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Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)
Suze School: Revisiting ‘Who Would You Give Your Life For?’
00:25:02
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- [00:00]
Suze Orman
Hey Susie. Before we begin today's podcast, I want you to tell everyone what they must have in order to protect themselves and their families. Well, kt, that's easy. That's why the Must have documents were named. The Must have documents. Every single one of you. If you really want to protect your family, your money, your investments, everything, I want you to go to musthavedocs.com and check it out. Learn about why you should have a living, revocable trust, a will, an advance directive and durable power of attorney for healthcare and a financial power of attorney. That's musthavedocs.com Go there now.
- [00:43]
Unknown
We are strong we are wise we will not apologize we are here we will die Together we will rise we're the little bit of faith and everything it takes we are strong we are wise Together we will rise.
- [01:10]
Robert
June 22, 2025 welcome to the Women and Money podcast as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Robert, the producer here. You know, sometimes there are just technical things that get in the way of doing something we planned on doing. Unfortunately, today is one of those days. But fortunately we are always prepared to make sure that you hear Susie twice a week, every week. So we're presenting part of an episode which originally dropped late last summer. And the story Susie shares is still very, very relevant. Enjoy.
- [01:51]
Suze Orman
Today is Susie school, usually, but today it's a different type of Susie school because I want to be able to pass on a lesson through a Susie story. And it's a story from an email that was sent in to the Women in Money podcast a few months ago. And I think it's important to that sometimes we can learn from other people's experiences and their experiences in their own words sometimes are more relatable, believe it or not, than when I just tell you certain things. Are you ready to sit back and hear a story? So yesterday morning, Kolo and KT brought me coffee. I was still in bed and we were all sitting there because, you know, I like to stay in bed in the morning because I think I read the news. That's just my time that I gather my financial thoughts and also my own personal thoughts for the entire day. And so sometimes when they get impatient and I don't come out to join them in the kitchen, they come to me. And so we were all sitting there and I had recently just read the email that I'm going to read to you in a second, and I said to both KT and Kolo, can you answer this question for me? What is something that you would be willing to give up your life for. So I'd like you all to think about that question as well. Is there anything in life that you would be willing to give up your life for? You know, for some people, it's the military and their love for the military. And everybody who signs up for any position in any of the armed forces, they really are willing to give up their life to do that. And they're all heroes. And I love them all so much, I can't even tell you and admire them because I've worked with the armed forces now, all the divisions of them, actually, except the Coast Guard, now that I think about it for years and years, and I see what they've got gone through, especially if you've ever toured Walter Reed Hospital and have experienced some of their experiences when they come home from the sandbox. Anyway, very, very interesting question. KT immediately said, I'd be willing to give up my life for you, Susie. And I answered back because it's really the only thing I'd be willing to give up my life for. That's an honest answer. I would give up my life for KT in a heartbeat, because without kt, I really wouldn't know how to go on right now in life. And that's what happens when you lose somebody that you love. You always say, oh, I wish it would happen to me rather than them. Like the times KT would get hurt, like with, you know, an injury or something. I was like, oh, I wish that had happened to me, not her. And I know when I went through what I went through with my neck, KT would say, oh, Susie, I wish that happened to me and not you. And then it was Kolo's turn. And Kolo said something very interesting. It actually relates to the email that I'm about to read you. And he said, well, I would absolutely give up my life for my children. Susie. There isn't a parent out there that wouldn't give up their lives to save their children. And if that's what it would take to do that, I would do that. Susie and I went, fascinating, Kolo, that you said that. Now you're about to hear the Susie story that I was planning to read to all of you, but I'm really planning to read it now after Kolo answered that question. But isn't it a fascinating question? How would you answer that? Is there anything or anybody that you would give up your life for? Okay, are we ready? This is from Peter. I'm just going to use his first name. All right. Which he said okay. He also said to me because as many of you know that when you write in emails, I do read them. Many of them seriously touch my heart and a lot of times I will ask you for your phone number and I will call you or I will write you back. So everything is in writing again. If you ever want to send in a question you can do so to asksusepodcastmail.com and make it short otherwise KT will not pick it. But if it is chosen it will be answered on the podcast here. You know we drop Susie's school every Sunday and we drop Katie and Susie ask us anything on Thursdays. So you can always do that. But again, you just never know when you will hear from me directly. But Peter did say that it was okay if I read this to everybody, especially if other people can learn from it. Are you ready? Sit down and listen closely. Peter says Susie, I've been listening to your podcast for the past nine months after my wife of 40 years sadly passed away from pneumonia. She was great one day, then gone a few weeks later. I am 72 and I had recently retired before she passed away. Thinking my retirement would look much different than it turned out. I was suddenly thrown