The Chris Cuomo Project - Suze Orman

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

In this week’s episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, personal finance expert Suze Orman (host, “Suze Orman’s Women & Money” podcast, and bestselling author, “The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+”) joins Chris to discuss her journey from waitress to financial expert, whether women invest differently than men, her wahoo fishing tournament expertise, how to be a socially-responsible investor, the importance of keeping an emergency savings fund, and much more. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Visit Indeed.com/CCP to start hiring now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Women are brighter, in my opinion, than most men. Because if they have the ability to raise kids and do everything that they do, they can easily invest. But most of them don't ever really do that until they've gotten divorced or their spouse has died. Just that simple. Hey, it's Chris Cuomo. Welcome to another episode of The Chris Cuomo Project. Please subscribe, follow, don't forget the free agent gear. Are you independent? Wear your independence proudly. The money, I want to use it, give it away to people that are doing the right thing, that we can kind of crowdsource our own contributions. Very cool. You know what else is cool? Suzy Orman. I wonder what kind of investment she thinks that would be, free agent.

It's good for others, she'd say, but is it good for you? She is a legend. She is an icon when it comes to finance. And she didn't come with some big batch of degrees. She made her own way. She's a pioneer in the space, same way she was on television. So many years, 12, 13, 14 seasons on CNBC, so strong. 10 consecutive bestsellers.

Her personal story is amazing. She is a warrior. She's got great advice and great insights, and she's as much a life coach as she is kind of a consumer advocate and a financial consultant. So how about some nice, deep personal talk with one of the greatest of all time, Susie Orman. Listen, if you know anything about me, you know I've been doing AG1 for over five years, okay? Why? Well, because I heard about it just as I was looking at all of these white and translucent brown bottles in my life. Had to be a dozen of them, okay?

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Go to drinkag1.com CCP. That's drinkag1.com. Check it out. Take control of your health. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo.

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And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMSS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMSS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply.

You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. The one and only Susie Orman. What a great pleasure. Fan, very happy to have you on the Chris Cuomo Project. And thank you, my fellow podcaster

and broadcaster and communicator. Thank you, sir. I'm so happy to be here, truthfully. I'm looking forward to this. Now, Susie, you like talking about everybody else. So let me make you uncomfortable for a moment. And you probably don't even look at your life this way because you got so much left that you want to do. But to this point, when you think about what you've achieved, what matters most to you? What matters most to me

is that I still care about people before money. I still care about making sure that I provide everybody with the most unbiased, helpful, financial and emotional and psychological advice that's out there and that everybody feels like they have a place to bring their questions to the answers that they deserve to have. I still care about that more than anything else. Why? You know, I didn't come from money. And I would see how financial advisors, the majority of them in my opinion, really cared about how much money they were going to make. They cared about selling and selling things to people that worked so hard for their money and what they did

with it mattered, but they were getting the worst advice out there. So in the end, Chris, when we're not on TV or we're not doing a podcast and here we are and possibly we're in our deathbed, are you really going to be counting essentially how much money you have or you lost or whatever it may be? Or are you going to say, I really did good. I made this world a better place than it was before I got here. And that's what matters to me, to me. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about me,

because in the end, all that matters is what I think about, what I've done, how I think, how I feel, what I say, and the lives that I've touched. That's a very sophisticated basis of judgment. How long did it take you, especially being in this felons field of media, to get to the place where it is your opinion of you that really does matter. I mean, we always say that, but for most of us, we're obsessed with externals, let alone if you're on TV for a living like me. I can go back to the very beginning, truthfully, which was after seven years of being a waitress

at the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, California, from the age of 23 till 30. And then all the customers I had been waiting on gathered behind me, gave me $50,000 to open up my own restaurant and told me to put it at Merrill Lynch till they could help me. And what happened there was I had a crooked broker. His name was Randy. I walked into Merrill Lynch. This is nothing about Merrill Lynch. This is about every financial firm. Pete has people that work for them that are not the most honest. Let's face it. So I walk into Merrill Lynch. I get assigned to the broker of the day. I deposit $50,000 and I know to keep it safe and sound until everybody can help me. I've never seen that much money in my life. And Randy says, how would you like to make a quick $100 a week? And I said,

that's more than I made as a waitress. Are you kidding me? To make a long story short, he had me sign blank papers. He didn't have me do it, but he gave me papers. I signed it. What did I know? And he filled it out to make it look like I was a sophisticated investor. Within three months, all $50,000 was lost. Now I didn't know what to do. And I thought, I know I can just be a broker. They make you broker. So now I find myself going because I need to pay all these people back. These people didn't have a lot of money, $2,000 here, $1,000 there. They didn't have money. So I thought, I know, I'll go and apply for a job as a broker because I can't just continue being a waitress and pay these people back. And so I go in dressed in red and white striped Sassoon pants.

