Suze: March 16, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast,
Suze: as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Suze O
Suze: here and today is Suze School.
Suze: Although I have been absent from Suze School, have I not?
Suze: And that is because I just cannot, I cannot win
Suze: this battle I'm having with my lungs and my cough
Suze: and everything else. I'm losing this battle, but eventually I
Suze: will win it. But it's been a struggle, honest to God, everybody.
Suze: But I really want to do this podcast because I
Suze: don't want to lose touch with all of you, and really,
Suze: I don't want you to lose touch.
Suze: With yourselves because it's markets like this, it's times like this,
Suze: it's economies like this, it's the news cycle like this
Suze: that a lot of you get so afraid and you're
Suze: out of touch with how you really feel. What's going
Suze: on for you, not what's going on for your neighbor
Suze: or your family, but for you, just for you, and
Suze: I have a feeling.
Suze: That if I were to ask you the question, how
Suze: do you feel right now? How do you feel when
Suze: it comes to the economy? Do you know what I
Suze: know you would say, or at least the majority of you?
Suze: Cause you're writing me.
Suze: You would say I feel afraid.
Suze: I feel confused. I feel scared.
Suze: I feel insecure. I feel anxious. I feel confused.
Suze: I feel like I don't know what to do.
Suze: And the list goes on and on and on, and
Suze: I get that, and part of the reason that you
Suze: feel that way.
Suze: Is because you should.
Suze: Seriously, you should not that you should feel afraid, but
Suze: when it comes to confusion, when it comes to not
Suze: knowing what to do, it's very difficult to know what
Suze: to do when everything around you, everything keeps changing day
Suze: by day. First, you have hundreds of thousands of employees
Suze: that have been fired. Now all of a sudden they
Suze: have to all be hired back.
Suze: They're going to take down the phone system of the
Suze: Social Security so that 76 million of you that need
Suze: to call in to use the phone won't be there,
Suze: and now they're putting it back.
Suze: Tariffs are on, tariffs are off.
Suze: All of these things really cause tremendous confusion and rightfully so.
Suze: But you know, I was thinking about what is the
Suze: Women and Money podcast? What do we do here?
Suze: Really, what do we do here? And I realized that
Suze: we actually have a podcast that tackles your fears.
Suze: And puts you in control of your financial future.
Suze: Not the government, not anybody else, not a financial adviser,
Suze: but you. One of the greatest emails that I got
Suze: this week was from a woman, I'm very sorry to say,
Suze: who recently lost her husband.
Suze: And he's left her a considerable sum of money.
Suze: And she was getting advice from a financial advisor, and
Suze: she asked me about it and I said, no, I
Suze: don't think I would do that if I were you.
Suze: And I simply said to her.
Suze: Do you need help? Do you need a financial advisor? Like,
Suze: what is it that you need at this point in time?
Suze: And she wrote me back.
Suze: And she said, Oh no, Suze, I've been listening to
Suze: you for years, and I know to find the best
Suze: financial advisor I just simply need to look in the mirror.
Suze: And I have to tell you, everybody, I was so
Suze: sick that day. I can't even tell you, and that
Suze: made me feel like a million dollars or maybe a
Suze: billion dollars. I don't know what it made me feel like,
Suze: but it really made me feel good.
Suze: So I get that a lot of you are confused,
Suze: but what you have to do
Suze: is, you have to have a game plan.
Suze: You have to know that all of these things that
Suze: are going on, right, whether you see the stock market
Suze: bouncing around or you hear these talks about tariffs and
Suze: inflation and jobs and everything else, you know, that you're
Suze: asking yourself about, you need to ask yourself the question,
Suze: what does this mean for me?
Suze: Did you hear that?
Suze: Everything that is going on right now you have to
Suze: ask yourself what does this mean for me. You need
Suze: to ask yourself the question then, am I going to
Suze: be OK.
Suze: You need to ask yourself that question.
Suze: Now I can tell you something right now. If you've
Suze: been listening to the Women and Money podcast, if you've
Suze: been doing the things that I've been asking you to
Suze: do and talking about all of these things, making sure
Suze: that you have an 8 to 12 month emergency fund
Suze: and you're being smart with investments and things like that,
Suze: and maybe in a little bit I'll give you a
Suze: list of everything I want you to do. I promise you,
Suze: you are going to be OK.
Suze: You'll probably be more than OK as long as you
Suze: stay focused.
Suze: And you don't let fear make financial decisions for you.
