Suze Orman: Sacrificing the things You Want When Funds Fall Short

Suze Orman is exceptionally wealthy.

She’s a financial advisor

TV personality.

Motivational Speaker

And Best selling author with a net worth of $75 million.

I’m usually sceptical when I hear the buzzwords of Author and motivational speaker.

My thoughts immediately shifted to Rob Kiyosaki, who amassed a fortune by selling people the dream of becoming wealthy, despite lacking any actual business success that would justify profiting from his advice.

He made most of his money selling out seminars using his famous book Rich Dad Poor Dad as the lead magnet to market the events.

Orman is entirely different. I like her style — she doesn’t instil the fear of God into people or make out that poor people are a different breed of human.

Suze Orman started as a waitress and worked hard to become a well-known financial guru. She faced many obstacles, including getting fired from her first job as a financial advisor. Now she’s recognised as one of the most influential women in business.

Her advice is simple.

And she has the business track record to back it up.

Her definition of making it in America is waking up in the morning without worrying about how you’ll pay your bills — and being able to smile for the things you have and not for the things you don’t have.

According to Orman, the first step is understanding where you stand financially.

She says knowing your income and expenses and how much you spend on different things and making little changes to save money can be helpful, but warns against feeling like you’re restricting yourself.

You don’t want it to feel like a financial diet because you’ll end up crashing and doing the equivalent of binge eating.

Orman says you must differentiate between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ and prioritise spending accordingly. Also, some debts, such as student loans, should take priority over others. You should aim for financial security, sleep without worrying about bills, and feel satisfied with what you have.

Suze Orman —Source

“Budgeting is not about restricting yourself. It’s about being in control of your money.

People don’t know how much money they have coming in or going out, and you can only get to where you want to go if you know where you are.

Instead of budgeting, make little changes in your life. But you have to differentiate between wants and needs.

If you don’t have money, you should only buy needs.

College loans are the most dangerous debt you could have, and if you stop paying them, you watch your debt grow. So if it’s one or the other, debt has to be your choice.”

Orman says In your current situation, if you struggle financially, you need to prioritise saving and investing over things like dining out and going on vacations.

It may be difficult, but building an emergency fund and your retirement is necessary.

And she says if you’re worried about inflation, you must look at the long-term situation. It’s not going to go away anytime soon. If you’re managing right now, that’s great, but you must plan for the future. Avoid assuming that things will go back to normal next month.

Suze Orman —Source

“It really depends on your situation.

If you’re somebody out there living paycheck to paycheck, or you don’t have an emergency fund or not funding your retirement, you should stop going out to eat, going out on vacation and doing all those things.

I know that sounds hard right now.

You have to look at the situation that this (inflation) will be around for quite a while. Are you getting by right now? Okay, but are you going to continuously get by next month, six months, eight months from now.

It’s not like inflation goes straight up and back down, so you should not pretend that it will be okay next month and everything will be back to normal.”

In these times, it’s essential to keep investing if you can. Even though the market might be down, you shouldn’t panic because the market usually bounces back.

If you have extra money to invest, try to invest it slowly over time instead of putting it all in at once.

Suze Orman —Source

“You should continue to invest if you can.

Keep investing in your 401k plan, and the truth is, don’t panic the reason I say that is because how many times have we seen the market correct like this, and then a few years later, it comes right back.

If you have the money you can invest, you should put small amounts in overtime dollar cost averaging into the market in either index funds or stocks that pay dividends.”

The underlying message Orman is trying to get across is that in times like these — it’s crucial to invest in high-quality, profitable companies that are reliable.

It’s not a good idea to take a chance on a start-up you think might be profitable someday.

If you’re investing long-term, you should be consistent with your investments. However, you should avoid putting things on your credit card because the interest rate will likely increase, which will only cause more financial problems.

Suze Orman —Source

“Mostly, you want to know that you’re in good quality investments, companies that make money and companies that do things.

This is not the time to speculate on some future company that may make money one day.

You should be consistent with your investments if you have 5, 10, 15 or 20 years until you need this money.

You have to have money to do things, but this is not the time to be putting stuff on a credit card when it’s very probable that the interest rate on your credit card is going to go up.”