accounts.
It's become controversial to tell people
to combine bank accounts
because everyone is very, I want to be independent
and it's my money, and I worked hard to save this,
but when you get married, you're either gonna grow apart
or you're gonna grow together.
Mm-Hmm. And if you wanna go closer
and together, you've got to combine bank accounts
to have shared goals and to avoid
what we call financial infidelity, which is, oh,
I didn't know you spent that.
Oh, I didn't know you had this savings account over here.
And so it becomes this,
we're gonna run our own separate races instead
of running this race set before us together.
And we found the couples who build wealth faster are the
ones who combine bank accounts.
They're on the same page and they're communicating
openly and honestly.
You know, George, one of the things,
and I would probably say this is one of the core teachings
that you hear throughout the entire Ramsey, um,
just kinda way of doing financial money management,
is budgeting is a zero based budget.
Why is that the important place to start?
And for the people who are intimidated by that,
they've never done a budget, uh, they've never sat down
and looked at exactly where their money is going.
How do I plan it every month?
How do you encourage them to get started in a healthy way
that, you know, can lead to them, you know, starting
to ease some of that financial strain they may feel?
Well, a lot of the times the budget has become this kind
of boogeyman under the bed.
Mm-Hmm. It's this financial mirror
that we don't wanna look into.
It's the scale that we don't wanna step on,
but we, what we need to do is not see that as a scary piece,
but as a, just a reality check, we gotta figure out
where we're at so that we know where we're gonna go
and how long it's gonna take to get there.
So if you can kind of just take the shame and guilt,
'cause that's really what it is on top of, you know,
maybe a convenience piece
and laziness where it's just like, uh,
I don't want to do a budget.
It's just gonna take forever. It's gonna be a drag.
I gotta open an Excel spreadsheet.
We've made it super easy with this app called Every Dollar
that's in the Palm of your hand.
And if you're married, both of you can have the app
and be logged in to have total, uh, visibility.
But all it is, it is a reality check of
what did we make this month?
What do we plan on spending? How are we gonna hit our goals?
Mm-Hmm. And can we keep the lights on and save for college
and save for retirement and go on that vacation?
And too many people see it as restrictive,
but I see it as freedom.
Mm-Hmm. Because once I put it on paper,
I can go make that happen now.
Oh my gosh. That's amazing.
We could have a thousand bucks extra if we cut all these
expenses and we can actually save for
that vacation faster if we did this over here.
So all it is, is a game plan for how you're gonna get to
where you want to go financially.
And the people that don't budget, you might still get there,
but it's gonna take you longer
and it's gonna be much more stressful
because you don't truly know what the heck is happening
with your hard earned income.
No, that's good. Uh, let, let me me ask you this,
and this is kind of a personal thing, and, and I know you
and your wife have been very, like, together.
You've been on the same page. How often do you guys dream?
Like, just about what you wanna do in the future
with your money, whether it's vacations,
whether it's giving, I know you're a generous person,
whether it's, you know, whatever, but how often
and like, what does that look like for you guys?
Well, generally we have our kind of monthly budget meeting
before the month begins where we go, all right,
what's going on this month?
This is very tactical.
This is kind of like boring,
nerdy, Hey, what's on the calendar?
Hey, we have that party. Okay, we gotta buy
that thing, the gift for the party.
We also have to get the babysitter for that night, right?
So let's add that in the budget. We got the dog daycare.
All right, we're gonna do that. And so we start
to lay out what's happening this month on the calendar
and how that affects our finances.
And then weekly we'll check in with each other
and go, Hey, what's going on this week?
Hey, we gotta buy, we forgot about this.
Let's go back and adjust the budget
because you know,
your life changes over the course of a month.
Yeah. So don't act like you're gonna have to get it perfect
or else you shouldn't do a budget.
It's going to fluctuate a little bit.
You're gonna move some things around.
Um, so don't be so rigid in that way.
But then the other piece of it is checking in daily
and going, Hey, what's
what happened on the bank account today?
Just a quick daily check, track some transactions so
that it doesn't become overwhelming.
And every dollar makes this easy with the premium version.
