Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)
Suze School: Your “Must Do’s” (For Right Now)
Sun, 30 Mar 2025
Right now, a lot of us are worried about inflation, and what the result of the coming tariffs will be on our lives. In this episode, Suze walks through the steps we need to take now, in order to safeguard and take control of our finances, during this period of market volatility. Jumpstart financial wellness for your employees: https://bit.ly/SecureSave Try your hand at Can I Afford It on Suze’s YouTube Channel 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 interest rates and financial opportunities?
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.
Chapter 2: Why did Suze move to a private island?
4.25.
4.25. We are strong.
We are strong. We are wise.
March 30th, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women in Money podcast, as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Suzy O here. Now, before I begin today's Suzy School, can all of you just tell me, what was I thinking when I decided to move to a private island many, many years ago? Can you just all tell me that?
Did it ever dawn on me that when you move to a private island that you have to make your own electricity, you have to make your own water, you have to just like bring in everything that there's absolutely nothing here but water and trees? Did it ever dawn on you, Susie Orman?
Anyway, this is my way of saying I apologize for not being able to send a podcast on Thursday, but don't even ask me what happened because I don't even know what happened. There was a major, major electrical outage on the island. One of our transformers went down. It was bad. And it took forever, forever to put it back up again.
The great thing about it was, truthfully, is that the weather was beautiful. It was cool. So we had our windows open and the wind was blowing and everything was beautiful. And it was so incredibly quiet. It was quiet. Nothing was going on. You didn't hear any ringing of anything or nothing. It was silent. And for those few days, it made me really appreciate how wonderful silence can be.
Because it's in silence that you can hear your own thoughts, and you can really focus on important things in life. I don't even know what they are writing at this moment, but you can. It is what it is, everybody, but we are up and running again, and the island is as noisy as ever.
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Chapter 3: How should you approach stock investments during market fluctuations?
The other noise that's happening in this world is obviously what's happening with inflation, what's about to happen in three days from now when the tariffs take effect, and the stock market is not liking it on any level. It's going down, and it's going down, and it's going down. And
And you know, I was watching my favorite little stock, Palantir, and I was watching it go from 85 to 90 to 95 to 97. And for a second there, I thought to myself, Susie, why didn't you buy more at 85? But when I was going to buy more at 85, I thought to myself, Susie, you own enough of that stock. You don't have to own more of that stock. Don't buy any more of that stock.
You own as much as you want to own of that stock. And then I thought, okay, but watch, it's probably going to go up to 100 or 125 and so forth. And of course, on Friday, I watched it go from like 95 or 97, back down to 90, back down to 85, back down to 84. And that reminded me of...
When you have designated for yourselves an amount of money that you want to have invested in one particular position, don't get greedy. Don't think just because a stock is going up and you see it going up and you really believe it's going to go a lot higher, that means you have to put more money into it. And I found myself, everybody, getting suckered into that possibility.
And I'm so glad that I didn't because I really do own enough of Palantir. I really, really do. And so does KT. And there are so many other incredible stocks that are taking a serious beating right now that it just makes sense to maybe start buying other things and diversifying even more. So the question becomes,
Have you decided on the amounts of money that you want in every single investment that you have so that you don't get suckered into what I almost got suckered into, which is every time it goes down, I should buy more.
Because even though I know dollar cost averaging and value cost averaging is a very important thing for all of us to continue to do, there comes a point when it's an individual stock, not when it is an exchange-traded fund or a mutual fund. Different, because that has total diversification within it. But when it is an individual stock...
I really think you all, including myself, need to set a total of how much money do you want to put in one stock and risk it. I think it's an important thing for all of you to look at your portfolio and write down for each individual stock you own how much is the total that you want in that stock.
And then that's the amount that you dollar cost average or value cost average every single month into it. Because things are changing right now. People are not happy out there. People are absolutely scared to death, and I have to tell you, rightfully so.
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Chapter 4: When is the right time to claim Social Security benefits?
Because who knows if Social Security is going to be around to claim. Do you really think everybody, just because you claimed Social Security, that that means you're not subject to them cutting your Social Security? Do you think that?
Or do you think that it's possible that they're scaring all of you into claiming Social Security earlier so they don't have to pay you bigger benefits as time goes on? Do you think that's possible? Because if they're going to cut, they're not going to cut the people who are already getting Social Security or qualified to get Social Security.