into dealing with financial matters that I wasn't involved in before as she always handled our investments and everything. Sadly, I was one of those men who just came home, handed over my paycheck to my wife and I just didn't want to deal with it. Any of it. Your show has helped me tremendously. I started listening to it because my wife listened to it all the time but I didn't think I needed to. But now I have learned a ton from you. I'm emailing you now with a complex and emotional situation. My wife was 69 when she died and her father outlived her. She was the executor of his estate and that role then passed on to her brother after her death. She wasn't aware that according to her father's will and trust, her inheritance upon her death would pass on to our two sons who are in their 40s, not to me as her spouse. At least I don't think she knew that for she was incapacitated for about three weeks before she passed. So when I found this out during that time I couldn't ask her. After she died, my brother in law was would not change anything with the will or trust and my father in law had memory issues so I didn't want to rock the boat with the family. I let it go knowing my sons would take care of me Just recently my father in law passed away at 97. Just like your mom, Susie. He was an amazing man and we had a close relationship. My question is that I need your advice on how to find a fair way for my sons to give me some of that inheritance so I have enough money to live on as my wife and I were always counting on her father's inheritance money for our retirement and our kids knew that. I own my home, not outright. I have a mortgage and I have my wife's life insurance policy that I have invested in t bills along with a small 401k and savings account. I don't think I have enough money to live on. So I'll need some of that inheritance that my kids are set to receive. It could be about $1.5 million which would have been my wife's share if she hadn't died before her father. So even though I was going to inherit that, now my two sons will inherit it. The boys feel bad because that this is the situation. They totally understand what happened and they plan to give me most of it, knowing it will eventually be passed on to them. Then there's tax implications of them giving me the money and how that will impact things. My only source of income is Social Security and the interest that I'm getting from my investments. I know this is a long email, but it's a complex situation. I hope you will read it and email me back. Thank you. One of the men smart enough to listen. All right, obviously this was an email that came in months ago and I answered Peter almost immediately. And I gave Peter three suggestions of what I would do if I was in his situation. And the first one would be sit the boys down, talk to them, tell them that what would be fabulous because Peter only owed about $400,000 on his mortgage on a house that was worth $900,000 to simply each give him $200,000 from their money if they did inherit $1.5 million, which by the way, is what they ended up inheriting. And then Peter would own the house outright and be able to afford everything because of how much the expenses would go down because of the mortgage. Okay, that was one suggestion. Second suggestion, if they didn't want to go for that, was to give Peter maybe two or three thousand, whatever he needed to live on monthly. And third suggestion was for Peter, well, to just sell the house, downsize, cut your expenses and things like that. And Peter liked all three of those suggestions and but essentially was saying to me, the kids understand they're going to help me. So let's see what is best for them. Of course, a parent saying what is best for them versus everybody. Take a note of this. What is best for me, Peter? Me, who just lost my wife a few months ago, who is grieving, who doesn't know what to do, who has retired, who needs help at this point in time. Recently, I just got another email from Peter and here we go. And listen to this closely now. Thank you so much for taking the time and writing me back with what you thought I should do. Well, it didn't quite go as planned, so I thought I'd give you an update. Oh, so messy and complicated. Each kid did end up getting $750,000. So again, everybody, that's a total of $1,500,000 that Peter was expecting to inherit. Okay, all right. Your first suggestion, as you may remember, was for them to pay off the mortgage, which would be 200,000 from each of them, which would still leave them with $550,000. But now that the money is in their accounts, they don't want to do that. Unbelievable. As you would say. Your next suggestion was each kid give me a monthly allowance to help me cover my expenses. Well, I did a budget and showed the boys monthly expenses, income assets, Social Security at $2,000 a month, etc. My monthly expenses are around $6,000 and needed just $2,000 from each of them. One son is being kind of difficult and doesn't want to pay me $2,000 a month from his inheritance. Really? Everybody? Really? All right. Anyway, he thinks I just need to be more aggressive with my investments and I would be okay right now. Most of my money is in conservative investment, Susie T. Bills, high yield savings and a rollover ira. As you know, I'm afraid and can't afford to lose one penny. My other son, thank God is willing and wants to help but isn't confident about what to do with his share. For he may want to buy a home, he wants to invest it, so he wants to wait to touch a penny of it. Susie, it's getting stressful for all three of us, but given that I have no say in anything, it's most stressful on me. I don't want to have a bad relationship with either of my sons and be a burden. So now I am wondering if I should go back to your third suggestion of selling my house and living off the equity and renting someplace. Now listen to how the tone of this email. Everybody starts to change. Then they can just keep their God damn money. That should have gone to me in the first place, but life isn't fair. Sorry, but I am somewhat resentful and mad at my wife for not planning better. What was she thinking? She knew she was going to get this inheritance and that would secure both our futures forever. But as