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N OV E M B E R 20 0 6
WEALTH
SUZE ORMAN
52 I pinkmagazine.com
Famed financial adviser Suze Orman shares
12 ways women can find greater wealth
and finally liberate their money.
pink to
BY
REBECCA BURNS
PHOTOGR APHY BY M A RC ROYCE
“Even though we have grown up –
we’re making money, we’re doing all kinds of
things – we’re still acting ‘pink’ with our money.”
SUZ E O RM A N
Girls, as the old saying goes, are made of sugar, spice and everything
nice. But self-made multimillionaire and financial-advice powerhouse Suze
Orman has this simple advice: no more Miss Nice Girl. Or, as she put it during a recent interview, “We need to turn pink into green.”
The two-time Emmy winner explains: “Pink is obviously, in our culture,
the color for women. Pink is for girls, blue is for boys; as we’re growing up
we hear that. But the problem for women in the United States is that even
though we have grown up – we’re making money, we’re doing all kinds of
reprinted with permission by PINK magazine I pinkmagazine.com I november 2006 I 53
things – we’re still acting ‘pink’ with our money.” Orman’s advice to the contrary doesn’t mean rejecting femininity; many
women know they can be comfortably feminine (and yes, embrace the color pink!) as well as powerful. What it does mean
is setting aside an old, culturally ingrained need to please.
Orman – who hosts her own TV program, holds seminars,
writes a column for Oprah’s magazine and authors best-selling
books – is the queen of all personal-finance media. She is to
bonds, stocks and mortgages what Martha Stewart is to cookie
cutters, glue guns and made-from-scratch pound cake. In her
encounters with women from all economic strata, Orman spots
a universal trait: spending to take care of others instead of saving for themselves.
“We’ve got to stop using money we’re earning to make others’
lives more comfortable,” she says. “For whatever reason, in the
end, we seem to end up alone. Our male counterparts die earlier, or they’re leaving and divorcing us for some younger
woman. Then what happens is, we’re still in the pink, but we
don’t have any green, and then we turn pink into red – red that
we’re angry, red that we’re in a deficit rather than in the black.”
To change, women must learn there is nothing wrong with
using money to get what they want, to gain more power and
‘Suze, I’ve been out of work for a year now, I don’t have any
money, I’m in credit card debt, my daughter’s wedding is coming up and my son is going to school. The only money I have
is the equity in my home. So I am thinking about selling my
home so that I am able to pay for my son’s tuition as well as my
daughter’s wedding. Do you think that’s a good place to get
the money from?’”
Orman, with the feisty frankness that’s her trademark, responds, “Are you crazy, lady? You’re acting pink, [telling] your
daughter, your son, that their financial future is more important than yours.” Women are too willing to suffer to make
others happy, she notes. In contrast, “What men do with their
money is for their future, for their power, for their stability.
What a shame.”
Jeopardizing financial security to help friends and family isn’t
only the province of middle-income moms looking for ways to
finance a wedding (which, by the way, now costs an average of
$21,000).Tough studio head Sherry Lansing and gossip columnist Liz Smith are both examples of women who’ve admitted
getting into financial trouble because of spending on others,
Orman says. “They were making a million dollars a year, and
they never wanted to make sure they were OK.”
“Don’t focus on the paycheck;
focus on what you want to spend 60 hours
a week doing for the rest of your life.”
SU ZE O RM A N
to safeguard their future, Orman says.
Her assertions are backed up by more than her wide experience counseling thousands of women each year. A 2005 Oppenheimer Funds study revealed that 47 percent of U.S. women
aren’t contributing to retirement plans, and of those who do,
almost three-quarters concede they spend more on entertainment and shopping than saving. According to U.S. Department
of Labor and Census Bureau data, women live four years longer
than men and have, on average, only two-thirds of the Social
Security income.
Orman wants to reverse those figures. Her next book,Women
+ Money (Spiegel & Grau/Doubleday Broadway Publishing
Group, March 2007), has the subtitle Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. She shares these strategies for change:
D ON’ T JE OPARDI ZE Y O U R
FU T U RE TO PL EA S E O TH ER S NOW
Orman gets thousands of calls, e-mails and letters each year
from women struggling to juggle their finances in order to take
care of kids, husbands, friends and parents. As an example she
cites a query to her O magazine column. “The reader writes,
1
54 I pinkmagazine.com
DON’T WORRY ABOUT
WHAT PEOPLE THINK
The female tendency to take care of others’
needs isn’t purely altruistic. We’re motivated
by fear of social condemnation because we have
been taught from infancy to be “good little girls,”
Orman says. It’s great to be compassionate,
she tells PINK, but don’t confuse compassion with obligation.“If you
are doing it out of fear somebody else is going to think
badly of you because you
are not paying for your
child’s education, then you
better think again.”
