Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)
Suze School: What Is Your Story?
Sun, 09 Mar 2025
For this episode, we go back and revisit a time when Suze shared a heartbreaking email from a friend seeking advice. As Suze relates her friend's story, she asks us about our own story. Are we doing all we can do to change the outcome of a story that is making us unhappy and therefore not strong and secure? Jumpstart financial wellness for your employees: https://bit.ly/SecureSave Protect your financial future with the Must Have Docs: https://bit.ly/3Vq1V3GGet your savings going with Alliant Credit Union: https://bit.ly/3rg0YioGet Suze’s special offers for podcast listeners at suzeorman.com/offerJoin Suze’s Women & Money Community for FREE and ASK SUZE your questions which may just end up on the podcast. Download the app by following one of these links: CLICK HERE FOR APPLE: https://apple.co/2KcAHbH CLICK HERE FOR GOOGLE PLAY: https://bit.ly/3curfMISee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What are the current CD rates at Alliant Credit Union?
All right, listen up to me, everybody. Interest rates are not going to last. They're going down, down, down, down, down. So I want you to take advantage of the 12 to 17 month CD at myalliant.com. You have to look at it. So much higher than treasuries. I cannot even tell you. So currently, they are paying for amounts of $1,000 to $74,999, 4.25 APR for $75,000 and up. It is 4.30.
4.25.
4.25.
4.25. We are strong.
We are here. We will thrive together. We are strong.
March 9th, 2025. Welcome to the Women in Money podcast, as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi, everybody. Robert, the producer here. And yeah, I know if you're hearing my voice, that means, unfortunately, Susie is a little under the weather today. But have no fear. We have selected part of a really great episode from a while back for you to hear today.
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Chapter 2: What message does Suze Orman want to share in this episode?
And the message is very, very important. But before we get to that, Susie wanted me to tell you that for those of you who have a CD at Alliant Credit Union maturing during the month of March, the rates that she gave you on last Sunday's podcast for the 12 to 17 month CDs, those rates are absolutely correct. 4.35% APR for amounts under $75,000 and 4.40% APR for $75,000 or above.
You can indeed add additional funds to your renewal CD to take advantage of those rates. You don't have to wait until the CD is mature to sign up for that renewal. Now, when you call and an Alliant operator tells you anything different... They're wrong. Simply tell them, please check with Don Potter, leader of the member services division at Alliant Credit Union.
Then politely ask to speak to a supervisor and make sure you identify yourself as a Suzy client. You see, Alliant has many offers for their members, but these rates are for Suzy listeners. So again, tell the agent you're a Suzy client. And one last piece of advice from Suzy. Just keep your cool with these markets. The markets hate confusion, and everyone is confused right now, so just be patient.
All right, enough of me. Here's Suzy from the past.
Chapter 3: How do personal stories affect financial decisions?
I got an email. And as I was reading this email, I thought, oh my God, this is the podcast today. Because behind every one of our financial problems, there is a personal story. There is something that's going on within us that causes us to create an outcome that we do not want to live. And yet, somehow, we don't even recognize the role that we play in our own stories.
So the question today really is, what is your story? What is your true story that you are living, that possibly you created, that possibly you have been put into, but yet you stay there? What is your story? So as I read this story, I'm going to be pointing out things in it to show everyone how we on some level help create the story that we are living that we don't want to be living.
And it goes like this. Hi, Susie. Now, I've interviewed you a few times, but this is a very personal one. I'm in a bind. And please do feel free to use my story to help others. You have my permission. Just don't use my name. Now, before I go into this story, and I'm going to keep breaking this story up so I can talk to you about it, about things that I've noticed that maybe you'll identify with.
This is a really, really brilliant woman. really. She has interviewed me and she's written some brilliant stories from the conversation that we had. And as hard as it is to figure out money, at least in our own mind, what's really hard is to be able to use proper English and write and be able to communicate that which others need to hear.
Now, she was totally capable of doing that, but she couldn't even read the writing that was on the wall in the relationship that she happens to be in. So here goes her story. She says, my husband has been a nightmare with his finances. I keep everything separate to protect myself as a result. Secrecy, lies, and overall poor budgeting and overspending wrapped into one.
Now, before I go on, she says, my husband has been a nightmare with his finances. She knows this. She gets this. And she keeps everything separate to protect herself as a result. That is the foundation of her story. Are you living a life like that? Do you recognize something that's going on in your relationship?
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Chapter 4: What are common signs of financial abuse in relationships?
And you have to do something because you have to protect yourself, whether it's physical abuse or financial abuse or whatever it may be. Are you living a story where on any level you have to protect yourself? Because if that's true, then you are building a foundation out of fear and nothing good will come from that. Nothing.
She goes on to say, since the start of our marriage five years ago, five years is a long time, everybody. He has refused to file taxes with me. At first he told me it was because I work in New Jersey. When I started to work in New York City, he continued to be evasive. He also refuses to show me his tax returns. So therefore, I'm forced to file married filing separately.
I'm going to stop here again for a second. I'm forced to file, married filing separately. It's because of his actions and what he is doing. She's forced to do something that she really doesn't want to do. Is that your story, any of you? But that is the first indication where in this email, she's saying that she was forced to do something. Nobody forces you to do something.
You recognize a situation and then you choose to do it. And if they're forcing you to do it, now we're in an abusive relationship. But he's not forcing her. She's choosing to do that because she's choosing to stay. When I was four months pregnant, so now we have a child entering the situation, I discovered he mortgaged an investment property and received $30,000 of cash from it.
I found this out while accidentally opening his mail. Now, you accidentally open up somebody's mail, your husband's mail, and you see that he got a lump sum of $30,000 that you never knew about. I open up KT's mail all the time. I look at KT's emails all the time. I look at her texts.
