So what if people store stuff (and not cars) in their garages?

George Kamel, a regular Dave Ramsey Show co-host, has quickly risen to fame in the past few years, and deservingly so. He’s witty, nice-snarky, and as someone who overcame a lot of debt and later bought his home with cash and without a credit score, an ideal advocate for frugality, living without credit cards, and being smart with finances. In other words, a perfect fit for the pool of Ramsey personalities.

But when you’re doing things right, you’re bound to look down on those doing things wrong—or at least differently—and unfortunately Kamel (yes, pronounced like the animal) is no exception.

I’m not above this trend, either.

You’re a mommy vlogger who violates her kids’ privacy and safety online after growing up with complete anonymity yourself? Stop it.

You keep your kids in daycare or with a nanny? Stay home or work when they’re asleep: your kids need YOU.

You go to the gym in booty shorts and a crop top or a sports bra? Yes, men will look at you, so don’t whine.

You go to the grocery store in leggings? At least wear a long top so it’s not obvious where you want others’ eyes to land.

You wear short skirts at work? Cover up; have some self-respect.

So yeah, I’ve been known to judge and I’m unapologetic about it. But I digress.

I’ve noticed this is also a trap that those doing finance right can fall into, and that, ironically, the Ramseys warn us against. I forget the book I first saw that in—it could’ve been Smart Money, Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze or Baby Step Millionaires by Dave Ramsey. (Both excellent books, by the way.)

The point that was being made is that once you’ve paid off your debt and are living a wonderful life due to not having any debt payments, you seem to become aware of all the newer, “nicer” things others have, like that new truck next to you on the road.

Not in a sense that’d make you want them because you know a paid-off car or paid-off whatever is best (and more fulfilling, if you let me take it that far), but rather in the sense that you start to feel like you’re better than that person because they let themselves succumb to the artificial “need” for a new car—and the potential loan it required.

It’s easy to assume the owner of that truck is in debt and to silently judge him for thinking he NEEDED that truck so badly that he also needed to go into debt for it.

But the good life you attain by being debt-free doesn’t or shouldn’t entitle you to judge those who use debt in whatever way they please.

One, we don’t know their circumstances; and two, we don’t know if they’re even in debt in the first place.

(And yeah, I should take note of this myself and be maybe be a little less legalistic and forgiving of people’s justifications for exposing their kids online, leaving them where they won’t be loved all day, and wanting the extra attention… Someday.)

Which is why my first reaction to a recent post of Kamel’s on garages made me cringe a little, because it seems like he doesn’t know everyone’s circumstances but he’s judging them anyways:

His caption went like this:

America has a love affair with stuff. And it’s not just the physical items in our life that take up space and eat up our paychecks. It’s fancy cocktails, eating out, subscription boxes, memberships, video games, in-app purchases, vacations, concerts, sporting events, and expensive hobbies. In moderation, none of these things are inherently bad. But when they’re mishandled, it leaves us $1 trillion in credit card debt—somehow unhappier than we were before.

It’s like he’s making a fantastic point (Everything in moderation!) by chiding those who don’t use their garages to store their cars, which I thought was unnecessary.

Not because we personally use our garage as a storage unit (so it’s not like I chose to get offended), but because garages these days don’t fit many cars to begin with, as this video explains:

You see, the size of the average garage has been declining in recent decades, and more people have begun to consider them useless to store their vehicles.

Modern trucks can’t fit in them and two vehicles parked side-by-side are difficult to access without dinging the other’s door, so I see why some would just say, “Screw this!” and use their garages for other things.

Like a gym, office, or studio; a tool shop; temporary storage for construction/renovation materials and equipment; a converted studio apartment; or yes, even a permanent storage unit, of which our neighborhood seems to have plenty.

It’s expected to call those with garages full of what we perceive as junk “pack rats” or hoarders,” or to assume that they’re indebted up to their eyeballs because they keep buying in excess while storing so much of that excess.

And I suppose that’s true of many.

But there are also those who drive trucks and who (gasp!) keep that half or the entirety of their garage empty, well-organized, or turned into a space for their tools and construction stuff. I’ve seen that in our neighborhood, too.

But Kamel wouldn’t understand: I don’t think he’s that handy—or if he is, he probably uses mostly a hammer to hang pictures and a screwdriver to put batteries in his child’s toys, and that’s it. He and his wife also don’t drive a truck, and by the looks of it, their garage isn’t massive and their home was (or seemed?) new and not gigantic when they bought it.

So these are regular people (as “regular” as you can be as an author with an international fanbase and millions of views on YouTube) with an average garage, in an average newer home, who don’t have any need to renovate, upgrade, or fix anything major themselves.

Being debt-free and sticking to a budget, they also don’t need to store a lot of things to keep them out of sight and “outside” their home in their garage.

(But just you wait for your daughter to keep growing, George, and tell me where you’ll TEMPORARILY store her old bouncer, pack n’ play, swing, bassinet, and tubs of clothes and gear you’ll pass on to either future kiddos or your friends’ babies. And where will you keep the swing set and the dollhouse(s) you’ll buy her until you have the time, the tools, and the help, to put them together? And what if [gasp!] someone walks by and sees how much extra stuff YOU’RE keeping in your garage and assumes that YOU’RE the hoarder who keeps buying and buying?)

I also cringed when I saw that post because I had the impression that Kamel knew a lot of things (maybe not** how to 1-put a swing set together, 2-re-plumb his home, 3-build a bathroom, or 4-build a gym-shed in the backyard), so how could he not realize or look up this garage trend? Or have anyone on his team be like, “Um, garages are shrinking, George”?

(**And yes, my husband’s done all of those things to our home—and more—sometimes with my dad’s help.. so we’ve often needed to leave both our vehicles out for the sake of keeping materials and tools in the garage where they’re safe and protected from the elements.. and our kids.)

Is it common knowledge? I don’t suppose so. But once you start to see a bunch of trucks in your neighborhood being left outside of their garages, and you spend some time sometimes barely squeezing by between your vehicles or around your bigger one in your own garage, you start to get an idea of why that might be.. and it’s not that those families are hoarders or that the dads have an instinctual need to go “hunt” their big trucks in the rain or snow.

It’s simply that they don’t fit. And if our third-row SUV was a biiit longer, it wouldn’t fit either.

Which is another reason why I’m semi-dreading “upgrade day”: We’re proud to have paid off both our vehicles years before the loans were due so we’re not looking forward to restarting that hunt all over to replace “mine” (my husband’s car is bigger than your average sedan) for one that may be bigger or longer and which may barely fit in our average garage.

For now my husband’s car stays out and we keep “mine” in, along with our meat freezer, our kids’ “vehicles,” and other construction gear. Because that’s what garages are for. It’s not that we overspend—it’s that we’d rather utilize the space that makes the most sense for that stuff.

So why judge those who do that and lump them with a vastly different group of people? Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.

What do you use your garage for? Or what’s something you’ve realized you judged too hastily before seeing it was something else?