Suze: December 15th, 2024. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money
Suze: podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen.
Suze: December 15th.
Suze: What does that mean? It means that many of you. Now,
Suze: if you haven't already gotten the gifts that you wanna
Suze: give for the holiday season,
Suze: the day that the gifts are given 10 days from now,
Suze: you are now in financial panic mode. Maybe just maybe
Suze: you thought, no, I'm not gonna give gifts this year.
Suze: I'm gonna make things. I'm just gonna tell people how
Suze: much I love them. And now these are the 10
Suze: days that financial guilt comes in.
Suze: You start to look at everybody celebrating and the parties
Suze: and the gifts giving and all these things that are
Suze: going on within your office or wherever you may work
Suze: or whatever it is, you look at TV. And now
Suze: everybody is walking down the streets and caroling and all
Suze: these things and everybody's celebrating and now you are in
Suze: to the holiday spirit.
Suze: And it is within that spirit
Suze: that even though you were being financially strong, in most cases,
Suze: up till this point, it is that this day, 10
Suze: days before "G-Day," I call it "G-Day" because it's the
Suze: gift giving day,
Suze: you all start to get weak and you give in,
Suze: you go into a store, you're looking at things and
Suze: you decide, ok, I'll just get this and the person
Suze: behind the counter says, you know, anything you buy today,
Suze: you will get 20% off. If you simply apply for
Suze: a credit card and you go really, I can save
Suze: that much money. You only went in there to spend
Suze: maybe $50 but you like 20% off everything I buy.
Suze: And then what do you do?
Suze: You go to all the other departments and you think
Suze: about what you want, not what you need, but what
Suze: you want, what others may want. And before you know it,
Suze: you walk out with typically by the way around $600
Suze: or $700 worth of items that in your head, you
Suze: just saved $120 on and that's what you do. And
Suze: then you leave.
Suze: Now you're feeling really, really good that you saved all
Suze: of this money,
Suze: you give the gifts, ok? You have a great holiday,
Suze: I hope and then comes January and the bill comes
Suze: in
Suze: and if it's at a department store, you see that
Suze: the interest is at around 28%.
Suze: And now what do you do? You only pay the
Suze: minimum payment due
Suze: and you think? Oh, that's all right. I can just
Suze: take care of this over time. Let's just put a
Suze: pin in that for one second.
Suze: Now, I want to go to a Suze story.
Suze: I'll never forget when I was doing the Oprah Winfrey show.
Suze: And Oprah would have me go into people's homes
Suze: and my job was to figure out what they had
Suze: going on, how to get them out of debt, how
Suze: to make sure that they were on the correct financial path.
Suze: And there was not one home, not one home that
Suze: I went into
Suze: that when I was going through their closets
Suze: in their closets were all this stuff. And I know
Suze: I've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again.
Suze: All this stuff in the back of the closet, just
Suze: stuff there.
Suze: And I would say let's bring everything out so we
Suze: can see what you have.
Suze: Everything that came out of that closet, that top shelf
Suze: were gifts given to them for the holiday season that
Suze: they didn't like, but they didn't have the courage to return.
Suze: And I would say, why did you keep it? Well,
Suze: I didn't want to hurt the person's feelings, Suze. They
Suze: gave it to me with such love. I said, but
Suze: you didn't even like what they gave you. You wasted
Suze: their money by taking this gift
Suze: under the false pretense that you loved it. You opened
Suze: it up, you said, oh my God, thank you so much.
Suze: And you give them a hug and then they leave
Suze: and then you look at it and go.
Suze: I wish I could return this. And then that little
Suze: voice would come in and say I can't return this.
Suze: It will hurt their feelings in the closet. It goes
Suze: and it stays there for the next 20 years.
Suze: You know, and I know that is true. That happens
Suze: to me and KT every single holiday season,
Suze: we tell everybody there is not anything that we want.
Suze: There is not anything that we need. So we beg you,
Suze: please don't send gifts, please don't give us gifts. But
Suze: do you think anybody listens to us? No,
Suze: undoubtedly when we go back to Florida,
Suze: there are gifts and I already know because we were
Suze: just there, there are gifts that people have sent
Suze: and we open them up and we go, we don't
Suze: want this.
