suze orman says....

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rescueme She is not the only one who suggests you "work till you drop", at age 70.

An interesting sidelight is that if Suze Orman retires, nobody will care nor pay her any further attention.

She's not just doing what she loves. She has so much of herself wrapped up in it that I think she's trapped. Good thing that she has enough money and motivation to keep her prison cell looking so pretty.

[Rustward]

Didn't see the episode.

$200,000 is more money than most people have ever had access to. A large number of them might believe that $200K is a fortune that will last forever, and maybe, just maybe the point of this was to say that $200K is not really that much. I dunno.

The consensus here seems to be that Suze is not worthy of anybody's attention. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, but it is interesting that the topic has had 141 posts already.

She has gotten your attention, whether you realize it or not.

[FinanceDude]

I don't watch, Suze, I prefer to keep the IQ points I currently have. She is condescending and arrogant and there are enough folks like her on the Internet and TV already. Since she is FI already why is SHE WORKING??

[tmm99]

It was obviously foolish for this lady to quit working with just $200K in her pocket (so to speak) living in San Francisco, but it sounded like she went through a very bad breakup and that's when she quit. (Maybe it was an office romance that went south?) She was getting a pension, but she had a part time job to supplement the pension, but then, she lost her P/T job. Anyway, like some of you say here, if she had a P/T job, she didn't really retire. The way she went through close to 400K in 3 years (can't remember exactly, but I think sha had a debt of like $260K and only $60K left out of the 200K) makes me think she just lost her mind (or maybe law school cost that much). The breakup can do a lot of different things to a lot of different people, so it's hard to say.

I am not that financially savvy, so Suze doesn't really bother me, except of course when she talks about not retiring until 67/70 yrs old. (She always compares how much money you would have if you worked until you are 67/70. I feel like saying to her "you would have even more money if you worked until you were 85! 95! 100!!" I don't see anybody that old (67) working in our company. Maybe the oldest is like 62 or 63, if that.)

One thing I like about her show is I can get to snoop into people's financial lives, like how much people make and they spend and how much they have saved in savings, retirement, etc. These are not things my friends/acquentances/I would share with one another.

Is there any other show that lets me have a view into other people's finance?

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmm99 Is there any other show that lets me have a view into other people's finance?

One could say this forum is kind of a financial show, I have seen many people post private financial and personal matters on here!

[tmm99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude One could say this forum is kind of a financial show, I have seen many people post private financial and personal matters on here!

Right, but this forum is not an average slice of America in the slightest.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustward The consensus here seems to be that Suze is not worthy of anybody's attention. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, but it is interesting that the topic has had 141 posts already. She has gotten your attention, whether you realize it or not.

Hey, isn't that the drill here? To go on for a very long time in great detail about something that we are sure is useless and boring?

Beats something that might be useful, but unfortunately might also require thought and an open mind and perhaps even action.

Ha

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustward Didn't see the episode. $200,000 is more money than most people have ever had access to. A large number of them might believe that $200K is a fortune that will last forever, and maybe, just maybe the point of this was to say that $200K is not really that much. I dunno. The consensus here seems to be that Suze is not worthy of anybody's attention. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, but it is interesting that the topic has had 141 posts already. She has gotten your attention, whether you realize it or not.

You are right that $200K is a lot of money to the vast majority of people... but even with a little math you can pretty much determine that it is not enough to retire at 52 without some other source of income...

Say that you expenses are in the $70K range... you have 3 years of expenses..

If you were closer to median at $50K you only have 4 years...

Say you lived on $30K.... that still is only 7 years of expenses.... what do you do until you get to SS (which probably is not $30K)....

And none of this takes inflation into account...


Edit to add: Lots of people get my attention... the question is was it worth the time or effort (for both them and me)... I saw Billy Mays (or whatever his name was).... you could not forget his screaming etc... but I also turned him off as soon as I could....

I see Suze quoted on various shows and news segments... I see her on some public TV shows... but I do not watch her or care what she says... if either of these two got a cent from me it has to be from a source I can not control... I have never spent money on either of them.... however, they both wasted my time....

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmm99 Is there any other show that lets me have a view into other people's finance?

I have only seen maybe 20 minutes in total of two shows, but there is one called Till Debt do us Part (or something similar)... on one of the cable channels...

The lady seemed to use the cash only and a jar system... simple...

[Rustward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Say that you expenses are in the $70K range... you have 3 years of expenses.. If you were closer to median at $50K you only have 4 years... Say you lived on $30K.... that still is only 7 years of expenses.... what do you do until you get to SS (which probably is not $30K).... ....

Simple math for most who frequent this forum. Not so simple for some others -- sad to say.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud I have only seen maybe 20 minutes in total of two shows, but there is one called Till Debt do us Part (or something similar)... on one of the cable channels... The lady seemed to use the cash only and a jar system... simple...

I have seen a few episodes of 'Till Debt Do Us Part, and most of the people featured cannot do that simple math -- at least not before they were featured on the show.

Edit to add: Not to go off on a tangent, but I was told by a phone caller that I won a new GE Security System professionally installed for free. The catch is that you have to sign up for the monitoring service "for only about a dollar a day". Did some quick math and told the girl what it would cost me over some arbitrary number of years. After a little silence she sounded a little "wowed" and said "I never thought of it like that!". Goes to show they are out there.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustward The consensus here seems to be that Suze is not worthy of anybody's attention. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, but it is interesting that the topic has had 141 posts already. She has gotten your attention, whether you realize it or not.

