Suze Orman - You need 20M to retire early

[calmloki]

As one who is pension free and collects just about enough social security to keep the cat fed I'll say that being very self reliant makes a person real cautious. I'm buying a few extra cans of beans and packing eight pairs of socks for a five day trip. Could well be that Suze is of the same mindset, though we aren't worth half her latest target number (OTH, we're moving toward old, so..). At this point gal and I have more than enough for our lifetimes and several disasters, but we keep making money. Don't think it's a bad thing, not hurting anybody. Might even suggest that there is some wisdom in others doing so as well, just in case social security or pensions aren't as sure a thing as one hopes.

 

[maestro]

Suze is WAY passed her 'good until' date when it comes to financial advice.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

It could be a disclaimer, but it also isn't uncommon/unwarranted advice. In a TV/Radio/Internet audience there will be a wide range of possibilities. Some definitely could make it work (depending on where they live), but for a non trivial chunk of the populace, it may not work without some serious tradeoffs. For a young couple with two young children, the risk profile of starting today and trying to navigate through life's twist and turns and provide for their future is much greater than someone who is 40, 50, or 60+. Let's be honest, some of the early proponents of the movement online have now gone back to work (after FIRE in their 30s) or are essentially working full/part time sharing their schtick. I didn't listen to the full podcast, but saw another report on the same interview and she noted the difference if someone was older and can live within their means with the right income flows across potential outcomes (although she is generally anti-fire, esp for those in their 30s). I

I remember her at her peak popularity. She would have callers come in with unrealistic budgets, a wishlist purchase or other financial situations and she'd dish out advice, sometimes full of hyperbole, but often with just sound basic practices (like getting credit card debt down, start your Roth/401K early, etc). It was more for entertainment, in terms of delivery style, like a Judge Judy for the financially delusional.

Yes, I agree and I did not mean to imply otherwise.

I believe her statement covers her legally.

 

[mystang52]

Ok, yet another true confession: Suze's early books were a revelation for me. DW bought "Nine Steps to Financial Freedom" (1997) and "Courage To Be Rich" (1999) and insisted I read them.

Suze said stuff I had never heard before, woo woo stuff about our emotional relationship with money and spending. While the mumbo jumbo about manifesting abundance and all that sounds pretty cringy these days, her books taught me that I was indeed channeling a lot of money trauma from my childhood growing up in the shadows of poverty, and I was acting out by spending as much as I earned and then some. DW being from a fiscally frugal, prudent Millionaire Next Door kind of family was alarmed and having trouble getting thru to me. Suze got thru (or maybe it was DW smacking me in the head with those books).

Either way, I owe a small debt to Suze - in exchange for whatever her books cost back then, I started on an important life journey of wealth accumulation. I was already real good at making money - but lacking the discipline to save it. Where I came from nobody ever SAVED money, there was never enough of it to go around.

Now, it just so happens that this time period is about when we saved up enough down payment and stretched to buy our first home, and I started tracking my Assets/Liabilities/NW, so I can give you some stats. NW today by comparison 25 years later is more than 35x, a blistering CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 17%. Of course I moved on to other personal finance authors over time. I don't know what happened to Suze over the years - she's become a [frightening] caricature of her old self.

As a young adult I'd watch every personal finance show, but when the kids came along I was happy to make it payday to payday and still LBYM. But those initial lessons stuck with me. For me, the game changers were 1) starting payroll deduction for US Savings Bonds - at a VERY small amount
and 2) the book "The Wealthy Barber." Just knowing I didn't have to save 75% (exaggerating a bit) of my pay was an emotional lift that I was doing the right thhings.

 

[Time2]

To accumulate $20M earning the median US household income of $78k, you need to live on $10k a year, save $68k, and earn 10% for 35 years. After 35 years you can now up your income to $800k a year and have 30 year sustainable portfolio.
Suzy approved.

 

[old medic]

I had never heard of this girl.... and low and behold... I'm surfing thru channels and find her on a PBS channel with an Informercial....

 

[GenXguy]

I had never heard of this girl.... and low and behold... I'm surfing thru channels and find her on a PBS channel with an Informercial....

She's been around for a long time. I've seen her on PBS from time to time over the years as well as on CNBC when I had cable over a decade ago.

Edit: Looks like she began publishing books in 1995 and The Suze Orman Show ran on CNBC from 2002 to 2015.

 

[old medic]

She's been around for a long time. I've seen her on PBS from time to time over the years

The PBS program is a 2 hours long fundraiser, you can get her books and videos... guessing its a write off for her.

 

[mak99]

...
Also, if you dissect the numbers, I don't think they fully support Ramsey's argument. The average age of vehicles on the road is around 12 years, from what I've been able to find online. However, when they say "average" I don't know if they actually mean "mean" or "median." The word "average" tends to get thrown around enough that it can mean both these days.

Anyway, for the median, or mean, vehicle of a millionaire to be 4 years old, still implies that they're buying them either brand-new or just 1-2 years old, and that they're buying them pretty often. The main difference though, is that the rich can afford it, whereas the masses, not necessarily so much.
...

^^ my emphasis

Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine when people don't use the terms correctly.

• MEAN is the same as AVERAGE - the number you get by dividing the sum of a set of values by the number of values in the set.
• MEDIAN is the middle number in a set of values when those values are arranged from smallest to largest.

I'm not a Dave Ramsey by any means, so he probably misuses the term on a daily basis. If he does, he's doing a disservice to anyone that follows him.

 

[MC Rider]

Don't forget the mode.



the mode is the value that appears most often in a set of data values.