Suze: What's happening in the stock market right now, in my opinion,
Suze: is many of you are falling into the hands of
Suze: the professional traders that are manipulating a whole lot of
Suze: ups and downs on these markets and these stocks, and
Suze: every time it goes up a little bit, you decide, oh,
Suze: I have to sell. I have to get out at
Suze: least I'm getting my money out and then it goes
Suze: all the way back down again.
Suze: And then a lot of you go, oh, I should
Suze: have sold. Why didn't I sell? And then it goes
Suze: back up again and again you now get out. And eventually,
Suze: after they've done that enough.
Suze: It's gonna go up and then it's gonna take off
Suze: and skyrocket again.
Suze: The absolute worst thing that you can be doing right
Suze: now is panic and make decisions that hurt your long
Suze: term security.
Suze: Because when you do that, when you make decisions out
Suze: of fear.
Suze: When does it affect you? It affects you long term.
Suze: So here's what I really, really, everybody need you to
Suze: remember that short term news, just, you know, things that
Suze: are short term news should not dictate long term decisions.
Suze: Especially if you have a well diversified portfolio, especially if
Suze: you have a plan.
Suze: Especially if you're doing the right things and you just
Suze: are staying the course in your dollar cost averaging or
Suze: value cost averaging and you're just doing that.
Suze: Now I get that the new thing that's on the
Suze: mind of everybody is, Suzie, are we going to have
Suze: a recession?
Suze: All of a sudden the our word has come back
Suze: and all of you are absolutely freaked again about that.
Suze: And my answer to that is maybe.
Suze: But maybe not.
Suze: Let me just ask you this. Let's say we did
Suze: have a recession.
Suze: And let's pretend like we're going to have a recession.
Suze: Then the question becomes, are you personally prepared?
Suze: Are you?
Suze: Because this isn't just about the stock market. This is
Suze: about what you do with your money every day. It's
Suze: what you are buying now. It is everything.
Suze: So the question again is, are you personally prepared?
Suze: Because whether or not a recession happens, everybody, your financial
Suze: security depends on you and you alone.
Suze: And you know that because I've been saying that to
Suze: you over and over again.
Suze: So what do you need to have in place right now?
Suze: For you to be financially secure, get out your little
Suze: Suze notebooks.
Suze: It is more important than ever, especially at this point
Suze: in time, and I am very serious about this.
Suze: That you have got to have an emergency fund of
Suze: at least 8 to 12 months of must pay expenses.
Suze: And if you don't, your number one priority is to
Suze: absolutely build that up next.
Suze: You have to really be smart with your investments, everybody.
Suze: Don't get scared and cash out of your investments, especially
Suze: in your retirement accounts.
Suze: Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. If anything,
Suze: you know, as the market continues down. If you dollar
Suze: cost average or value cost average, eventually it will be OK.
Suze: Now put a pin in that for a second before
Suze: I go on. A lot of you, especially on the board,
Suze: I see you writing on value cost averaging every day.
Suze: Into XYZ stock, whatever stock it is you're doing this,
Suze: and it goes down a few dollars and you buy
Suze: a little and whatever. Listen, stop it.
Suze: It's going to go down. It's going to go up.
Suze: Give yourself a good period of time. The last thing
Suze: you want to do is run out of money, so
Suze: you are to designate an amount of money that is
Suze: to go into any stock or ETF that you want
Suze: to purchase.
Suze: And you want to make sure that you have enough
Suze: in there so that as these markets continue on because
Suze: they could absolutely go down big time still.
Suze: That you have enough to buy it and so you
Suze: don't buy one or two shares every day. Give yourself
Suze: a little breather and see how it goes, all right, everybody,
Suze: don't worry about catching it at the bottom. You will
Suze: never buy at the bottom. You will never sell at
Suze: the top.
Suze: So just take it easy when it comes to investing, OK? Next,
Suze: let's go back to your list.
Suze: You have got to not take on any unnecessary debt.
Suze: So what does that mean? It means no new credit
Suze: card debt, no new car loans, unless it's absolutely necessary.
Suze: And if you have high interest debt, you are to
Suze: pay it down now or do a balance transfer to
Suze: a low interest rate card or a zero interest rate card,
Suze: but you have got to not take on any more
Suze: new debt.
Suze: Recently somebody in my sphere who happens to be somebody
Suze: that I like very much, he has a car. His
Suze: husband has a car, beautiful cars, no problem. Everything's good
Suze: about it.