How about this clarification: She's worth some people's attention, but she's not worth everybody's attention.

I think her best use is teaching kids & teens about grownup money issues. The fact that so many grownups also need to learn her material indicates how many people should've been watching her as kids and teens.

By the time you know how to handle your money, you don't need Suze's help. By the time you're planning your ER, she's just an annoying background noise.

[Silver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords By the time you know how to handle your money, you don't need Suze's help. By the time you're planning your ER, she's just an annoying background noise.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"
(said in my best Suze screech........)

I think she would be stunned to hear that anyone might think she is irrelevant.

[Rustward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords How about this clarification: She's worth some people's attention, but she's not worth everybody's attention.

OK. Clarification accepted. I sit here clarified. Thank you.

[GregLee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rescueme Here's a recent article that makes the same argument (however, I'm still not buying the idea ):

The TRP article compares retiring "early" at 62 (including starting SS at 62) with retiring late at 70 (including starting SS at 70), and finds that it may be better to retire late. Or, wait!; maybe TRP is really arguing that it's better to start SS at 70 than at 62. Well, Duh.

[veremchuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by obgyn65 I am not sure why there seems to be some animosity against Suze Orman on this board. Her explanations are clear to people (like me) who are not investment / finance experts.

Another thing no one mentioned is she does not like bond funds and preaches that you should buy individual bonds. This is ridiculous advice for the average person that does not have the financial ability to create a diversified bond portfolio. Having $25 million allows her to buy treasuries and not care, though that isn't all that diversified. I've read that you need $250k to do it correctly. Bond funds are an excellent choice for the vast majority of people.

Another thing that bugs me, but maybe not others, is that she always refers to herself in the 3rd person. Next to Howard Stern she is the most self promoting shill out there IMO.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by veremchuka Another thing no one mentioned is she does not like bond funds and preaches that you should buy individual bonds. This is ridiculous advice for the average person that does not have the financial ability to create a diversified bond portfolio. Having $25 million allows her to buy treasuries and not care, though that isn't all that diversified. I've read that you need $250k to do it correctly. Bond funds are an excellent choice for the vast majority of people. Another thing that bugs me, but maybe not others, is that she always refers to herself in the 3rd person. Next to Howard Stern she is the most self promoting shill out there IMO.

I agree. I have been invested in bond funds since 1990, when I started with a $3,000 investment, something I could not have done with individual bonds. I did not know back (or today) how to even go about buying individual bonds. Furthermore, the money in my bond funds is quite liquid. Between checkwriting privileges and electronic tranfers, I can get to the money whenever I want via check or wait a day or two for electronic transfer, something I find quite comforting.

I do happen to know what it is like to deal with an individual bond. My parents had a municipal (coupon) bond back in the 1980s which had a 15-year term expiring in 2000. For a while, my mom went to her local bank which redeemed the semi-annual coupon for a small fee ($5 at most) until the bank greatly boosted that fee to $25, annoying her quite a bit LOL. Just before she passed away in 1995, she figured out how to get the bond redeemed at no charge but only in person. Luckily for my dad, that bank was located near my office (I was still working, and in lower Manhattan) so every 6 months I would walk over there and present the coupon and my dad would get a check mailed to him. He needed to complete a form (W-9?) and I was able to get them beforehand to save time. When it came time to redeem the bond itself, he came to my office to visit and walked with me to the bank (a different one but still in lower Manhattan). We both found it a relief to be done with the bond, especially when my company moved to New Jersey a few months later.

My dad has bond mutual funds and he surely prefers having monthly dividends magically (and effortlessly) appear in his account instead of the ordeal he and I had to go through to get the bond's earnings.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by veremchuka Next to Howard Stern she is the most self promoting shill out there IMO.

Oh, great, I may have a high gross-out threshold but it's still going to take me a long time to get that "hot or not" image of Stern & Orman out of my visual cortex...

[mathjak107]

she drives me nuts when she keeps saying 401k loans are taxed 2x. clearly only the interest you pay is ,not the loan itself.

[veremchuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mathjak107 she drives me nuts when she keeps saying 401k loans are taxed 2x. clearly only the interest you pay is ,not the loan itself.

Gee I hate to agree with Suze and I know I've read that this is not true, tho I can't recall the reasoning behind it, I think you are taxed twice.

You pay the loan back with after tax dollars then when you take distributions you pay taxes on the distributions. From where I stand that's paying taxes on that loan amount 2 times.

While you can't segregate which dollars are the twice taxed dollars in distributions it seems pretty obvious you paid taxes on some part of it twice. I think 401k loans are a poor idea unless really needed.

[mathjak107]

only the interest you pay on a 401k loan is taxed 2x. nothing else is.

paying back a 401k loan is no different than if you took the money out of the 401k and decided the next day you didnt need it so you put it back.

your income is always taxed unless it goes into something thats tax defered . whether you take no loan, a bank loan or a 401k loan your income is always taxed.

all your doing is replacing untaxed money you took out. think about it in dollars and cents.

if your income is 50k a year that 50k is taxed regardless. no more ,no less whether you take a loan or not. the fact you took 10k of untaxed money out of your plan has nothing to do with your income taxes that year . your just replacing the untaxed money you took out . that money is still only taxed 1 time when taken out down the road.

i wrote her a few times and challenged her to show me at what point you paid more in taxes on your income tax with the loan vs without a loan. no response from her.