I was a size six back then, right? Tucked into my white cowboy boots. I still wear cowboy boots to this day with a blue silk shirt. And as the American flag, I can walk into Merrill Lynch. They don't know what to do with me. I find myself in the manager's office who says to me, you know, Susie, women belong barefoot and pregnant, but I am going to hire you, but I'm going to fire you in six months. Obviously, there were no women at Merrill Lynch in the Oakland office at that time. They had to hire me to fill their women's quota. Affirmative action was full blown. And of course, I was still Susie Orman back then. I loved being a waitress, truthfully. I wanted the money to open up my own restaurant anyway. And I say to him, how much are you going to pay me to make me pregnant?

And he says, $1,500 a month. It didn't take me long, Chris, to figure out that 1,500 times six, when he was going to fire me, $9,000, I could go back and be a waitress, and it would take me two and a half years to make that. So I go, fine, and I take the job. And while I'm working there to study, to be a financial advisor, there's a know your customer rule that says you can't invest people's money in a way that they aren't eligible for it. So that's when I realized that my broker was crooked. The great thing that happened, however, was that the head of operations was a gay man. And Chris, of operations was a gay man. And Chris, I've been a lesbian my entire life and very proud to have been so. And I never hid it from anybody ever. And so there I was, and he came to see me. And essentially, through him, I was given the name of a lawyer that he wanted me to contact that took my case on contingency.

Now, I very well could have just done nothing, but it wouldn't have been right. Because what if it wasn't just me? What if it was my mom who was a secretary and sold Avon on the side? So to make a very long story short, I sued Merrill Lynch while I worked for them because I sued them, they couldn't fire me. But I decided right then and there in suing them, I did what was right versus what was easy, that I needed to protect people

from things like this ever happening to them. By the time it came to court, I was their number six producing broker. They gave me all the money back plus 18% interest. I was able to, even after the contingency fee, pay everybody back plus some interest, believe it or not. And that was the story. So it was right then and there that I assumed the position of protector of people's money if I was going to be investing it for them. Two questions. Yeah. One, South Side of Chicago, cowboy boots.

How? South Side of Chicago was, you know, I'm also Jewish. And cowboy boots. That only adds to my confusion. It didn't help, by the way, Susie. I know you were Maury's daughter. He did not introduce you to cowboy boots. No, but you know who did? My grandpa. My grandpa Joe. Because my grandpa Joe, who died in his 60s, grew up, right, and he was in North Dakota. We still don't know how he got to North Dakota, but my mom and everybody who was born in North Dakota had cowboy boots. And so when I was really little, like five or six, he gave me a pair of red cowboy boots. And those were the only shoes

I wanted to wear. Good luck getting me in anything but that. And truthfully, to this day, good luck in getting me in anything other than cowboy boots as well. Second question. As you said, at that time, women were not, forget about encouraged, there were not avenues of opportunity that led into the financial field until pioneers like you fought for it. In fact, my mother-in-law is one of those. She's one of the first stockbrokers on Wall Street here in Manhattan. And she had a similar embarrassing story for the nature of maleness in terms of how she was treated. But, okay, you fought your way in, fine.

in terms of how she was treated. But, okay, you fought your way in, fine. But you were really good, and your education was not in finance. When you went to college, you know, you didn't get a degree in that. You got a degree in social work or whatever. Why were you so good at it? Because I got a degree in social work. Because I learned right then and there, if you think about it, to take care of people who couldn't take

care of themselves, to make sure that their life worked in social environments, so to speak, if you think about it that way. So what was interesting is that I didn't learn how to be a good financial advisor from Merrill Lynch. a good financial advisor from Merrill Lynch. I learned how to be a good financial advisor from the clients that chose to use me. And the reason that is, is way back then, they didn't really have all these discount brokerage firms. And yes, Charles Schwab had just started, but nobody even believed in it. It was you had to do what you needed to do through a financial advisor. And every once in a while, I would be the broker of the day and everybody who

came in new would be assigned to me. And I would sit down with these people and I would say to them, I have to tell you something. I don't know what I'm doing. I've just been hired. So if you want somebody else in this office that is really good, maybe you should consider using them. Then they said to me, oh, we don't take broker's advice. We know what we're doing. We know what we're doing. We just need you to put in the trade for us. I said, I can do that. And so these people had a lot of money.