Suze: We don't need this. And the truth of the matter
Suze: is we don't even like it. Now, here we are
Suze: with these gifts and what do we do with them?
Suze: We return them
Suze: and we let the person know who sent us those
Suze: gifts that we are returning them and the credit will
Suze: be back on their account. But now we have to
Suze: take this gift, take it back, figure out how to
Suze: return it.
Suze: It's a mess. So I want you to just think
Suze: about this because I know what we experience is something
Suze: that every single one of you experiences.
Suze: And I find that all so sad. You know, when
Suze: I was a financial advisor, actually seeing clients
Suze: and we would work so hard, I worked so hard
Suze: with them to get them out of credit card debt
Suze: to make sure that they were on the right path
Suze: all year long. We would do that
Suze: and then came December.
Suze: I would always call December the month of doom.
Suze: Financial doom, because why? It is in the month of
Suze: December that all the work that is being done to
Suze: save money to get out of debt,
Suze: we're doomed. It comes right back all in this month,
Suze: especially during the last 10 days before "G-Day", gift day
Suze: because it is in these days that you freak,
Suze: you give in to temptation, you go into a store
Suze: and you just buy anything that they've placed where they
Suze: know you will see it, you will want it, you
Suze: buy it and you leave.
Suze: So I just want to give you a few numbers
Suze: of what that gift if I am speaking to you,
Suze: what that gift probably will cost you.
Suze: If in fact, all you did was you went in
Suze: and when it was all said and done, let's just
Suze: say you spent $1000 not that hard to day
Suze: at $100 a crack. That's 10 people. Not that hard
Suze: or even $50. That's 20 people. It is very possible
Suze: that you are now charging $1000 on credit cards for gifts.
Suze: Do you know if you went in to a department store,
Suze: you took advantage of that 20% off. And now your
Suze: bill really is $1000. Do you know
Suze: that if all you ever do is pay the minimum
Suze: payment due, it is going to take you nine years
Suze: and six months to pay that off.
Suze: You also will have paid $1931 in interest.
Suze: So you now have shelled out almost $3000
Suze: for probably a gift that may or may not be
Suze: sitting in somebody's closet. Do you know that the average
Suze: credit card debt today in the United States of America
Suze: is $6329 and an average interest rate of 23.37%
Suze: with the minimum payment due. Usually in both of these cases,
Suze: by the way that I just cited is 2%.
Suze: Do you know that if you continue to only pay
Suze: the minimum payment due,
Suze: it's going to take the majority of people out there
Suze: 21 years and three months to pay that off and
Suze: $12,809 in interest.
Suze: So $6329 over all those years, 21 years, you have
Suze: shelled out
Suze: 18 or $19,000.
Suze: I just want you to think about that for a second. Now,
Suze: I know this might not be very holiday, spirit wise
Suze: of Suze Orman,
Suze: but it is sure financial wise of Suze Orman.
Suze: The gift giving season
Suze: really is one of true generosity. You take out your
Suze: Suze notebooks and you write this down. Now. True generosity
Suze: and generosity is not just giving somebody a gift.
Suze: True generosity is when you give somebody a gift, but
Suze: it's also a gift for yourself as well. And what
Suze: that means is that you are able to buy that
Suze: gift with cash
Suze: and you're able to buy that gift with cash because
Suze: you have an 8 to 12 month emergency fund. You
Suze: have absolutely no credit card debt whatsoever. You are fully
Suze: funding your retirement accounts,
Suze: your car is owned outright. You are living a debt
Suze: free life. You have money in excess of what I
Suze: just said. And all right, you can buy people gifts
Suze: and it's not gonna put any hardship on you whatsoever.
Suze: If however, you are buying somebody a gift and you
Suze: have got to put that gift on your credit card
Suze: where you already have debt
Suze: that you carry every single month.
Suze: You are not being generous to yourself.