What they're going to do is, like I told you before, they will postpone the age that you can get your Social Security. That is how they will affect you more than anything else. So for those of you who are just saying, I'm going to collect now, it's not going to be here for me to collect. Stop thinking like that. Stop it. Because you could be sabotaging your financial future, all right?
I need all of you to seriously calm down. If they were to do something like that, or if Social Security all of a sudden stopped sending you checks because the whole system crashed, there would be such an uproar. I can't even tell you. Social Security is the foundation of 70 million people's financial future.
That is a lot of people, everybody, and it's the future of many more millions, people who aren't even claiming yet. So if it happens to go awry because the systems have been stripped or whatever, they have to fix it and they have to get it back on board for all of you. But don't start claiming at 62 because you don't think it's going to be there when you're 67.
Don't claim at 67 when you were going to wait till 70 because you're afraid that if you're not already claiming that therefore you'll maybe be cut. So please, you're all driving yourself nuts.
Now, is it possible that given how many people they have laid off, that social security is going to be incredibly difficult to get, meaning apply for, to get your questions answered, to do all of those things? Oh, you bet it is. I'll be the first to tell you that. But then you have to work within this system.
You should all seriously be calling your congresspeople or your senators and saying, please don't fire the people who are working for Social Security. Please don't cut off the phone lines. Don't do those things. So if you're worried about this and you're scared to death, then you have to use your voice so that you're not afraid. What have I told all of you?
That the main way to conquer fear is through action. not to get more and more afraid, not to take the wrong action, but to take actions that absolutely make sense. And that is to don't let them fire those people. Don't let them close down all the offices. And just because they've closed them down doesn't mean they're going to keep them closed down.
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Chapter 5: What financial adjustments should you make due to upcoming tariffs?
Because let me tell you, if you're already spending more than you make, which most of you are, tariffs are going to push you further into the danger zone. So you have to look at everything that you're spending money on. And think about where are the tariffs going to hit me the worst? And how do I cut back? You just need to know where is your money going?
And I know many of you think you know where it's going, but it's a whole nother thing when you see it mapped out in front of you. Number two, stock up on the essential things right now. Now, I'm not telling you to go and be a hoarder, but I am telling you, if you know you'll need it anyway, and it's not going to spoil, believe it or not, Susie Orman wants you to buy it now. What kind of things?
I want you to buy paper towels, laundry detergent, toiletries, pet foods. If it is imported or contains imported parts or ingredients, it's likely to go up in price. So how do you make your money make more money? By being proactive, not reactive. That's how you stay ahead. Number three, time your big purchases wisely. Now listen to me.
If you've been thinking about buying, for instance, a new fridge, a laptop, or a car part, or even a car, you are not to wait. A 10% to 25% price hike on certain goods could be just around the corner, everybody. It could be three days away. I don't know when it's actually going to hit the price of the goods that you're buying, but it's going to do it.
But the important thing, however, is do not go into debt to buy something just because you're afraid the price is going to go up. Do you hear me? Only buy it if you have the cash. So don't go into... Costco or wherever you go and take out your credit card and go, I'm going to buy everything right now because it's cheaper right now and I'm going to rack up credit card debt.
And then you end up paying 18% on your credit card because all you can do is pay the minimum payment due. No, that doesn't help you at all. So if you're planning to finance something, let's say you're going to use a credit card or whatever, you have to make sure it's at a 0% interest rate.
So there are credit cards out there that you can get at a 0% interest rate and that you have a solid plan to pay it off in full at the end of every month when the bill comes in. If you can't do that, guess what then? You don't need it right now. Are you hearing me? Number four, I need you to guard your emergency fund like it's gold. You've been looking at gold lately at $3,080 an ounce.
It's precious right now. It's valuable. You know I want every single one of you to have at least eight to 12 months of must-pay expenses saved, not in the market and not in a CD, but in a high yield savings account ready to go. Remember how many times have I told you that money that you may need within five years is not money that belongs in the stock market.
So you have to be prepared because if these tariffs really do take a toll, if the market does continue to go down, if all the prices on everything start to go up and you find yourself that you're really not able to afford things anymore, you need that must pay expenses fund. Have you been working on it? I've been telling you this forever because it's your buffer. It's your peace of mind, right?
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