Suze OrmanIf you’ve ever tried to give yourself a bit of financial literacy, you’ve probably come across something on the subject by Suze Orman.
And if you’ve read some of Orman’s books, you may know about her first job as a waitress in Berkeley and how she got swindled out of an early investment, which made her want to become a stockbroker. She went on to work at Merrill Lynch, and later was a vice president of investments at Prudential-Bache Securities.
Today, Orman is financially comfortable enough to have told The Times Magazine:
I have a million dollars in the stock market, because if I lose a million dollars, I don’t personally care.
It’s a good day to feel that way, for sure.
Orman estimates that her net worth is around $25 million. In that same Times interview, she mentioned one financial problem involving her life partner Kathy Travis (K.T.) that she can’t do much about:
Both [K.T. and I] have millions of dollars in our name[s]. It’s killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa.
Orman has been named one of Time magazine’s Most Influential People for 2008; a year earlier, also in Time, Anita Hamilton called Orman one of the personal-finance writers who “make women feel guilty.”
She hosts her own show, the Suze Orman Show, on CNBC, and has won two Emmys. She’s written many wildly popular books, including Women & Money; The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke; The Road to Wealth; and The Courage to Be Rich.
She was named the top female motivational speaker in the U.S. in 2007 by Business Week, and in October will be the 2008 recipient of the National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign.
She has agreed to answer your questions here, so fire away. As with all past reader-submitted Q&A’s, the answers will be provided here in short course.
Addendum: Orman answers your questions here.
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With what we keep reading about housing, my wife and I want to make sure we can truly afford a house before we consider looking. How do we know if we are financially ready to buy a house? What should we have in savings? What % of our income should we expect to pay?
Do you have kids?
What’s the number one thing we should do to provide for our kids? 529s? Health savings plans? Mortgage and a family home? CDs/bonds/investments? Nothing, so they’ll know how to work for themselves? Private school tuition?
“Both [K.T. and I] have millions of dollars in our name[s]. It’s killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa.”
It strikes me that both liberals and conservatives want to help Orman out here, but neither will let the other do it. Liberals want to allow her to marry, so there wouldn’t be an estate tax issue for the surviving spouse. Conservatives want to get rid of the estate tax, so that the ultra wealthy can pass along their fortunes indefinitely.
How can starving graduate students make up for years of poverty-level wages in retirement savings? After nine years of graduate school, the end and a real salary are in sight and I definitely want to make up for lost time. I have no debt, about $10K in a regular savings account, and am VERY nervous about investing any of that in the market right now.
Are there people with your level of influence/affluence that actively lobby our lawmakers to provide protections for LGBT couples and families? Is this something you’re involved in?
Brad, Conservatives want to pass along to their children what is rightfully theirs and what they have already paid tax upon.
Suze,
You focus a lot on women, but our entire nation suffers across racial and gender lines of the problems you discuss, specifically not understanding interest and spending more than we earn. Why did you chose to focus on women so much?
The government taking half your money upon your death is absurd. Would you be in favor of reducing the confiscatory estate tax?
If I die, I’m leaving my money for the education of my young daughters. I see no justification for the government to take half of it.
I just watched YF&B and it made me feel a lot better about some things I’ve done in my financial life, but worse about others. I recently graduated with my MBA, and with an amazing amount of debt. Jobs are not as plentiful, nor paying very much at all, which is not what I expected when I took out the loans to continue my education. With my student loans radidly approaching and a job finally secured that will get me on the path to my career, while nonetheless being very low-paying at this stage, I’m unsure of what to do next. I’ve heard about loan consolidation, but I don’t know how it works. My credit rating isn’t great right now, but I’ve been working at trying to get it raised back up. Can you offer any hints to a YF&Ber who really does want to take the right steps, but is completely at a loss for what to do next?