Suze: You are financially sabotaging your future. Remember, credit card debt
Suze: is where you pay for your present day desires, your
Suze: desire to look generous, your desire to have a new iphone,
Suze: your desire to have these things that you want, not
Suze: need that you want. But the true cost of that
Suze: everybody is your future day needs when you get older
Suze: and you need money.
Suze: The true gift that not only can you give yourself
Suze: but to others is the gift of standing in your
Suze: truth
Suze: to be able to say to somebody.
Suze: I want you to know.
Suze: I would love to give you a gift. I would
Suze: love to buy this and that for you. But I
Suze: don't have the money to do so.
Suze: So what is it that I could do for you
Suze: that doesn't cost money? They could simply show you how
Suze: much I love you. Especially during this holiday season. Chances
Suze: are if you were to say that to somebody, you
Suze: know what they're gonna say back to you. Oh, thank
Suze: God because I'm in the exact same situation and I've
Suze: always given you a gift because you've given me a
Suze: gift and I've always had to put it on my
Suze: credit card.
Suze: Let's just be with each other. Let's just maybe have
Suze: a dinner at home together.
Suze: Let's just stand in our truth in this holiday season
Suze: and not give a gift,
Suze: not give a gift of something
Suze: but give a gift of each other to each other.
Suze: And now I know this is very difficult to do
Suze: when it comes to children.
Suze: But if you think you're giving them a gift that
Suze: you can't afford
Suze: and it goes on your credit card.
Suze: I'm just asking you, what do you think you're teaching them?
Suze: How do you think that they're gonna grow up and
Suze: what they're gonna end up doing if they're in that
Suze: same situation
Suze: you might want to say to them sweethearts on this holiday.
Suze: Let's go and give time to others that are less fortunate.
Suze: Let's go and volunteer. Let's go and do this. Let's
Suze: go and do that.
Suze: There's nothing wrong with that. Now, I know it's not easy.
Suze: I know you can't stand watching your little kids go.
Suze: But mom but mom, dad, dad, whatever it may be.
Suze: But I want you to just think about that.
Suze: You know, last week you heard that Barb, KT's sister
Suze: was on the podcast
Suze: and after that podcast was over, she went and she said, oh, Suze,
Suze: I should have told them this, I should have told
Suze: them that I should have done this or that. And
Suze: I was like, but Barb, you did great. That was
Suze: a great podcast. And I said, Barb, what was the
Suze: greatest gift during all those years?
Suze: And essentially what Barb said was the gift is what
Suze: I'm seeing right now, Suze. And my children
Suze: who make gifts, who don't get into debt, who all
Suze: have savings, responsible jobs, refuse to spend money on wants
Suze: and put it away for needs. That's the greatest gift
Suze: I could have ever been given. Because to me, Suze, really,
Suze: there's nothing more important than my children
Suze: and I see what has happened by standing in our
Suze: truth
Suze: and not being able to do certain things. And I said,
Suze: Barb, how did that gift come about? And she said, well,
Suze: it wasn't easy. It took time.
Suze: But after you telling us over and over again about
Suze: needs versus wants all the gifts we were buying for
Suze: the kids stopped because they started to understand the true
Suze: meaning of the holidays and the true meaning of money
Suze: and the true purpose of money, which is to be secure.
Suze: So can you just imagine a 13 year old saying,
Suze: when asked, what is the goal of money? And they
Suze: say it's to be secure,
Suze: don't you think that would be the greatest gift you
Suze: could give your family?
Suze: Yesterday morning, Colo was in the bedroom with us having
Suze: our coffee. We like for some reason, they have coffee
Suze: in our bedroom. And I said, Colo, if I was
Suze: going to do a podcast tomorrow
Suze: on, what is the greatest gift you could give somebody?
Suze: Do you know what Klo said to me? He said, Suze,
Suze: tell them the greatest gift is the gift of saving
Suze: the gift of saving.
Suze: He said, there's nothing that makes me feel better when
Suze: I know now not to be giving my kids gifts
Suze: of all these things that they want. But to say,
Suze: guess what? I just put $100 in a savings account
Suze: for you
Suze: and what that does for them.