I look at everything just because I want to make sure that she's up to date with everything because a lot of business stuff comes in, but never in a million years and vice versa, by the way. My email account is on her phone. Her email account is on my phone. Total transparency, everybody. There are no secrets. There isn't accidentally opening up a statement.
If I want to open up a statement, I open up a statement. But she even uses the words, I accidentally opened his mail, which also says, he has said to her, don't you dare touch my mail. Don't open up anything. What's addressed to me is mine. What's addressed to you is yours. Don't touch it.
So I find that fascinating that we're even seeing right now a relationship where she's four months pregnant and and things are still secretive. Things are still hidden. And she finds out about something that she never had any idea. Don't you think that is a serious warning sign? A warning sign where the story is, something's not right here. I don't have freedom in this relationship.
I can't just be and say anything. I'm living by his rules. And And his rules and actions are absolutely exclusive of me. And I'm allowing that to happen. I'm now starting to write my own story where I'm abusing myself because I'm staying. Do you understand, everybody, what I'm saying to you and why I find this email so fascinating and so sad? When a brilliant woman... does that to herself?
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Chapter 5: Why is transparency important in financial relationships?
Some days I want to stay. Now here is the key to this email. I'm really trying to make this work as we have a two year old child. And now we know why she's really staying. She's not staying because she loves him. She's not staying because she likes him. She's staying because she has a two year old child. She says, She says,
Is there any possible way for me to remain in this marriage and be in a financially healthy, she doesn't say emotionally or psychologically, all she says is financially healthy, as if money is the only thing that matters. a financially healthy place with everything separate with us not filing returns together.
I save as much as possible and I have opened up an account with, and then she names a brokerage firm and it's doing well. One day I do plan to buy a home with my parents and But his name, if we remain together, would not be on the mortgage or the deed. Okay, that's it. I'll take all the straight talk you have to give. All right, that's the email.
So why, once again, am I choosing to talk about this on the Women and Money podcast, as well as Everyone Smart Enough to Listen podcast? If you're really smart enough to listen to this podcast, and you're really somebody who has been with me for all these years now, or maybe you're brand new to learning about me, what does money matter when you yourself aren't fulfilled?
When you are in a relationship and And you don't have any joy. You don't have any freedom. You don't have any trust yet. You decide to stay. And many times you decide to stay because you have a two-year-old child. Now, I wrote this woman back a very long answer. But here are the things that essentially I wanted to point out. What really got me was she had a two-year-old child.
And I wrote her and I said, don't you think that every time you pick up that child and you hold that child to your chest, that the child can't feel that something is wrong, that mommy isn't happy, that mommy's in a relationship that she really doesn't want to be in. And you really think that that you're staying and it will benefit your child?
Don't you think that you may be teaching your child that you stay against all odds, you give up anything that could mean anything to you, you ruin your own life and you do that for your children? If your child was you and coming to you right now and was in a relationship like you're in right now, what would you say to your child?
Once you say to your child, honey, please come home, live with me, get divorced. It's over. Come on, let's create a great home together in love, in trust, in integrity, not just for you, but for the child as well. And then we have a situation where mommy and daddy want to buy a home with this woman. But the woman doesn't want the husband's name on the home.
Here's something all of you really, really need to remember. When you are married and you are making money after you are married, especially if you do not have a prenuptial agreement,
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Chapter 6: How can one change an unhappy financial story?
But at least financially speaking, you have now cut the cord that binds the two of you with your savings, your retirement account, your real estate, whatever it is that you may purchase. It cuts that cord and it gives you that freedom. And that is the freedom that you gave yourself. And the other thing is this.
Do you understand that because you are married and you have to file separately, you cannot take advantage of so many of the retirement accounts out there that are what I consider the best retirement accounts in the world, and that is a Roth IRA. Because you can't make more than $10,000 a year of adjusted gross income if you are married filing separately to have a Roth IRA.
So there are things that you aren't able to participate in. Why? Because he has forced you in your mind to file married, finally, and separately because he won't show you his tax returns. And why won't he show you his tax returns? Why? And how does he file? What if he files married, finally, jointly and forges your name on those tax returns? What if he is doing that?
And that is the reason why he does not want to show you his tax returns. What if that's possible? So the reason I wanted to tell this story is that I wanted bad ending stories to stop. And here's what I'm asking all of you to do. I want you to pick a story that you are living, a part of your life that you're really not happy with.
And everyone has a part of their life I would imagine that they're not happy with. So I want all of you to write down your story. What part of your life are you living that you don't like? And then I want you to read it back to yourself. And I want you to pick out the phrases like I did for you in this podcast. where you're blaming somebody else for the situation that you happen to be in.
And if you find that as you're reading your story, that you're using words like, they forced me, I did this, whatever it may be. then this is the time for you to rewrite your story. Because every story that you live, everyone should be happy, should be fulfilled, should be something that you learn from. There's no room in this world right now for sadness or anger or to be vindictive.
There's no room anymore. It's almost as if this entire world is filled with anger. We're angry because we're in a relationship that we don't like. We're angry because we're caretakers and we've been caretakers now for a long time and we don't want to be a caretaker. We want to live our own life. I don't know what it is, but you have to write your story.
And after you have written your story, I want you to really look at it. And then I want you to rewrite it without blame or shame. I want you to rewrite it in a forceful, positive, courageous way. And that's the story that I want you to live. Because the true bottom line is, until you know who you are, you can never have as much as you are meant to have.
Until you can be truly happy, you can't really be strong. And if you can't really be strong, you can't really then live in your truth. And truth is what attracts money to you. There's so many reasons that I want you to do this exercise. So until Thursday, write your story and let me know how it goes.
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