Suze: And one of his clients offered him a car.
Suze: That had only 4500 miles on it and it was
Suze: his dream car.
Suze: And he had to have that car.
Suze: So guess what, he bought that car.
Suze: And when he was telling me about it, he was
Suze: telling me that he financed it over 6 years and
Suze: everything and that now they have 3 cars and on
Suze: and on and I didn't say anything cause he already
Suze: did it.
Suze: But are you kidding me?
Suze: This is not the time. This is not the time
Suze: or the place for you to be buying anything that
Suze: is not a necessity just because a good deal came along.
Suze: And you got to buy this car and it's just
Suze: beautiful and you like how it looks and I said
Suze: to him, do you, do, do people look at you
Suze: when you're in this car? He said, Oh yes. I'm like, mhm.
Suze: Are you kidding? Stop spending money you don't have to
Suze: impress people you don't even know or like. This is
Suze: not the time, and I don't care how wealthy you are.
Suze: I don't care. Like I even said to KT this morning,
Suze: you know what, KT, I don't know. Maybe one of
Suze: these trips that we have planned in the next few months,
Suze: maybe we just shouldn't take it.
Suze: Even though we could spend the money and we can
Suze: afford it, it's not a necessity. It's not something that
Suze: we should or should, it's maybe we just shouldn't do it, KT,
Suze: and we should really conserve everything.
Suze: Because it's in our nature, doesn't matter how rich you are,
Suze: it's in our nature to not do things, especially when
Suze: the economy and the stock market is going down, to
Suze: take on things that are unnecessary, even if it's not
Suze: creating unnecessary debt, it's an unnecessary waste of money in
Suze: my opinion.
Suze: So again I am telling you do not take on
Suze: a necessary debt, and that includes right now, believe it
Suze: or not, I would not be buying a new home
Suze: if I were you.
Suze: If you didn't have to.
Suze: If it is a want and you're just thinking, you
Suze: know what, maybe I'd want a bigger house, maybe this
Suze: or that and everything, this is not the time that
Suze: I would be doing it. I think real estate is
Suze: seriously going to be affected by a lot of things
Suze: that are happening out there, and I don't think it's
Suze: impossible that you could see real estate prices start to
Suze: come down.
Suze: For those of you who are selling homes, you might
Suze: find that you don't want to stick so much on
Suze: the price as what you set were no longer, in
Suze: my opinion, in a seller's market, and therefore you should
Suze: just maybe be willing to negotiate and go a little
Suze: bit softer. Inventory is increasing.
Suze: The time on list for a house to be sold
Suze: is increasing.
Suze: I'm just telling you I don't have a great feeling
Suze: about it. All right. Now,
Suze: I know it seems like inflation was going down, but
Suze: now it seems like inflation is going up. So what
Suze: do you do when inflation is going up?
Suze: Again, kind of what I just said, I want you
Suze: to cut any unnecessary expenses. I want you to look
Suze: at what you're spending and the things that you don't need,
Suze: whether they're subscription services or eating out too much. Can
Suze: you just cut back right now.
Suze: Can you find ways to increase your income? Can you
Suze: pick up extra hours, maybe a side gig or rent
Suze: out a room or whatever it is that you can do, or,
Suze: you know, even an extra $500 a month can make
Suze: a huge difference, and that's enough for you to fund monthly,
Suze: a Roth IRA. That's a great thing for you to
Suze: think about.
Suze: Most importantly, you need to stay calm.
Suze: Cause you need to remember that inflation doesn't last forever.
Suze: It goes in cycles, you can adapt, you can adjust,
Suze: you can just keep moving forward. Everything is changing very
Suze: rapidly now. So it's really important.
Suze: That you do this before a recession happens. You have
Suze: to prepare for tomorrow. You do, you know, you always
Suze: prepare for the worst but hope for the best, and
Suze: I'm not exactly sure what's on the horizon here, but
Suze: I have to tell you too many things in my
Suze: opinion are really unsettled.
Suze: Ukraine is unsettled, Russia is unsettled, Gaza and Israel and
Suze: China and Iraq, everything right now is teetering Europe, Canada.
Suze: Everything is changing.
Suze: So because everything is changing, you need to change too.
Suze: You need to change to a stance of making sure
Suze: that you count every penny and you make every penny count.
Suze: That you really stay involved with your investments. You look
Suze: at what you have, you make decisions and you stay
Suze: calm with it. And if you're investing in good quality ETFs,
Suze: individual stocks, mutual funds, bonds, whatever, great, then just stick
Suze: with it. For those of you who are retired or
Suze: close to retiring.