many times as she said she was going to take a look at her dad's will and trust and make sure I was protected. If she did die before her dad, she just never got around to it. At least if she had done that, I wouldn't be begging my sons to help me. So not only am I angry at my wife that I love and adore and I miss more than you have any idea, but I'm angry at myself for not being proactive and engaged in all of it before it was too late. Everybody take note of what I just said. Are you engaged? Have you taken the actions you need to take? Are you just assuming that because somebody is older than you, a parent, whatever, that they are going to die before for you? Have you had discussions with them about money? Who it goes to, how it gets passed down? Have you? Now I will continue. But worse. Peter says I'm heartbroken over my sons. Sons that I would have given up my life for if it could save them in any way. And I thought I was so close to my sons, I thought that they were my best friends. You say people first, then money. While my sons obviously care more about money than me. I feel so lonely and afraid and as a man, that is so hard for me to admit to anyone but you. Sorry, I guess I am ranting now. Just wanted to see if you had any thoughts. Thank you in advance. Peter. Yeah. Do you understand why I read that letter? Do you understand the importance of, especially if you are in a relationship, that you take the time to talk to all family members and make sure that everything is set up exactly the way that it should be. You should check the beneficiaries on all your retirement accounts. You should check and have the courage to speak to your elderly parents or in laws about how their assets are set up, what their wishes are and make plans that if one of you was to die before them, how is it going to work and discuss it as a family to talk to the kids, to talk to them about if anything happens. You have to promise me, Mommy, talking to these sons, you have to promise me you are going to take care of your father. You promise me right here and right now. Don't just take their word for it. Do a contract that they have to sign so they could see before they inherit, especially a large sum of money, what they said when they were in a state of love versus a state of greed. There are so many things that you need to take care of more than just watching your assets going up, going down. This stock, that stock, should you sell this etf, what should you do? It's these things in life that you, if you do not take care of in a very strange way, you are giving up your own life, your own security, your own comfort, so to speak, in your later years, like Peter now is doing. So Peter obviously is going to have to most likely sell the house, move. He didn't want to do that, right? But he's going to now have to make hard decisions because he has now just learned he actually can't count on his sons. But he, at least another suggestion was, okay, even though your sons may not end up giving you any money, the question becomes, who is the beneficiary of this money if something happens to your sons, Peter? So become the beneficiary of a pay on death account, wherever their assets may happen to be, so that if something happens to one of them, they're in a car accident, who knows what can happen? That money comes to you. Just do not make the mistake, Peter, and take it for granted again that you're gonna die before these kids. However, now you have to put yourself in a situation where you can take care of yourself financially, you can afford your lifestyle financially, and that you don't have to ask anybody, including your children, for money. And maybe later on, out of the goodness of their hearts, they will do what's right versus what's easy and take care of their father. Just that simple. So all of you right now need to really decide to make sure that everything is set up the way that it should be set up for every single possible situation that could happen in your life. All right? And that brings me to the end of this Susie story. You know, in a very strange way, I have not given up my life, but I have dedicated the past 43 years of my life to making sure that every single one of you takes actions today to protect your tomorrows. So I can only hope things like this little Susie story really drives home what I've been saying now for all those years. People first, then money, then things. And if you really do that and make sure that everybody else who has anything to do with your money is doing that, then you will be unstoppable.
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Unknown
We are strong. We are wise. We will not apologize. We are here. We will die. Together we will rise. We're the open of faith and everything it takes we are strong, we are wise Together we will rise.
- [25:43]
Suze Orman
Hi everybody, Suzie O Here now. If you are looking for a way to start saving to get the most out of your money, I want you to go to myalliant.com that's my a l l I a n t dot com and look into opening an Ultimate Opportunity Savings Account. Put in at least $100 a month every single month for 12 consecutive months. Earn 3.10% interest on your money right now and get a hundred dollars at the end. Are you kidding me? It's the best deal out there. Start saving right now.
- [26:20]
Robert
Neither Susie Orman Media nor Susie Orman is acting as a Certified Financial Planner Advisor, a Certified Financial Analyst, an economist, cpa, accountant or lawyer. Neither Suze Orman Media nor Suze Orman make any recommendations as to any specific securities or investments. All content contained in this podcast is for informational and general purposes only and does not constitute financial accounting or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and financial advisors regarding your particular situation. Neither Suze Orman Media nor Suze Orman accepts any responsibility for any losses which may arise from accessing or reliance on information in this podcast and to the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability for loss damages, direct or indirect, arising from the use of this information. The must have documents discussed in this podcast are legal documents created by a lawyer and distributed by Hay House.