And they loved that I was so honest with them. And I learned that what they did with their money was very different than the recommendations that Merrill Lynch would tell everybody to do with their money on the Tuesday sales meetings that they would have every week. And so I started to learn from my clients, well, why did you choose to do that? And they loved how vulnerable I was and how honest I was. They were the ones who started to teach me as to why they chose what they chose to invest in. Those people were my teachers. It's interesting. So the social work degree, and of course, your work at the restaurant taught you a lot of valuable skills, including that you got to take people where you find them, as opposed to trying to put them in a position. And that made all the difference. But you also

have a different skill that is almost unheard of in any type of communication field. You tell people no all the time. I mean, you do it the right way. And again, I'm a fan of Susie's. I really think there's a high degree of sophistication to what she does and has always done. I think I have four or five of her books. My wife would say, that's not true. I have eight of the books. You know, 10 consecutive bestsellers, by the way, almost unheard of. But my wife is much more sophisticated financially than I am. But my point is, you tell people, no, you do it in terms of alternatives. But sometimes, especially on the show, it was not in terms of alternatives. It was, you cannot go on a vacation. It's not going to happen. These are the numbers you gave me. You

laid it out there. It can't happen. What makes that okay? Because we're not going to happen. These are the numbers you gave me. You laid it out there. It can't happen. What makes that okay? Because we're not supposed to tell people no. We never tell people what they don't want to hear, you know, if you want them to keep listening. It came from realizing nobody, especially women, would say what they were thinking, would do what they were feeling. I watch this with my mother all the time. I knew how she felt about things and she did things that she didn't want to do, you know, whatever it may be. And then I started to learn how the nature of women, their nature is to nurture. Think about it. Most women have the ability to give birth. Most women have

the ability to feed that which they've given birth to. So women give and they give. And women take care of everybody else before they take care of themselves. They will take care of you, Chris, when you had COVID. They take care of you. They take care of their parents. They take care of you, Chris, when you had, you know, COVID. They take care of you. They take care of their parents. They take care of their employees. They take care of their pets and their plants before they think about themselves. And women are always saying yes when they want to say no.

So, oh, can I borrow $5,000 from you? And you're thinking, I've worked so hard to save that $5,000. I don't want to lend you this money. But yet you say yes, yes out of fear that they won't like you versus no out of love for yourself. So I took those lessons that I learned when I was a financial advisor, watching the interactions between husband and wife, partner and partner, where neither of them were telling each other the truth and I could see it. And that's when I decided, no, I need to tell people the truth, no matter what they think of me, how they feel about me. And if they are asking me a question, they deserve to hear the truth back. Even if that means they hate me, they never watch the show again, whatever it may be. That's where that comes from.

Do women invest differently than men? Yes. In my opinion, they do. Women have more knowledge of investing if they want to, but they invest differently because they're not financial fakers like men are. Men really will tell you, and I know this from all the talks that I've given from whatever, they look at you and they go, and then I may ask them to repeat what I just said and they can't. But men just do what Joe says and what John says. I mean, look at how Bernie Madoff happened. That happened because one person told another person, told another person, and I'm sure it was all the men that were saying yes to that more than the women. Women, on the other hand, can really go

for it and are great at it, but it's almost like they don't have time. They don't have time. So they say, you take care of this. I'm going to take care of the household. Now, why do women take care of the household? Because the house holds everybody that they love. And so even to this day, I can ask women, women who are running companies, what is the interest rate on your mortgage? I'm not exactly sure. Well, what are you invested in within your retirement accounts? Oh, I don't know. I have a portfolio manager that does all that for me. So it's interesting. Women's skills,

listen, women are brighter, in my opinion, than most men. Because if they have the ability to raise kids and do everything that they do, they can easily invest. But most of them don't ever really do that until they've gotten divorced or their spouse has died. Just that simple. to ask more questions. Women want to know what they're doing. That's why I love the Women in Money podcast. And even though the subtitle is in everybody smart enough to listen, because it's obviously for everybody and everybody loves it. But I love when women feel like they have a safe place to ask questions and that nobody's going to feel like it was a stupid question. And so they feel free, especially now that they're older, because I'm going to be 72. And it's great because it's different talking about money

once you get older than when you're 45, talking about what it's like and what you should be doing in retirement until you're in retirement. It's a very fascinating thing. But I love that my podcast really caters to people who are 50, 60, 70, 80 years of age or older. I love that.

