‘It’s Never an Investment’: Dave Ramsey’s Rule for Pokémon Cards, Boats and Other Things People Call Assets
When a caller revealed her husband treats his Pokémon card collection as a $33,000 portfolio, Dave Ramsey had a name for that kind of thinking, and a two-part test that exposes whether anything you own actually qualifies as an investment.
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On September 11, a caller told The Ramsey Show that her 36-year-old husband spends 80% of his money on Pokémon cards. She told The Ramsey Show that he calls the collection his portfolio and values it at $33,000.
Dave Ramsey said the habit “sounds like a 14-year-old.” Moneywise reported on October 18 that he went further: “It’s not an investment, and it’s not a portfolio. It’s a habit.” We covered the call itself on September 13.
Ramsey applies the same rule to grown-up toys. On an August 27 episode, he said: “It’s not an investment. So we bought a boat, and it’s an investment in our family. No, it’s consumption for your family.” Then he summed it up: “It’s never an investment. It’s wise consumption… Or it’s unwise consumption.”
Call something an asset, and you count it toward your net worth. You also stop budgeting for it as spending. Both mistakes surface the day you try to sell.
Ramsey Is Right, and Your Exit Price Proves It
The show offered a clean definition on that same episode: “The investment’s going to pay you money out and/or go up in value, and you can resell it.” Pokémon cards pay you nothing while you hold them. So the whole case rests on resale, and resale is where collectibles lose money.
Run The Ramsey Show caller’s $33,000 through two illustrative exits. Say a dealer pays 60% of market value (an example figure). The “portfolio” becomes $19,800, and $13,200 disappears the day you cash out.
Selling it yourself does better, but still leaks. Assume a marketplace takes an illustrative 13% in fees. You net $28,710, and that’s before shipping, grading, and weeks of hunting for buyers.
Now add opportunity cost: what that money could earn elsewhere. At an illustrative 7% average annual return, The Ramsey Show caller’s $33,000 left in an index fund for 10 years grows to about $64,916.
To net that much through a dealer, the cards would need a market value of about $108,193. Collectors would have to want these exact cards more every single year.
That’s the Beanie Babies problem. In a 2023 episode, The Ramsey Show made that exact comparison, remembering Beanie Babies stuck in attics and the regret of “I could have sold those at one point.” Fads set the price, and fads fade.
A winning collectible also gets taxed differently. Under 26 U.S.C. § 1(h)(5), gain on a collectible held more than a year counts as collectibles gain. Section 1(h)(4) puts that gain in a bucket the code calls “28-percent rate gain,” which sits apart from ordinary long-term stock gains. Your actual bill depends on your income, but the code treats collectibles as their own category.
Cash Flow While You Wait Decides Who Wins
What matters most is whether the thing pays you while you own it. Put The Ramsey Show caller’s $33,000 into cards, and you take in $0 a year. Your only return is a future buyer.
Put the same money into a stock fund yielding an illustrative 2%, and it pays about $660 a year in dividends. You can also sell on any trading day near the quoted price.
Boats sit even lower on the scale, because they cost you money every year in insurance, storage and fuel. Ramsey put it bluntly: “Boats do not go up in value. None of them.” Owning one as a wise use is fine. The label matters because, as the show noted, calling something an investment “gives you permission to double down.”
Run This Test Before You Call Anything an Asset
- Price your exit. Get a real buy offer from a dealer, or check completed sales (ignore asking prices) for your exact items. Subtract fees and shipping. What’s left is the asset’s value.
- Ask what it pays you. If the answer is zero, every dollar of return depends on someone paying more later. Write that down next to the item.
- Move it to the spending side. Give the hobby a fixed monthly line in the budget, just like a gym membership. Track it as use, and keep it out of your net worth.
- Price the hobby in future dollars. Plug the annual spend into a compound interest calculator at a conservative return. You’ll see what the habit costs over a decade.
- Check the tax bucket before selling. Collectible gains land in their own category, so work out the tax before you list anything big.
If it pays you cash or sells quickly at a fair price, it’s an investment; if it doesn’t, it’s use, and all that’s left to decide is whether the spending is wise.
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