# Classic Suze School: Shattering The Money Myths

An episode of [Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439621652), 29 Oct 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2df1102a-5761-4c99-b489-aabd0161f8fe/44e0936e-923c-43c7-9e2a-aade00edf4d3/8417bc28-026f-4916-baaa-b4f2002a54c5/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=4e05fb00-5a5b-4ed9-b353-aade00edf4dd

In this Classic Suze School, Suze shatters some of the myths and mistakes we’ve been making with money. Learn more about the Ultimate Scam Protection here: SuzeOrman.com Watch Suze’s YouTube Channel Jumpstart financial wellness for your employees: https://bit.ly/SecureSave Protect your financial future with the Must Have Docs: https://bit.ly/3Vq1V3G Help with the Must Have Docs: • Email:support@musthavedocuments.zendesk.com • Phone: 888-510-0510 Get your savings going with Alliant Credit Union: https://bit.ly/3rg0Yio Get Suze’s special offers for podcast listeners at suzeorman.com/offer Join 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/3curfMI See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:07] Robert: October 29th, 2026. Welcome to the Women and Money podcast
[0:12] Robert: as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi there.
[0:16] Robert: It's Robert, the producer here. For today's classic Suze School,
[0:19] Robert: we're gonna go back to the early days of the
[0:21] Robert: podcast where Suze shatters some of the myths and mistakes
[0:25] Robert: that we make with money. We'll have a brand new
[0:28] Robert: Suze School for you this coming Sunday, but for now,
[0:32] Robert: here we go...
[0:37] Suze: I thought maybe today we could all go to Suze
[0:40] Suze: School and I could just talk to you about these
[0:44] Suze: things that I keep seeing that you're getting wrong. Right,
[0:47] Suze: the first one, can we just all get that a
[0:51] Suze: Roth is not an investment.
[0:54] Suze: You write in and you tell me you funded your Roth.
[0:59] Suze: And I go, well, what's it invested in? And you say,
[1:02] Suze: it's at the Roth, Suze. I put it in a Roth.
[1:06] Suze: And I'm like, yes, but what are you investing in
[1:09] Suze: within your Roth account? And you say, well, why do
[1:12] Suze: I have to invest in anything? A Roth is a Roth, right?
[1:16] Suze: No, a Roth is like a house. An IRA is
[1:22] Suze: like a house. Remember, a Roth is an after-tax individual
[1:26] Suze: retirement account, a traditional retirement account, a traditional IRA is pre-tax.
[1:34] Suze: Either one of those is just like a house.
[1:38] Suze: And you can get a house, but you need to
[1:41] Suze: move furniture into the house. You need to put things
[1:44] Suze: in the house for you to be able to live
[1:46] Suze: in that house unless you just want that house to
[1:48] Suze: be an empty house. So when you have a Roth
[1:53] Suze: or a traditional IRA, that is your house that holds
[1:57] Suze: your money for retirement, you have to make investments in
[2:03] Suze: that account.
[2:06] Suze: Next, you keep asking me and telling me, well, Suze,
[2:10] Suze: I'm funding my employer sponsored plan and employer sponsored plan
[2:16] Suze: is when you work, you're an employee, you work for somebody,
[2:20] Suze: and they offer you a 401k or a 403B or
[2:24] Suze: a TSP.
[2:26] Suze: And you write me and you say, well, I have
[2:29] Suze: a retirement account, so I know I can't have a Roth.
[2:32] Suze: So should I have a Roth or a traditional IRA
[2:36] Suze: or should I keep funding my employer sponsored plan? Everyone,
[2:41] Suze: you can have both. You can have an employer sponsored
[2:47] Suze: plan and you can have a Roth or a traditional IRA.
[2:55] Suze: Now, it's true that I don't like whole life insurance policies. I,
[3:02] Suze: I actually hate them. I don't like universal life insurance
[3:07] Suze: policies or variable life insurance policies. The main insurance policy
[3:13] Suze: that I like is term insurance, and I don't like
[3:17] Suze: policies that say, all right, you can have insurance and
[3:22] Suze: investing in one. I don't like it.