We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo. It's embarrassing. But it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS.

And it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment. And it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments. And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper.

And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider.

And they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Look, no shame in my game. I've been using AG1 for over five years.

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Oh, prebiotics work with probiotics. But in this way, D works with K and this type of B works with that. They have the scientists doing it, so I don't need all the bottles, I don't have to spend all the money, and I don't have to figure out when to take what and why. More importantly, it's not just the regular list of vitamins. It's the extras, okay? The adaptogens, the prebiotics, the probiotics that support your body's universal needs, gut optimization, immune support, stress management. That's what foundational nutrition is about. And these are the people at AG1 who've been doing the work to get it right.

OK, I tell friends, I tell family, I get no complaints. Okay? If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1, you get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs. Okay? That's what happens with your first purchase. So make it. Go to drinkag1.com slash CCP. Drink. Drinkag1.com slash ccp. Check it out. So I was going to ask if you miss television, but it seems like you just answered my question. up for the pioneering nature of it, knowing that it's not the same built-in reach, you know, and the media don't talk about podcasts the way they do when you're on TV. Why does it matter you enough to keep doing it

and not stick with what you killed for, you know, over 10 seasons? What was like 13, 14 seasons? Because I couldn't always say everything I wanted to on CNBC. I had to be careful. Did I have an advertiser possibly? Then I hate it. What would they cut out?

How would they do it? You know, I had a specific amount of time for this slot, for the A block, the B block, the C block. And I got as much in as I could. But if I started to go off the rail or whatever it was, and I got as much in as I could. But if I started to go off the rail or whatever it was, and I can, and I love that. Like Oprah always called it a Susie Smackdown. I didn't have the freedom. I also didn't have the freedom to do it

when I wanted to do it. I had to be in New York. I had to be there at seven o'clock in the morning. It was after 13, 14 years, whatever it was, of doing it. I didn't want to do it anymore. Number one, I kind of was getting tired of it. But number two, I really wanted to know. When I then was about 65, maybe I was even older when we stopped,

who was Susie Orman? When she wasn't on QVC, HSN, I stopped writing for the Oprah Magazine. I came off the air with the CNBC show. And Katie and I did what? We moved to a private island. I'm broadcasting to you right now from in the Bahamas. And we took up fishing, something we had never done before. I got a boat, a little boat, whatever, and learned how to fish. Now I go into tournaments. Now I win tournaments.

Get out of here. Hold on a second. I will send you pictures that you can post on this, right? What kind of boat do you have? What kind of fishing are you doing? What kind of tournaments are you entering? I'm interested in the who was Susie Orman thing, but you just hit a hot button here, Susie.

All right. What kind of boat you got? Currently, I have a 32 Vantage from Boston Whaler. Yeah, I know it very well. My main fishing that I love to do is wahoo fishing. So you're trolling a lot. I am trolling at approximately 16 knots. I have three to four holes coming off the back that are lingram-pingram, that are these huge

electronic poles. I have my poles and my lures. I have a collection of lures because we make them ourselves that are out anywhere from 150 feet, 250 feet, 350, 450 feet. The lures are approximately 14 inches long. I fish with weights on those lures that are anywhere from 36 ounces to 80 ounces, just depending on the temperature of the water. And the depth you want to go. And different depths that I want, which have to do with the temperature of the water. Are two of the rods on outriggers or do you put them all off the boat? I put them all off the boat. I don't like outriggers. Yeah. Outriggers are these long rods that come off. I'm not saying this to Susie, she knows. But they're extra rods that come off

the side of the boat to keep baits out wide. A lot of people use them when they're troll. It's harder to do it without them. Right. And so on the island that I live in, two years ago, we came in first place and we also caught the largest wahoo. How big? That one wasn't that big. It was only like 40 pounds. You know, the biggest I've ever caught was 60 pounds. For those of you who don't know what a wahoo is, and seriously, I will send pictures so Chris can post this so you can see it, right? But it's probably the most dangerous fish that you can catch bar none. It swims at 60 miles an hour. When you catch it, it goes out 800 feet and you have got to get it into the boat before a shark eats it and good luck getting it

into the boat. So, so far we've caught 20 this year. We normally only catch 45 or 50 in the, in the season, right? Cause we don't go crazy and go out and catch as many as we can. Is it just you and Katie? It used to be just me and Katie and Katie, everybody is my spouse. Yes. Now it's Katie and Kolo. Kolo lives with us here on the island. Chris, I don't know if you're aware, but two years ago, I had a very serious operation on a tumor non-cancerous in my thing. I really can't hold a fishing pole anymore like I did. So I can now drive the boat again. For two years, I wasn't allowed on the boat, but I can't pull it over the rail anymore.

