Comments on: Suze Orman Doesn’t Care About Money

By: JohnB

JohnB — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:11:48 +0000

I get real bothered by people who don’t have families or kids and expect the rest of us to live like they do. Suze treats us all like idiots. If we don’t have 250K in the bank and own our house outright we should just give up. Sell our kids to the third world and just be happy working at Burger King.
I watched her the other night with her guest Judge Judy for about 5 minutes untill I almost fainted. The caller wanted financial advice. She claimed that she was going to inherate 5 million and wondered if she should have a pre-nup with her future husband. “You must have a pre-nup”. They staited. Boy I’d love to be that unlucky bastard. I bet that marriage will last a month. Wow maybe I should have had a pre-nup with my wife. Not if I wanted a wife. Whats mine is yours. Isn’t that why we get married.

By: Christopher Clepp

Christopher Clepp — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:00:49 +0000

Suze Orman is the product of our sound bite society. She says something that is factually incorrect on almost every show. She makes broad sweeping generalizations about far too many subjects and never throws in what situations are the exceptions to her statements. Not to mention that I have long commented that she seems to like to use husbands as a pinata and I never had known that she had a female life partner. They at times deserve it, but it always seemed like sport to her.

The time I lost respect for her was when she was on QVC hawking a long term care insurance product. Something she had eschewed until about 3-6 months before she started hawking it. Not to mention the program design was off a Genworth (GE Finanacial then) product that had long been on the market. She is a great self promoter and a sub par financial advisor.

By: Khyron

Khyron — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:32:52 +0000

Jim,

I love ya, but you are taking Suze way too personally. Not all of her advice is golden. (Not ALL of ANYONE’s advice is golden. Can’t be by definiton.) Some of it, as applied to you or me, is even boneheaded. Overall, I think her advice is pretty good. Some of it has worked well for me. You take the parts you can use, and you leave the rest. That’s not hard.

As for $1M of $25M in the stock market, dude, that’s a pittance. I’d be inclined to take a stripe or 2 from her for that. 4% of her net worth is in equities. But hey, she’s comfortable doing what works for her, and she’s working with overall much larger numbers than you or me. I don’t fault her for doing it. Not the advice I would give but it doesn’t mean that all of her advice is faulty.

Also, as far as her style, again, it works for her. I like it, because I think most people need someone to put a foot in their ass. She’s trying to save stupid people from themselves. There is nobility, if not futility, in that objective. Yes, I said stupid. Hey, call a spade a spade. And realistically, if you ask for her advice, you should be prepared to accept both the answer and the delivery. Otherwise, DON’T FRIGGIN ASK! Its not like she’s new on the scene. Her style has been around longer than some (most?) of us have been this interested in the subject. She is who she is. As for the rest of us – what does it matter anyway? It appears most of the folks here don’t like her and don’t listen to her, so why is any of this important? Come on guys, don’t we have something – anything – better to do with our time? Like post on blogs?

Guys, get over it. Really. If you’re not Suze, wtf does it matter?

By: wtrwlkr

wtrwlkr — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 06:52:53 +0000

When you are in your 50’s you do become risk adverse as you are at the stage of life where you don’t have the years to recoup your risky investments.

By: frank

frank — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:37:56 +0000

I agree with moom’s sentiment. She does care about money…in fact, she is extremely risk-averse. She has the majority of her money in Muni bonds, I mean it doesn’t get more risk-averse than that. Maybe treasuries or money market accounts.

By: WildBluff_Matt

WildBluff_Matt — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:54:46 +0000

I lost my respect for her when she sold out and started hawking GMC trucks in an ad that started with her talking about saving. Just didn’t seem right to me. I still think she has some good points, but she’s definitely been bumped lower in my book.

By: wtrwlkr

wtrwlkr — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:39:32 +0000

Some like Suze and some don’t – it’s her style, and it’s a lot better than a serious advisor who speaks politely whilst chargeing you a lot of fees for nothing, actually, just had a mini debate with a friend of mine this weekend about her, both of us are financial planners. Regardless of her style, she shows that investing is not equal to personal finance, although it is a part of it. Personal finance involves in part having enough money to secure your happiness, period. What makes you happy is up to you to define. If you have nothing, you may have to take more risks to get what you want, assuming its money that you want. But if you already have enough money, regardless of how much that is, then you don’t need to, and shouldn’t take unncessary risks and Suze is obviously following good advice……and telling you the same thing….instead of keeping it to herself.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:18:39 +0000

Liza – I didn’t mean “probably not” meaning that she couldn’t handle it financially, it’s just more physically improbable considering the ingredients usually needed to conceive.

By: Liza

Liza — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:14:01 +0000

Jim, I’d be more surprised if she were ~50 and pregnant. The “gayby” boom is in full swing. Having a baby without a man in the picture is expensive, but entirely possible.

By: moom

moom — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:03:19 +0000

She is extremely risk-averse. She only put 4% of her money in the stock market and the rest in municipal bonds. Her extreme risk aversion is a reason I wouldn’t take her advice.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:02:48 +0000

Well… considering she’s never been with a man, probably not.

By: quint

quint — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:15:24 +0000

Wasn’t suse on a PBS special some years ago and pregnant?

By: jim

jim — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:30:18 +0000

Touché.

By: Dwight K. Schrute

Dwight K. Schrute — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 18:07:06 +0000

“I have a female life partner, I’ve never been with a man, and you all still read my blog”

But are you a 55 year old virgin?

By: Aimee

Aimee — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:58:44 +0000

I like Suze’s advice, she makes the most sense in terms of actual mathmatics and such. I agree that her style on her show can be harsh, and I usually don’t agree with the way she handles people who are struggling with marriage situations (which obviously are different for a man and woman than just a “life partner”), but I don’t think that she is being totally out of line in what she said about the stock money. Afer all, she probably doesn’t care if she loses it all because she understands that it is a risk. It may be hard for us to imagine losing that money, but anytime anyone invests in stocks I think you have to not care if you lose it to be able to do it. If you care too much about losing it, you may never even invest at all.