[3:25] Suze: And I've told you that over and over again, but
[3:28] Suze: that doesn't mean that you should go out and just
[3:31] Suze: cancel your whole life insurance policy. If you need insurance
[3:37] Suze: on somebody, and you need to know if you need it,
[3:41] Suze: because maybe you are financially dependent on that person or
[3:45] Suze: other people are financially dependent upon you.
[3:48] Suze: So before you ever cancel a whole life insurance policy
[3:53] Suze: or a universal or a variable life insurance policy, can
[3:56] Suze: you just get a term life insurance policy in place?
[4:01] Suze: Can you just do that?
[4:03] Suze: Now, if you have an elderly parent, and they happen
[4:08] Suze: to have a whole life insurance policy, which many of
[4:11] Suze: your elderly parents, especially if they're in their 80s or 70s,
[4:15] Suze: they may have.
[4:17] Suze: Be very careful before you cancel them because it's going
[4:22] Suze: to be too expensive for you to get term insurance
[4:26] Suze: when they are 70 or 80. And if you've already
[4:30] Suze: been paying in it or they've already been paying, and
[4:33] Suze: they're not doing very well, they're not healthy, think twice
[4:37] Suze: before you cancel it. Do you understand that?
[4:41] Suze: Because recently, I had somebody write in, where her mother
[4:46] Suze: was paying like $92 a month on one policy, maybe
[4:50] Suze: $70 or something like that on another policy. It had
[4:54] Suze: a cash value on it of just a few thousand dollars
[4:58] Suze: and she had been doing this for years and years,
[5:00] Suze: and the death benefit was, I think, $11,000 on one
[5:03] Suze: and maybe $7,000 on another, and she canceled it.
[5:08] Suze: And then she wrote me and she said, Suze, I'm
[5:10] Suze: not sure that I did the right thing because my
[5:14] Suze: mother is, you know, living with me. She's getting, she
[5:18] Suze: has dementia, she's now stopped eating, she's not well. I
[5:21] Suze: don't know. Should I reinstate it?
[5:25] Suze: Never ever cancel a policy on somebody who is older
[5:30] Suze: and not doing well. They're not healthy. For that, you
[5:35] Suze: may really want to just keep paying it. So can
[5:38] Suze: you just think twice before you do something? When you
[5:41] Suze: hear me say, I don't like something, that doesn't mean
[5:44] Suze: just go out and cancel it. Every one of you
[5:46] Suze: is in a different situation.
[5:48] Suze: In a different circumstance, think twice about it in your
[5:53] Suze: particular situation, all right? Now, a lot of you are
[5:57] Suze: looking for financial advisors and you're thinking you can't do
[6:01] Suze: it on your own and you're out there and you're
[6:04] Suze: finding financial advisors that are charging you 1.7% or 2%
[6:10] Suze: in fees to manage your money and you're writing me
[6:15] Suze: and asking me, is that a lot of money?
[6:18] Suze: So, here's what I want you to know. You are
[6:22] Suze: never to pay more than 1% when you use a
[6:25] Suze: registered investment advisor, and a registered investment advisor is somebody
[6:30] Suze: that you give your money to, let's say it's $100,000
[6:35] Suze: and they charge you a percentage. Again, it should never
[6:38] Suze: be more than 1%.
[6:40] Suze: The more money you give them, the less the percentage
[6:43] Suze: should be. So if you are going to give them
[6:46] Suze: $5 million, $10 million, whatever it is, it should be
[6:49] Suze: less than if you're giving them $100,000 or $200,000. However,
[6:53] Suze: here's how it works. You give them $100,000 they invest
[6:59] Suze: your money for you, but they invest in items such
[7:02] Suze: as stocks that have no fees on them whatsoever to
[7:07] Suze: invest in.
[7:09] Suze: So if they take that $100,000 up to $200,000 they're
[7:14] Suze: now making 1% of $200,000.