So now Kolo does it with KT, but I find them. So as captain of the boat, somehow I kept finding fish. Listen, first of all, of course you find fish because you're all about value. And two, the captain isn't supposed to be gaffing and staffing. That is for big vanilla gorillas like me. That's why I'm on the boat. I am there to provide food. You give directions, you give advice, and then you have somebody like me to put a hook in it and pull it over. I actually didn't know that about you, which is very, very cool. Susie has a huge advantage though, okay? Someone who can fish with their partner, let alone their spouse, has had a huge advantage because there is such a huge withdrawal from your emotional

capital account to use some Mormon parlance every time you go fishing if the other person doesn't do it. You know what I mean? Because you're going to be gone forever. Every fisherman lies about how long they're going to be gone, especially if they're on a boat. I'll be back in three hours. It's got to be at least seven. So you have a huge advantage because you guys do it together. That is very, very cool. And I'm happy for you. We spend about 12 hours a day on the boat. And we also just, you know, go to British Columbia for salmon fishing to this fabulous lodge that's up there. So we very seldom will ever eat any fish that we ourselves do not catch. I just feel better about it when I've caught it. I'm a big fan of that.

And wahoo is delicious. I love it. A lot of people see it as a sport fish only, but it isn't. It's really tasty. And it's very satisfying to know you're eating what you caught. And it's $30 a pound. Yeah, it's expensive. If you go to buy it, each one of those fish, you could sell for $700 or $800. Yeah, absolutely.

Although it doesn't net you to neutral because boating is so expensive. That's what I was just about to say. But with the price of gas, even to this day, we're now limiting how many hours we would go out there. I know. It is coming down, though. I don't know what it's like down in the Bahamas. It's $7 here a gallon. Oh, wow. That's more expensive than it is even by me. I'm out on the east end of Long Island, so gas is more expensive out there. But I have a friend who's obsessed with gas prices, and it's a real blessing to be able to boat. And if you can afford these boats, boats are so expensive that the gas is kind of secondary. But the price has been coming down, Susie. For now, I don't expect that to stay if you want to know the truth.

Because? Yeah, because China's opening up. And you have to remember, China made up a significant amount. It was one million barrels a day, I believe, is how much China was using, even during the pandemic, right before the pandemic started. So now we have a situation where China is opening up again. There will be demand there. If there is demand there, and depending what happens with Ukraine and Russia and what happens

there, I mean, Europe has had a pretty mild winter, so things have been good that way. But I just have a feeling that it is very possible that if demand picks up, you will see crude go back up again to possibly $80 or $90 a barrel. Some people project it could go as high as $120 a barrel. Currently, right now, it's about $80 a barrel. But as long as it's above $60 a barrel, energy is still pretty profitable if that's what you're thinking of investing in. You know, one of the things that really bothered me about,

and I really wish that I'd had more Suzy in my life because it's easier for you to explain it than it is for me, I'd had more Susie in my life, because it's easier for you to explain it than it is for me, is gas prices are a huge pocketbook issue for people. You know, we all know that. But they're so easily manipulated politically.

The idea of the United States, hey, we just drill a little bit more. We control our own fate. It's just not true. No, but it's worse than that, Chris. If you look at the profits, the oil companies, their cash flow is over the top. Don't tell me that they couldn't lower their profit margins and reduce the price of what they're charging everybody. So this is really a sad economic game that I think

they play. With that said, however, when you're investing, one has to decide, are you a socially responsible investor, or are you willing to invest in something where you make a serious sum of money on it and then do something that's socially responsible because you not buying their stock isn't necessarily going to affect what they do? So it was March 30th, and it's still on the podcast, when energy prices went to negative 30 in 2020 dollars a barrel. Nobody wanted it. I went on the podcast and I said, this may be the stupidest advice I've ever given you, but I want you to start buying XLE, which was the energy ETF. It was at about $30. It's about $90 right now, but it's been paying for those people about 12% in dividends