'cause it connects to your bank account.
So it's got my grocery store, the gas, all that,
and I just drag it into the gas budget.
I drag it into the grocery budget
and it shows me exactly how much I have left to spend.
So that is just a helpful mirror that we can look at daily,
weekly, and monthly.
Beautiful. Yeah.
Hey, George, I wanna maybe transition a little
bit away from an individual.
And, you know, we know a lot of people listening, um,
small business owners or folks that, uh, you know,
are involved in, uh, helping manage a business.
Um, would you offer any different,
or how similar would your recommendations be
to a business owner for how they can apply these principles,
uh, in their, you know, not personal world,
but in their professional world?
Hmm. Well, we are
so passionate about small business here at Ramsey.
We have our own brand for business owners
and entrepreneurs called Entree Leadership.
And it's how Dave grew this thing from a card table in his
living room to the empire with a thousand team members
and this campus that we have today.
And he loves coaching them.
And the principles, the general principles apply.
Now, the Ramsey baby steps don't apply
because a business is run differently,
but we run this business debt free.
Mm-Hmm. And what we teach in entree leadership is the best
way to run a business and grow a business is
to do it at the speed of cash.
And that might take longer, but it also reduces your risk.
And you're able to keep the lights on.
You're able to avoid the layoffs
because you're strapped with payments over here.
And the market took a shift.
And so the, the principles that apply that are kind
of in the Venn diagram are be completely debt free,
stay debt free, run your business with cash.
And on top of that, have savings, have retained earnings
that you're putting, putting aside every month so
that you can invest in the future and make that next hire
and maybe buy that building one day that you,
you've always dreamed of.
So those are the principles that always apply there.
Um, on top of that, we have a lot
of core values here at Ramsey.
And, uh, we try to, you know,
over 30 years we've made mistakes when it comes to hiring
and how we treated people.
But these core values are kind of the guiding forces
and principles that sort of are paired
with the financial principles.
And so all of that together has allowed us to help
so many business owners, especially those
who have a faith background,
run really successful businesses, treat their teams well,
leave a legacy, pass it down
to their family in the right way.
And it's been a beautiful thing to watch.
It's some of the most inspiring stories we hear.
It's really encouraging to hear you say that.
Um, I've been on staff at Hope Community Church
now for a couple years Mm-Hmm.
And, uh, great credit to hope's leaders
and my predecessors that built an emergency fund,
built a capital fund have been accelerating debt pay down,
uh, giving 10% back outside the walls of the church.
So it's just great to hear that that's very much in line
with, uh, with the experts and you
Yeah. And churches should
be leading the charge on this.
And listen, our church that, that I go to here locally,
they inherited a bunch of debt when they had a merger.
Mm. And they had $7 million of,
of mortgage debt on the building and the campus.
And they looked up and they went,
we're sending a million dollars a year to a lender
between the payment and the interest.
Mm. What could we do with a million dollars as a church?
And they started dreaming and they got the congregation in
on it, and they paid off that $7 million in a year
with just focus intensity.
Dave Ramsey came to the church,
they did a huge debt-free screen,
and the stuff we get to do now,
the community centers we're building, um,
that we have a whole ministry to provide single, uh, moms
with cars and car repairs.
We have an adoption wraparound ministry
for foster care supporting the needs.
It's amazing and inspiring
what you can do when you don't have any payments
in a generous congregation. Hmm.
Beautiful. We are going
to take a brief break from our show
to let you know about a resource
that we are making available to you.
If you're looking for a resource on personal development
or spiritual enrichment, then you've gotta check this out.
It's a free tool. Now, free to our listeners, free is Good,
was not free for us to create,
but free for our listeners made.
Specifically for anyone who's looking
for a bit more hope in their everyday life, listen
to the features, daily devotions, parenting tips,
financial resources, marriage insights.
There's even a community
where you can share prayer requests.
If you've got things going on in your life and you can see
and know that other people are praying for you,
this is gonna be available in early January.
We'll make sure everybody knows.
Stay tuned, keep looking for it. We'll have it out.
But listen, tomorrow can be better than today
and hope it's possible even in real life.