Suze: More than ever before, it is really important that you
Suze: have that 3 to 5 years in your retirement accounts
Suze: in cash.
Suze: Do you remember me telling you that I do not
Suze: want 100% of your money in your retirement accounts if
Suze: you are near to retirement or are retired in the
Suze: stock market? I want it in cash, which means in
Suze: money market funds, high yield savings accounts, CDs, things like that.
Suze: So that if you need the money.
Suze: It's there and you don't find yourself having to sell
Suze: stock when the stock is down just simply to do
Suze: what meet your RMDs or whatever it may be, OK.
Suze: That's so important I can't even tell you. So therefore,
Suze: look at your portfolios.
Suze: And make a decision. What should you liquidate right now?
Suze: What should you not? things like that.
Suze: I'm going to repeat this rule of thumb again.
Suze: Which is money that you need,
Suze: within 5 years,
Suze: preferably longer but at least within 5 years is not
Suze: money that belongs in the stock market.
Suze: It can take anywhere from 3 to 5 years, sometimes longer,
Suze: but normally it takes 3 to 5 years.
Suze: From the top of the market down to the bottom
Suze: to go back up to the top again and during
Suze: that time if you have to access your money for
Suze: RMDs or to live off of or whatever that is
Suze: money that you want in a money market fund within
Suze: your retirement accounts or a treasury bill or whatever it
Suze: may be so that's really, really important.
Suze: So these are all things that you really need to
Suze: know in terms of the stocks and the ETFs that
Suze: I have recommended in the past. I'm absolutely sticking by them.
Suze: Some of them have been obliterated. Absolutely true. But if
Suze: you had a diversified portfolio because I own all of
Suze: those stocks that I've mentioned to you, plus many, many more.
Suze: When I look at my entire portfolio, I'm only down
Suze: this year 2%.
Suze: I'm not down 50% or 40% because I own more
Suze: than just those stocks.
Suze: So you can never put yourself in a situation where
Suze: that's all you own. You only own Palantir. You only
Suze: own whatever it may be. You have to be diversified,
Suze: otherwise you are setting yourself up for big time losses.
Suze: Do you hear me?
Suze: So when you write me and say do I still
Suze: like such and such a stock or whatever I do,
Suze: or I would have told you like I told you
Suze: a while ago when I thought you should get out
Suze: of Whirlpool.
Suze: Whirlpool, I had a feeling things were going to happen.
Suze: I had a feeling like, you know what, this isn't
Suze: going to go great with the terrace with everything. My
Suze: plan for Whirlpool had totally changed. And did you get out?
Suze: I don't know. Same thing I told you about Devon.
Suze: Did you get out? 'Cause here's also the problem when
Suze: I tell you about a stock.
Suze: And then you don't listen to the Women and Money
Suze: podcast every single week.
Suze: Then when I do mention I would sell it and
Suze: I would buy this instead.
Suze: You don't know and you still own it.
Suze: And then you're wondering what you should do. So unless
Suze: you plan to follow along with one of my suggestions
Suze: every single week, then I won't be buying anything that
Suze: I tell you to buy.
Suze: Because if you're solely depending on my opinion and you're
Suze: not listening, then you can find yourself where you get hurt.
Suze: All right, that's what I wanted to tell you.
Suze: We are in one of the more volatile times I
Suze: have ever seen.
Suze: And volatility comes with uncertainty.
Suze: There's enough uncertainty around, oh, to fill the Grand Canyon.
Suze: So therefore your job now is to be certain about
Suze: absolutely every move that you make.
Suze: Or every move that you decide not to make, but
Suze: the last thing I want you to do is to
Suze: come from a place of fear, because what is the
Suze: one internal obstacle to wealth that I always talk about?
Suze: Fear is the main internal obstacle to wealth.
Suze: And the best way to conquer your fear is to
Suze: look at your statements, make a plan to get out
Suze: of debt, have a plan, everybody, have a plan. All right,
Suze: so until Thursday, hopefully...
Suze: right, I will be back with Miss Travis for another
Suze: Ask KT and Suze Anything, but until then, there's only
Suze: one thing that I want you to remember when it
Suze: comes to your money, and it's this people first.
Suze: Then money, then things. Now you stay safe, strong and healthy,
Suze: and Susie, you need to take your own advice. Bye
Suze: bye now.