Suze Orman is an idiot

Suze Orman is the author of a handful of financial planning books, the latest being Women & Money.  She does have some good, low level advice for getting your finances under order, but lately, and especially after appearing on Oprah, she’s adopted the typical sofa-mom Oprah mantra:  It’s the man’s fault.

The last time she was on, they highlighted two horrible financial crisis’.  I mean, bad, on a scale that I didn’t think was possible.  The first of which, you had the stay at home mom of six shopping the family to death, and burning through all the money coming in.  The husband brought home $5000 a month, and Mrs. Mom had $60 in pedicures, etc per week, $400 a month in Starbucks coffee, she had racked up $130,000 in credit card debt ( yes, 130 friggin hundred thousand dollars ).  She shopped every day, bought useless crap like clothes, toys, etc, then would sell them a few days later for a huge loss ( $50 shirt sold for $1 ).  They had three cars, for some reason, which cost $1700 a month, and $640,000 in two mortgages.

Perfect case of her being a narcissistic psycho spender.  She even hid the receipts from her husband, and would lie about the cost of items.  Granted, he’s a moron for not keeping a closer eye on the accounts and where his money was going.

Suze tells Felice, the woman, that she isn’t selfish, she’s selfless, trying to find herself and parading around in nice things to feel better.

She then rips her husband a new one, blaming him for Felice’s low self esteem and need to shop continuously.  She blames him for not having insurance for the children ( yeah, the mom blows all this money every month, and their kids don’t even have insurance ).

Solution? Sell the stuff you don’t need, sell the house, and move to Seattle ( WTF? ).  And Felice needs to get a job, one that offers medical insurance.

Why didn’t she pin the medical insurance on Phil?  Other than blaming him for not getting insurance for the kids, they gloss over Phil’s job and situation.  More than likely, he is self employed as a computer consultant, and self employment medical insurance for a family runs around $600 a month.  Felice needs that $600 to pay for her pedicures and Starbucks every month.  But hey, it’s Phil’s fault.

My solution, Felice ran up $130k in debt in her name.  It’s unfortunate that you have kids, but she needs to be kicked to the curb.  She not only ran up $130k in debt, but she lied continuously about it.  She wants to be a painted up Malibu soccer mom?  Cool, leave her in Malibu with her maxed out credit cards and a packet of divorce papers.  Naturally though, Phil will again get the raw end of the stick and have to support her outrageous lifestyle through alimony payments and the like, since it’s all obviously his fault.

The second case, it was definitely more the husband’s fault.  They had somehow lived beyond their $146,000 salary, and were in some serious debt.  The husband had a thing for movies and big HDTVs, and had something like 900 DVDs.  They had 2 luxury cars, and include a bite about how the husband calls the car “his baby”, but never touch on the fact that they had 2 luxury cars, not just one.  Who drives the other one?

Financial ruin is, usually, a joint effort.  In Phil’s case, he’s not very bright and his wife is selfish and conniving, which is a really bad combo.  But, outside of that case, it’s usually joint.

My suggestion, and I promise it will work for everyone, run your personal finances as if your household was a company.  I mean all out, down to the penny budgeting, account budgets and ceilings, and purchase requisitions.  Want to buy a $2,000 TV?  Run reports on your finances and see if you will suffer 3 or 6 months down the road because of it.  If you have credit card debt or other outstanding debt that isn’t a car payment or mortgage, pay the debt FIRST before buying “nice to have” items.

Split your accounts into two, one for direct deposit and one for savings transition.  As soon as you get paid, transfer out a bulk of the money into the transition account.  If things get tight, or you need cash over your usual monthly expenses, transfer some back in.  When you get paid again, empty the transition account into a high yield savings account and don’t touch it again.

It’s simple, and anyone can do it.  Get a copy of Quicken Deluxe ( $99 ), open another checking account, and then a savings account.  Start entering in receipts as you get them in Quicken.  Bam, under control in no time.