Let's get back to the show.
Um, it's interesting,
you have this book called Breaking Free from Broke That
drops January 16th.
Um, it, it, the title alone just feels like it,
it just encapsulates your brand.
Right. Like $40,000 in debt to you
and your wife being millionaires.
Um, talk a little bit about like what inspired that book?
I mean, one of the things when I was reading it from the
intro when Dave said, Hey, this is for a new generation.
This is, um, uh, not Total Money Makeover,
the first one, financial Peace.
It said Financial Peace for the New Generation.
I felt like that was like the biggest co-sign
that you could get for a book like that.
Oh. That meant the world.
And it's, it was my secret goal
because I love the Total Money Makeover.
I love financial peace. Mm-Hmm.
And I went, you know, the times have changed, right? Yep.
And so all of the younger generations are going, well,
that's Boomer advice.
Mm-Hmm. And I'm going, no, this is timeless wisdom.
This is God's and grandma's ways of handling money.
But I do think we need to deliver it in such a time
and place that it connects differently.
And so what I did was I hit all
of the empathy pieces here of going mm-Hmm.
It is harder than it was 30 years ago. Mm-Hmm. You're right.
The boomers got to buy their house in 1970 for $30,000,
and now a house is $400,000.
Right. And the, you know,
the wages have an increase in inflation.
And there's so many reasons why we're,
we say we're not gonna get ahead with money.
And I rose above that, not because I'm special, but
because I made a decision
and I made a daily decision to buck that system entirely
and just opt out of this matrix that we've created,
especially in America.
I mean, we are America's number one in a lot of things.
And it's especially number one in debt.
$17 trillion in debt. Yeah.
A trillion dollars in credit card debt alone.
And so I wrote this book, two thirds
of it are just helping you understand the system
and how gross it is.
And then the last third is how to break free from that.
And I walk through how budgeting is freedom
and spending is self-control.
And savings is peace and debt is a thief,
and generosity is joy and margin is breathing room.
And all of these principles, um,
that I believe are biblical.
I mean, there was a nod to these fruits of the spirit,
which I think is what we're all after, right?
We want to be led by the spirit and have peace
and self-control and joy and all of this stuff.
But what's holding us back, one of the things is money.
Mm-Hmm. It's become an obstacle in our lives instead
of a tool that helps us have kingdom impact,
that helps us be stewards of what God has given to us.
And so that was the heart behind the book of, of course,
I include my story as just an example,
but there's 10 million people who follow this plan.
So the social proof is there,
and I just lay out a choice at the end of, it's up to you.
You can choose cynicism and you can continue down this path
and hope the next president fixes your life.
Or you can choose hope. Mm. You can choose a proven plan.
You can choose your hard
and go, ah, fine, I'll pay off the dang debt.
Mm-Hmm. I'm gonna get that emergency fund once and for all.
I'm gonna break this generational cycle Yeah.
That my family has been in.
I'm gonna be the first millionaire in my family.
That's the stuff that inspires us every day.
Absolutely. I mean, George, I, I mean, you,
you mentioned the emergency fund.
I've even seen the debates of people online that are like,
well, he wrote, he wrote that 30 years ago,
and we don't, the thousand dollars is too low now.
And I'm just like, listen, he's trying to get you started,
like he's trying to get you started.
But just talk about the importance of the emergency fund
and, and just what that has even meant in your own life and
and in your ministry, man.
Absolutely. Well, you know, it's funny there,
there's a lot of broke people
with opinions out there, right?
So I always go like, who am I? Who am I listening to?
And what is the context for what they're saying this
and what is their motivation?
And a lot of it is just people are angry, right?
At the end of the day, like I go to my YouTube comments
and I just see hurting people.
I don't see hate. I just see hurt. That's all it is.
When they go, this guy's full of it and he's telling us this
and there's no hope out there today.
And I'm going, man, I just wish I could hug you
through the comment section right now,
because there's just this hopelessness.
Yeah. And so what we do on the Ramsey show, yes,
we have money is the vehicle,
but really we're just trying to give people hope
that they have a fighting chance to live differently,
to leave a legacy they're proud of,
to live a life they're not exhausted by.