Suze: But even Colo, Colo after all these years, finally has said,
Suze: the greatest gift you can give your children is the
Suze: gift of savings.
Suze: Just something for all of you to think about.
Suze: The other day, I got an email from a friend
Suze: of mine by the name of Allison.
Suze: And she says to me, Suze, my son came up
Suze: to me and said, I want to start making money.
Suze: So I want to invest in the stock market.
Suze: And Allison says, but Suze, I have no idea how
Suze: to do that. I said, ok, there's two ways to
Suze: do it but how much money do you think he
Suze: has to invest? She said, just a few $100. I said,
Suze: so therefore you can buy one exchange traded fund such
Suze: as VOO VOO, VTI, any of those - Spiders SPY
Suze: and just keep doing that with little amounts of money
Suze: as time goes on or
Suze: you can teach him a lesson that you don't invest
Suze: in the stock market and just think that everything is
Suze: going to just go up maybe one of the greatest
Suze: lessons at this point in his life. He's still very
Suze: young about 10. This point in his life is to
Suze: understand that you just don't invest in the market thinking
Suze: that you want to make money.
Suze: You invest in the stock market because you want to
Suze: see your money grow over time.
Suze: But that you have to know with growth over time
Suze: also comes the possibility of losing money as well.
Suze: So if I were you and I then gave her
Suze: a list of stocks, I would invest $20 in each
Suze: one of these stocks
Suze: and then I would save any extra besides that. And
Suze: I would teach him when these stocks go down, you
Suze: put more money in, you put another $5 in or
Suze: $10 in and you just keep doing that over time
Suze: and every time he gets extra money, especially for the
Suze: gift giving season that is coming up, give him cash,
Suze: but that cash has got to go
Suze: into a money market account waiting to be invested in
Suze: these stocks.
Suze: And now that is what they are going to do.
Suze: But
Suze: is that something all of you can do for your
Suze: children as well? Teach them investing and what it's like
Suze: to make your money grow, but also teach them the
Suze: risk that investments can go down as well, which brings
Suze: us to our last topic of this Suze School.
Suze: Now, if you remember quite a while ago, I started
Suze: to say to many of you that heard
Suze: that if you own Devon, especially if it is outside
Suze: of a retirement account, sell it, I would sell it
Suze: and I would then take that money and put it
Suze: into either Pfizer or Whirlpool at that time.
Suze: That's it. Take the loss also. Now, even in a
Suze: retirement account, I would probably do the same as well.
Suze: During the years that we've owned, Devon, we have gotten
Suze: a nice dividend. So you need to figure out truly,
Suze: how much did you lose on that one investment? Did
Suze: you lose it all? Just depends on when you bought
Suze: it and if you continued to dollar cost average into it,
Suze: little by little, if you had truthfully, you wouldn't be
Suze: down quite so much, believe it or not.
Suze: But Devon is a stock that is absolutely underperformed to
Suze: my surprise to what's going on all oil stocks right now,
Suze: energy stocks are not doing great. But I do think
Suze: if you invested in that stock and you did so
Suze: mainly for the dividend,
Suze: then Pfizer, even though I know you think Pfizer is
Suze: never gonna go up, it's now paying a dividend in
Suze: the 6% area. I still have faith in Pfizer. I
Suze: still own Pfizer. And that's probably if you're looking for
Suze: income with a stock that could continue to grow as
Suze: well as possibly go down.
Suze: Pfizer might be a stock that you switch into from
Suze: Devon symbol DVN.
Suze: We will buy stocks that absolutely skyrocket on us and
Suze: we will buy stocks that absolutely go down and may
Suze: never go back up again.
Suze: But that is why you have diversification within certain areas.
Suze: It doesn't have to be equal diversification by any means.
Suze: But that is the risk one takes. But I still
Suze: think if you bought most of the stocks or ETF
Suze: S that were recommended and not just Devon,
Suze: maybe you bought XLE and you stayed in that and
Suze: now you're up tremendously on that and you had diversification
Suze: in that ETF but if you look at most of
Suze: the recommendations truthfully, you have done very, very well. Let
Suze: me just talk about Palantir because you're all writing about that.