[7:17] Suze: If they take your $100,000 down to $50,000 they're now
[7:22] Suze: making 1% of $50,000. So the more money they make you,
[7:26] Suze: the more money they make themselves. But you don't want
[7:30] Suze: a registered investment advisor who buys mutual funds because within
[7:34] Suze: mutual funds, you're paying an expense ratio for the portfolio
[7:39] Suze: manager of that mutual fund to manage the money, so
[7:44] Suze: you don't want to do that.
[7:46] Suze: You also do not want an investment adviser who if
[7:51] Suze: you're going to put your money into individual bonds, you
[7:55] Suze: do not want that adviser to be charging you an
[7:59] Suze: investment advisory fee at all. That is money that needs
[8:04] Suze: to be kept in a separate account. Why? Because when
[8:09] Suze: you buy a bond, a bond already has the commission
[8:13] Suze: built into it.
[8:15] Suze: So why pay an investment advisory fee on that when
[8:18] Suze: you've already paid a commission? If you're going to use
[8:21] Suze: a registered investment advisor and you're going to need to
[8:25] Suze: buy individual bonds as well as individual stocks, you should
[8:30] Suze: have two accounts. The account that has the stocks in
[8:34] Suze: it gets the investment advisory fee put on it.
[8:37] Suze: Again, absolutely no commissions whatsoever to buy or sell, and
[8:41] Suze: the account that has the bonds in it just has
[8:44] Suze: the bonds in it because the commission has already been
[8:46] Suze: paid when you bought it. So many of you are
[8:50] Suze: confused about that. I hope that cleared that up.
[8:55] Suze: Next, so many of you are writing me about the
[8:59] Suze: order of the debt that you should pay off.
[9:02] Suze: You have student loan debt, you have credit card debt, you,
[9:06] Suze: you know, those are the main two debts that you have.
[9:08] Suze: You have car loan debt, mortgage debt, but forget those
[9:10] Suze: debts for now. Your main question is, should you pay
[9:15] Suze: off student loan debt first or credit card debt first?
[9:20] Suze: The answer to that question is if you have extra money,
[9:24] Suze: obviously you need to keep paying on both of them,
[9:28] Suze: but if you have extra money, can you funnel that
[9:30] Suze: extra money towards your student loan debt? The reason being
[9:35] Suze: student loan debt is not dischargeable in most cases in bankruptcy.
[9:41] Suze: That is the most dangerous debt currently that you can have.
[9:46] Suze: Please do not hold out in the hopes that one
[9:49] Suze: day student loan debt is just going to be discharged,
[9:52] Suze: that somebody's going to get in office and just say,
[9:55] Suze: all right, all of you, you don't have to pay
[9:58] Suze: your student loan debt anymore. Can you not think that
[10:01] Suze: is going to happen? Listen, I would love for those
[10:05] Suze: of you who can't afford to pay your student loan debt, really.
[10:09] Suze: I would love for that to happen for you. For
[10:11] Suze: those of you who can really afford to pay your
[10:13] Suze: student loan debt, I would like you to be able
[10:15] Suze: to continue to pay your student loan debt. I am
[10:18] Suze: not somebody who thinks all student loan debt should just
[10:21] Suze: be forgiven because I don't think that would ever pass. However,
[10:24] Suze: do not, and I repeat, do not think that is
[10:28] Suze: going to happen. And if it does happen, it will
[10:30] Suze: be a long time in my opinion before it actually does.
[10:36] Suze: Next, so many of you have been told that all
[10:39] Suze: you need is a will. In fact, many of you
[10:43] Suze: have been told that if all the money that you
[10:45] Suze: have is in a retirement account, or your insurance policy,
[10:50] Suze: you do not need even a will, because if you
[10:53] Suze: just simply designate on your insurance policy, a beneficiary on
[11:00] Suze: your retirement account, a beneficiary, even on your savings account,
[11:05] Suze: if it's a pay on death account or a transfer
[11:07] Suze: on death account where you in fact name a beneficiary,
[11:11] Suze: it is true that all of those assets will absolutely
[11:16] Suze: pass to your beneficiary without probate, but there are other
[11:21] Suze: things that need to be taken into consideration.