And that always includes a life
with no payments and savings in the bank.
So you're right, the thousand dollars,
it wasn't enough 30 years ago when Dave started this plane.
Right. But he found, he was like, well, get outta debt.
That's the first thing you gotta do. And then they would get
hung up because they'd get the flat tire where
that little medical thing would come up
and they would get knocked back down and give up.
And so he went, all right, let's have a little cushion
between us and life.
It's not gonna cover the major things,
but let's be honest, we didn't have $30,000
sitting in the bank to begin with.
Right. We're living paycheck to paycheck out here. Right.
And so that was just a little buffer to get us
through getting outta debt, which by the way is 18
to 24 months on average.
Mm-Hmm. So, so that we have no payments,
we have more margin, we can then save up a fully funded
emergency fund of three to six months.
So that's what we're aiming towards.
The starter one is just to help us avoid those ankle biters.
That's exactly right. In our, uh,
financial coaching program, we actually refer to it
as debt insurance.
Mm. That having it there allows you to take care of
what you need to take care of without
having to reach for the plastic.
Love it. Right on. That's huge.
And actually, I loved how you described
what you just described as people need hope in real life,
which is what this podcast is all about.
Um, it sounds like an awesome Christmas present.
I have another endorsement.
I made my wife read the introduction
and she said, I think I'd like to read that.
So for me, needing to buy her a Christmas gift, uh,
where can people pre-order or purchase it?
Absolutely. So it's
available@ramseysolutions.com slash store.
And as usually we like
to bribe people with a lot of goodies.
So if you can get it before January 16th,
we're gonna give you
for free the audiobook version, which is enhanced.
We've got some really cool production elements in there.
The ebook for free.
You get a, a video lesson
that I did at our smart conference event, a live online q
and a event with me in January.
As well as for anyone that buys the book, whether it's
before or after, we're giving you three months
of every dollar premium to use for free to get you started.
'cause we found it takes 90 days to get
that budget dialed in.
And we want to give everyone a fighting chance
to get ahold of this money plan.
So it's just 20 bucks@ramseysolutions.com slash store.
And we'll give you all that stuff with
It. And George,
we're also giving away to our listeners
a signed copy of your book as well.
For anyone who, who leaves a comment on Apple
or Spotify, you will be entered into a drawing.
And so, uh, I can just tell you,
this resource will help change your life,
particularly if you're, you're really trying
to get outta debt, which many of you are
who are tuned in today.
Um, this is something that you want to get in your hand.
So absolutely. Leave us a review, we'll put you in a drawing
and, uh, the winners will get that book.
That's very kind of you guys. That's
Great. Do you still have time
for a couple more questions?
Let's hit it. Awesome. I'm here.
Uh, we actually asked our stewardship ministry team, uh,
hey, we got George Campbell coming on.
What would, what would you like him to answer for you?
Uh, one of the first questions they asked is,
with current interest rates
and with current home prices that you mentioned,
is now a good time to buy a home?
Or should I wait?
Ooh, I love that question
because it's one of those, like, it's one
of those like dad joke answers where it's like,
the right time to buy a home is when you can afford it.
And so, you know, it's easy.
It's, it's kind of like timing the stock market.
It's, you're probably not gonna get it. Right.
And so to go like, well, interest rates could go up,
they could go down and house prices
could go up, they could go down.
That's just paralysis by analysis.
And so what we look at is,
can you afford the mortgage payment in such a way
that it's no more than a quarter
of your take home pay on a 15 year fixed rate mortgage.
That's when you know, you, you are able to buy a house.
Now for some people, that's a moving target.
'cause if it's gonna be five years from now
to save up the down payment, mm,
we truly don't know what's gonna happen.
The, you know, the Lord could come down before then
and that we don't have to worry about a
home purchase at that point.
So there's so many unknowns.
But what I like to do is go, what can I do
to get that goal faster?
And that means spend less, make more.
So if it's gonna take you 10 years to get a house,
we gotta get our income up.
We gotta get outta debt, we gotta cut some subscriptions so
that we can get to that goal faster.