Suze: What would Suze do? Da Da, da Suze is keeping Palantir.
Suze: Suze, actually, as it went down to 71 the other
Suze: day after it hit 80. Suze bought more,
Suze: I like that stock. I'm going to continue to like
Suze: that stock. It is not the only stock that I own.
Suze: I own probably 50 stocks maybe even more than that
Suze: at this point in time.
Suze: Well, actually, I absolutely do own f more than 50
Suze: stocks at this point in time. Other kinds of investments.
Suze: My money is spread across the board in gold in IBI,
Suze: in Bitcoin, in all of those things along with bonds,
Suze: municipal bonds, treasury bonds series, I bonds that I've had
Suze: for a while that I just wanna keep for some reason.
Suze: Um and it, it spread everywhere
Suze: so that no matter what happens on some level somewhere,
Suze: my money is averaging and doing just great for me.
Suze: So, bottom line, I'm saying it now and you can
Suze: do whatever you want. I'm sticking with Palantir. However,
Suze: what is the goal of money? The goal of money
Suze: is for you to be secure. And listen, if it's
Suze: making you nervous and you've tripled your money, you've done
Suze: whatever with it and you want to sell, sell, you
Suze: can do that. Nobody is saying you have to stay in.
Suze: So if you need money, if you're in debt, you
Suze: invested in it, you're just nervous and losing sleep over
Suze: it and watching it every single day,
Suze: there's nothing wrong with selling some of it, selling all
Suze: of it or selling none of it. It just depends
Suze: on how you feel about it. And if it's making
Suze: you feel insecure and nervous,
Suze: just sell
Suze: overall, I think the markets are going to be doing
Suze: very well for next year, especially if you're invested in
Suze: certain areas. That doesn't mean that it's not gonna come
Suze: down significantly at times. But when it does, that's when
Suze: you take advantage of stocks that you wanna hold for 5, 10,
Suze: 15 years and you just keep them in dollar cost
Suze: average into them. I am asking all of you to
Suze: be extremely patient
Suze: with the program that Keith Fitzgerald is coming out with.
Suze: Stop writing me saying when is it gonna happen? When
Suze: is it gonna happen? It's gonna happen when it is
Suze: supposed to happen
Suze: and either you wanna wait for it or you don't.
Suze: But all things that are really great are worth waiting for.
Suze: I myself have truly no idea when it will really
Suze: come out. Keith keeps saying they're in the final stages
Suze: they're doing this. They're doing that. I'll believe it when
Suze: I see it. But I wanna give Keith enough latitude
Suze: and development room
Suze: until he feels great about it. Not because all of
Suze: you are impatient and you want it. Now,
Suze: don't be like that everybody.
Suze: You need to be a patient investor. You need to
Suze: be an understanding investor of how you feel about your
Suze: own investments. You need to be a generous person. When
Suze: you know, when you're being generous to others as well
Suze: as yourself. You need to be a true teacher of
Suze: your children and
Suze: future generations and get them to understand what the goal
Suze: of money is. But you yourself have to understand what
Suze: it is. So what actions do you take today to
Suze: make yourself feel secure? You need to be a person
Suze: that has the ability and the courage to stand in
Suze: the truth
Suze: and tell people if they've given you something that you
Suze: don't like what you're gonna do with it and how
Suze: you're gonna return it or whatever it may be. You
Suze: need
Suze: to be integrous and really courageous and really have the
Suze: ability to understand
Suze: that people love you for who you are not for
Suze: what you give them. So
Suze: that brings us to the end of this Suze School.
Suze: Thursday will be another Ask KT and Suze Anything. But
Suze: until then, can you just think about these next 10
Suze: days and what you are or not going to do
Suze: with all that time. See you Thursday everybody. There's really
Suze: only one thing that I want you to remember when
Suze: it comes to your money and it is this people first.
Suze: That means you,
Suze: you, you, you not others, not others that you can
Suze: give a gift to, but giving a true gift of
Suze: financial security to yourself people first, then money, then things.
Suze: And if you do that you will be unstoppable.