[11:25] Suze: A will is there if you have minor children to
[11:29] Suze: appoint who is going to be guardian over your minor children.
[11:34] Suze: It is also there in case you have things that
[11:37] Suze: aren't put in your living revocable trust, which every single
[11:41] Suze: one of you should absolutely have. How many times do
[11:45] Suze: I have to tell you this?
[11:46] Suze: The most important thing all of you could ever do
[11:50] Suze: is to have a trust, a will, an advanced directive,
[11:54] Suze: and a durable power of attorney for healthcare, and a
[11:57] Suze: power of attorney for your finances. You need all of
[12:00] Suze: those documents. Those are must-have documents. Now, if you want,
[12:08] Suze: I have the must-have documents. Obviously, I am selling them.
[12:12] Suze: And I don't feel bad that I'm sitting here telling
[12:15] Suze: you that you should buy these because how many of
[12:18] Suze: you really have a lawyer that you know you can trust?
[12:22] Suze: How many of you really have $2,500? And even if
[12:25] Suze: you did have $2,500 why would you want to spend
[12:28] Suze: it when you could get the state of the art
[12:30] Suze: documents that were created by my own trust lawyer? Millions
[12:34] Suze: of these have been sold. They're good in all 50 states.
[12:37] Suze: They're so easy to use. So why don't you check
[12:39] Suze: them out just by going to Suze Orman.com/offer, and that
[12:44] Suze: is where you will find the must-have documents that all
[12:47] Suze: of you really, in my opinion, should have.
[12:50] Suze: And why do I think all of you should have
[12:53] Suze: them again? A will, as I said, is just for
[12:56] Suze: those items that you haven't put in a trust. So
[13:00] Suze: why do you need a trust? Listen, a trust isn't
[13:03] Suze: just so that you can pass everything to your beneficiaries
[13:06] Suze: without probate, OK?
[13:08] Suze: It's also there in case you have an incapacity. Who's
[13:11] Suze: going to write your checks for you? Who's going to
[13:13] Suze: pay your bills? There's all other kinds of reasons that
[13:16] Suze: you should have a trust. Go back and listen to
[13:18] Suze: one of the podcasts that talk all about trust. And
[13:22] Suze: while I'm speaking about this, another thing is that a
[13:25] Suze: lot of you are writing me and you're saying you
[13:28] Suze: don't want a trust. So what you're gonna do is
[13:30] Suze: you're going to gift your appreciated assets to your kids
[13:34] Suze: simply to avoid probate, and you're gonna do that by
[13:37] Suze: simply putting the house or whatever you have in their name.
[13:42] Suze: Please don't do that. If you do that, you may
[13:45] Suze: be making one of the biggest mistakes out there. Let's
[13:47] Suze: say you have a home.
[13:49] Suze: And you put it in your kids' names or you
[13:51] Suze: add your kids to the title of your house. So
[13:54] Suze: it's a public record and now your kids are out
[13:57] Suze: and they're in a car accident and they seriously injure
[14:00] Suze: somebody or they even kill somebody. So if lawyers wanted to,
[14:04] Suze: they could come and take your house from you if
[14:07] Suze: they sue you. So don't do that.
[14:10] Suze: The other reason you don't want to do it is
[14:12] Suze: recently somebody wrote in, and they said to me, Suze,
[14:16] Suze: my parents gifted me a house that their parents gifted
[14:21] Suze: to them years ago, and now the house is worth
[14:26] Suze: $80,000 or $900,000 and my name is on the house.
[14:32] Suze: My parents are about to die. How much income tax
[14:35] Suze: am I going to owe?
[14:36] Suze: If the house had simply been passed down via a
[14:40] Suze: trust from grandparents to parents, the parents would have gotten
[14:45] Suze: a step up in cost basis. So if the grandparents
[14:47] Suze: bought it for $5,000 and the house when they died
[14:50] Suze: was worth $30,000 their new cost basis would be $30,000.
[14:55] Suze: They could turn around and they could sell it if
[14:57] Suze: they wanted to, no tax.