And I know it's, it can feel helpless
for the younger generations out there.
Or even for the person who's 40
or 50, they've never owned a home
and it's a dream of theirs.
Do not let rent become this thing in your head
where you go, renting is a sin.
I'm wasting money. And everyone's telling me if I don't buy
now, I'll never get to buy.
That's when people make bad decisions
because it's out of desperation and impulse
and hopelessness instead of out a place of peace
where they've got the money in the bank
and they're able to, on top of the mortgage fund retirement
and save for college and go on vacation and upgrade the car.
And so that's what happens when you buy a house too early.
You become house poor 'cause that mortgage is now 50, 60%
of your take home pay.
And you've got no margin to give, no margin
to spend and no margin to save. Mm.
George, I don't know if you can hear our producer a mob,
but he is giving you a bunch
of amens in the studio right now.
Thank you. I feel
that he feels the pain.
I try to have empathy. I know it's easy up here
to be like, come on, just go get a house.
But I know, man, it's,
it's a difficult thing in today's world
and you're like, I wish I'd go back to 2019 and buy a house.
Yeah. You know, but this is where we are.
This is where we are. So we got, we gotta look at reality
and make decisions about what we can do tomorrow.
No, that's good. Uh,
here's a couple more questions from our stewardship team.
One is, how do I get my parents
to talk about their financial wishes as they age?
Oh, financial wishes. Yeah.
I thought it was gonna be like, how do I get
my mom and dad on board?
Mm-Hmm. Which is risky. 'cause they change your diaper.
And so to try to tell them financial advice,
they're laughing you out of the room.
Right. But it's a hard thing to address
because as parents get older, you know,
people get more set in their ways
and it's harder to make a paradigm shift.
It's harder to change behavior.
But one thing you can do is approach it with kindness,
with grace, with love.
Not out of a place where you're going Mom
and dad, you gotta do better.
But out of a place of, Hey listen,
you guys raised me so well.
I wanna make sure that I handle this money well.
That you're going to, you know, get hand down
to me if there is anything.
I wanna make sure that you're covered.
You know, do you have life insurance?
Do you have long-term care in place? Mm-Hmm.
What's going on with your nest egg?
I don't want to ask to pry.
I wanna ask because I loved you guys
and I wanna make sure that I can do my part
to help set you guys up
for success in the future in retirement.
And truthfully, you can have some fun with it
and go like, as much as I love taking care of you,
I don't wanna be taking care
of you financially in your old age.
And uh, that's what we've been seeing a lot on the Ramsey
show is the kids calling in saying, I gotta take care
of my kids and my aging parents 'cause they didn't prepare.
Mm-Hmm. Or the parents saying,
my kids didn't prepare, so now we're stuck.
We can't retire 'cause we're still paying off the parent
plus student loans that we took out for them.
These are the real life situations.
And so when you get entangled in that mess, you gotta go,
listen, I gotta put my own mask on first, uh,
before I could go try to be a savior
for someone else's finances.
And those are the hard conversations. They're never easy.
I don't want to make it sound like this is gonna be a
smooth conversation.
There's gonna be some emotion around all
of this when you start talking about money.
It's a trigger for a lot of people.
But you gotta do it with grace and kindness
and do it with a, a spirit of love where you want
to help see them flourish. Mm.
That is excellent. Uh, you mentioned student loans.
One real quick question.
As a parent, is it better
to let your kids take on student loans
or encourage 'em to take a little time off
to save some money before they go to college?
Wess, that's the show closer right there,
brother. That's a good question.
Thanks to our stewardship, Tina. That's a great,
Yeah. Student loans are
one of these things where, you know,
parents see it as an investment
and they're invested in their kids going
to the school they went to.
And we all want our kids to have a good job
that we can brag about
to our friends and where they went to school.
But at the end of the day, no one caress where you went
to school and what your degree is and all of that.
They care about are you a person of character
who has the experience and skills necessary?
And so what I tell people, if they're about to go,
Hey, we didn't save for college.
What did we do? Did we let Junior
just take on all the loans?
Or do we make him figure it out?