Orman says women face
social pressure to take care of others not only at home but also in the
corporate world.“If you’re in talks with
women, just for women, they say, ‘Ladies,
volunteer, make good use of your time
2
Suze says
For the woman established in her
career or successful as an entrepreneur,
Orman offers these steps for financial planning:
and make sure this world is great.’ Ever been
to talks for all men? Have you ever heard anyone say
to men, ‘Volunteer your time?’ We really need to start
putting on different-colored glasses to see not only how
we help the world but also help ourselves as well.”
Orman says she received excellent advice from Barbara
Walters. “One of the first times I’d done The View, she said,
‘Suze, don’t ever read the articles about you.’ And I said, ‘OK!’
I’m sure there are negative articles, but they’re not my problem.
So my advice would be, don’t make other people’s opinions of
you your own problems.”
PUT MON E Y IN Y O UR HO ME.
Come up with a plan to pay off your mortgage by the time you’re
62. “Nothing makes a woman feel more powerful or secure than
owning her home outright.” Orman owns four homes – in New
York, Florida, San Francisco and South Africa – all free and clear.
1
TAKE AD VA NTA GE O F Y O UR 4 01(k).
2
Put in as much as your company matches. Later, fund it to the
maximum allowed by law.
REMEMB E R Y OU R R OTH.
3
After you have got a mortgage payoff plan and have met the
401(k) match, fund a Roth IRA “to the max every single year.”
COME UP W IT H A L IT T L E S O M ET HI NG O N T H E S I DE.
If you’ve done everything you can, then have a side account and
invest in stocks, mutual funds or bonds. Orman, a former Merrill
Lynch stockbroker, says she keeps a “small percentage” of her
income in stocks and the bulk of her assets (outside of real estate) in zero-coupon municipal bonds.
4
KEEP CR E DI T C A R D S I N C HE CK .
If you have credit card debt, your number-one priority should
be to get rid of it. Putting too much on plastic is
a trap women at the highest levels of corporate
America fall into as often as lower-income counterparts, says Orman, who has admitted to credit
card troubles herself earlier in life.
5
FIGURE OUT YOUR LIFE AND
YOUR CAREER WILL FOLLOW
Today’s constant talk about Life/Work balance is inherently
out of equilibrium, Orman says. “When you’re younger, that’s
when it’s time to go for something and see what you want to
spend your career doing. Don’t focus on the paycheck; focus
on what you want to spend 60 hours a week doing for the rest
of your life,” she says. That rarely happens, and instead we are
driven by money, not passion.
As an alternative, she says, “I would like all women to make
a career out of being happy. Out of being powerful. Not out
of being incredibly wealthy.”
3
DON’T TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT
Wanting to avoid confrontation leads too many women to
take on responsibility for others, whatever hardship it may
bring, Orman notes. “Sometimes it’s easier to say, ‘OK, kids,
I’ll pay for your wedding.’ ‘OK, Mom, I’ll take care of your
credit card bills.’ ‘OK, ex-husband, you can keep the house.’ It’s
just easier. But it’s not right.”
4
WISH OTHE RS WELL –
INCLUDING T HE COMPET ITION
Because women still face more obstacles than men in the
business world, they are too likely to consider other women
competitors, Orman says. “Women have a tendency of being
jealous, thinking, ‘If she’s successful, that means there’s less
room for me at the top.’” Orman advises taking the opposite
approach. Following Orman’s Emmy nomination in 2006, she
rooted for fellow nominee Rachael Ray. “I thought, ‘You know,
Suze Orman, you’re 55 years old, you have a great career. Good
for Rachael Ray – she’s hot right now; she’s young.’ I was so
shocked when I won. I couldn’t talk when I was on stage.”
5
WAT CH YOU R S P EN D ING.
“When you make more money, you want people to
know you make more money. You drive a fancier car, live
in a bigger house, wear fancier clothes and buy more expensive jewelry. And in the end you have more credit card debt.”
6
FINALLY, LET T HE DOGS YAP
Orman says that she gets through tough times by remembering an Indian saying: The elephant keeps walking as the
dogs keep barking. “As people criticize me, I remember, ‘Suze,
keep on walking and let them bark.’”
Her advice: “Ladies, walk yourselves through all the opposition, all the negativity. Ladies, walk yourselves through all
the competition and all those who say it can’t be done. Take
your power and keep on walking.”
6
reprinted with permission by PINK magazine I pinkmagazine.com I november 2006 I 55