[15:00] Suze: However, now, and by the way, those are the actual numbers,
[15:04] Suze: the house now has been gifted to the child. Her
[15:09] Suze: cost basis is $5000 on this house because that cost
[15:14] Suze: basis gets passed down and now.
[15:17] Suze: It's not even her primary residency. She's going to owe
[15:21] Suze: income tax on the difference between that and whatever she
[15:25] Suze: sells it to. Now, obviously, she's put money into the
[15:28] Suze: house or they've put money into the house over all
[15:30] Suze: these years, but I don't think they've put $80,000 or
[15:32] Suze: $900,000 into this house. So if you really care about
[15:37] Suze: saving money.
[15:39] Suze: Then leave your seriously appreciated assets when it's gone from
[15:45] Suze: $30,000 to $200,000 but leave appreciated assets to your beneficiaries
[15:51] Suze: via a trust.
[15:53] Suze: I want to talk about bankruptcy. Many of you are
[15:56] Suze: writing in and you're telling me that you have $80,000
[15:59] Suze: of credit card debt, you have $100,000 of credit card debt,
[16:03] Suze: but you are just so ashamed to claim bankruptcy.
[16:06] Suze: Listen, if you make less than what you owe, you
[16:12] Suze: are technically bankrupt. So what does that mean? That means
[16:17] Suze: you're never gonna get out of it.
[16:19] Suze: So, please don't be ashamed if you have to claim bankruptcy.
[16:24] Suze: The only part that you should be ashamed about is
[16:27] Suze: if you do it again, because do you know that
[16:30] Suze: one out of two people who claim bankruptcy claim it twice.
[16:34] Suze: So you have to think about that and do not
[16:37] Suze: go out there charging all of this stuff simply because
[16:40] Suze: you think, well, I don't care. I'm just going to
[16:42] Suze: claim bankruptcy on it. Those are not the people that
[16:45] Suze: I'm talking about. I am talking about people who, all right,
[16:49] Suze: they charged too much and then they lost their job,
[16:52] Suze: and then they got into medical debt, and then they
[16:54] Suze: just started to accumulate all this stuff and before you
[16:56] Suze: know it, now they have $80,000 or $50,000 and they're
[17:00] Suze: making $30,000 a year or $40,000 a year or they're
[17:03] Suze: not making anything.
[17:05] Suze: So the main thing about this is there's no shame
[17:08] Suze: in you claiming bankruptcy. If you have to do it,
[17:11] Suze: you have to do it, but just do it because
[17:14] Suze: prolonging it isn't going to help things whatsoever.
[17:19] Suze: And last but not least, can we just talk about
[17:23] Suze: FICO scores and what you need to get is you
[17:27] Suze: are not to continue to care more about your FICO
[17:32] Suze: score than you are the quality of your life.
[17:35] Suze: You're writing me and you're telling me that you're taking
[17:40] Suze: money out of your retirement accounts simply to pay the
[17:44] Suze: minimum payment due on your credit cards just so you
[17:48] Suze: could have a good FICO score? I don't think so.
[17:52] Suze: You can always rebuild your FICO score or your credit score,
[17:57] Suze: but what you have to understand about retirement accounts is
[18:02] Suze: this retirement accounts are safe and sound if you do
[18:08] Suze: claim bankruptcy. So they're not part of a bankruptcy. They
[18:12] Suze: can't take it from you. So if you're really doing
[18:16] Suze: poorly and you don't know how you're going to pull
[18:18] Suze: things out, you really want to put as much money
[18:20] Suze: into a retirement account as you possibly can, because nobody
[18:25] Suze: can ever take that away from you.
[18:27] Suze: So stop taking money out of your retirement account to
[18:31] Suze: pay the minimum payment due on your credit cards, and
[18:35] Suze: then tell me, but it looks like you're going to
[18:37] Suze: have to claim bankruptcy after all. That's a serious mistake.
[18:41] Suze: So just don't do that.
[18:43] Suze: All right, everybody, 'till next week, you stay safe.

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