Or do we make him take a gap year?
There's all kinds of things you can do,
but one thing you gotta do is take that off the table.
Mm. And so once you do that, you make different decisions
and it becomes, well maybe instead of the gap year,
what if I could go to the community college?
'cause we could cashflow that with a part-time job
and in the meantime we might be able to then transfer
to a two year, you know, uh, to a, to a four year school
after community college and get the pre-reqs knocked out.
And maybe we'll stay in state
and commute from home so that we can make this work.
And so the job of the parent is
to have the conversation early
and to help them develop a plan that may not mean mom
and dad cover $300,000 of, of tuition.
It may just mean they're gonna help you navigate the
scholarships, the grants, the part-time, job cover,
some whatever they can.
But I don't believe it's the job of every parent to have
to cover college for everyone.
But it is their job to help their students
avoid student loan debt.
George, I love that. Love that answer man.
Um, student loan debt cripples so many people.
Um, we'd like to ask this question
to every single one of our guests.
Um, and it's just to get to know you a little bit better.
Um, what are you hopeful for in the next five years?
Like when you look at your life
and everything you have going on for you, I mean,
you have an amazing career.
You've progressed from an intern to one
of Ramsey's leading personalities,
you've become a millionaire.
I mean, what, like the next five years?
What does that look like for George Campbell?
Wow. Well, you, you asked me at the right time
because I just became a dad three months ago.
Hey, congrats.
So that changes things. Yes.
You're just like, all the things that used to matter,
you're now like nothing matters anymore.
This little girl, like you just, you know what I mean?
This precious little innocent, pure creature Yeah.
That I have to protect at all costs.
And so it's definitely changed the things I'm hopeful for.
But I'll tell you just like everyone else,
if you start looking at the headlines, it's easy
to get cynical and go like, gosh, America's in the tank,
the economy, the president,
what's gonna happen with the housing market?
And it can feel overwhelming.
But when I look into my little girl's eyes
and I'm just like, there is hope.
Look at this precious gift from God
that was bestowed upon us
that we are now a steward of to raise.
And it's such an incredible opportunity to go.
Like she doesn't have to be a part of that.
She's gonna be raised with financial peace.
She's never gonna know debt.
And it's an incredible hopeful feeling I have that
while we can't change the world,
we can change our household when we
can change our family tree.
And that gives me great hope
because even though I can't cause world peace between Israel
and Palestine, I can instill a, a character
and a faith into this little girl
who can then have a ripple pact on eternity.
And to me, that's all that matters.
At the end of the day, my gravestones not
gonna have my net worth on it.
Right in that dash is just gonna be what did you do
during your time on earth?
How did you bless others? How did you raise your kids?
How did you give, what kind of person were you?
And so that gives me a different perspective on my financial
goals, and it puts more emphasis on the relational goals
and the spiritual goals and what kind
of experiences do we want to have and what really matters.
And so that's my new goal as a dad,
and that's what gives me hope, is this is this little girl
that we get to raise in this wild, crazy,
chaotic world. It's a fun challenge,
George. That's beautiful,
man. Congratulations to to, to you
and your bride, uh, on that.
And that's just so inspiring.
And I mean, that really encapsulates what we are trying
to do with this podcast is give you a little bit
of hope in real life, uh, in those everyday moments.
And so, uh, George's new book, you can see it
behind him on the screen,
it's called Breaking Free from Broke.
It comes out January 16th.
You definitely wanna get that in your hand.
Again, we're giving away free signed copies to anyone
who leaves a review on Apple Podcasts,
on Spotify or on YouTube.
You will be entered into a drawing.
And so again, George, we thank you
so much for your time, man.
Thank you for, for just spending some with us.
Oh, it's an honor. You guys are incredible hosts.
Love what you guys are doing
and leading financial peace university classes
and the stewardship ministry.
You are a beautiful picture of
what the church should and can be.
So thank you for what you guys do. Thank
You, George. That's so
encouraging, man.
Well, until next time, uh, remember
to have some hope in your everyday life.
And we thank you guys for tuning in.
We'll see you next week.
Thanks for tuning into this episode
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
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