ever since they bought it. Socially responsible, it was not a good place for people to put their money given what happened over this last year. Oh, you bet it was. But also, listen, as a financial advisor and a consumer advocate, you don't make people's value decisions for them. You just lay out what the options are and you let them make their own choices. I don't have any problem with that. Here's what I have a problem with. I want your take on this. So every several months, I will read a set of economic projections that that's it. Now we've done it. We borrow way too much. Nobody's saving any money. The wage market is not going the way inflation is. And this and that, and this and that. And people are way over. And the houses are going to be underwater. And then

the cost of money, this is it. And then we keep going. And then three months go by again. That's it. They're all borrowing too much. The interest rates and the credit cards. I feel like it's my friends, my younger friends complaining to me, oh, I can't believe my mortgage I just got on my jumbo mortgage is 5.15. I'm like, 5.15? My first mortgage was 11 and a half. I thought I killed it. You know, and I thought I had such a such a win. What is the reality about the American household and how much money they're borrowing and what that really means because it seems like people are not getting the message if they're not supposed to borrow money even from the credit markets. You know, I have a saying that the hardest thing in life is to remember and the easiest thing is to forget.

People have already forgotten what happened in 2008 in many circumstances. The truth of the matter is, historically speaking, 5.5% or 6% is not that high on a mortgage. Like you said, when I bought my first home, believe it or not, when I was a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery, I figured out how to do that. But it was at 16%, and I still made a lot of money, but the house then was only $40,000. A big house that would probably be four or $5 million today. But the point is this. We've gotten to a place in our lives where we need immediate gratification. And it did not help on any level during the pandemic when the stimulus checks plus the extra unemployment checks plus the ability to not have to pay your student loan, your mortgage, certain

payments. Most people had more money during those times than they ever had before. If you checked the savings rate during the past two years, they were sky high. More money went into savings than ever before. And there wasn't a whole lot to spend money on. Interest rate, you couldn't go out to eat and all of that. Now everything has changed. We haven't seen yet credit card debt start to skyrocket because people have now started to almost spend all their savings. We have seen, however, the savings deposits start to decrease. start to decrease. We are seeing the price of homes start to stall or decrease. Are they going to crash like in 2008? No, because the loans are more solid than they were back then. Are we going

to see higher interest rates on credit cards and home equity lines of credit because people are borrowing money from their homes right now because they have so much credit in them or equity in them. It's the stupidest thing they could be doing in their lives because they don't realize that interest rates on home equity lines of credit are not fixed. They're going to be at 8%, 9%, 10%, 11% before they know it. We possibly may be heading for a global recession. I don't know how exactly that will affect if they get to keep their jobs or not. All these things are going to hit them probably this year at the exact same time that the stock market last year went down significantly, still, in my opinion, we could see a decline in the first quarter or second quarter.

So now are you going to borrow from your 401ks when the markets are down? So now the money won't be in there when the markets recover and on and on. Double whammy. I think they're heading for trouble. If you don't have the money to pay for something or if you put it on your credit card and all you can do is pay the minimum payment due, Susie Orman is here to tell you, you are an idiot. You are just an idiot. And I don't know how else to say it. Because what are you thinking? Do you care so much about the things to impress people you

don't even know or like that you're buying? And the dinners that you're going out to and the trips that you're taking? Are you kidding me? This is the time in your life when you should be saving. Every single one of you should have an 8- to 12-month emergency fund. And if you don't, if something happens to you, doesn't have to be that you lose your job. You can get ill. You could end up not being able to almost walk or do anything for two years. Then what are you going to do? So you better be prepared

for the what ifs of life. And if you don't care about doing that, then what else could I call you besides what I called you? Because there isn't a smart person around who doesn't hope for the best, hope for the best, but they prepare for the worst. So, you know, I mean, Chris, that goes to speak really to why two years ago, I co-founded the very first company that I ever participated in on that level, which is called SecureSave.com. And this is a company that's geared to creating four corporations, emergency savings accounts, sponsored by the employer where they matches the contribution for the employee. And if you looked at it today, you have over half of the people in the United States of America who don't have $400 to their name. Yep. Now they're getting a payday loan or taking money from their retirement account. So I am thrilled that this is free for employees, that employers

are loving it. We now have, after three years, major employees signing up with us. They have 50,000 employees. So major employers signing up with us. And I'm so proud of it, I can't even tell you. I love it. I love that you're trying to help people do what will be good for them. You always have. Two more things. One, college, be good for them. You always have. Two more things. One, college. Do you believe it is a worthy return on investment if somebody isn't dying to be a doctor or a professor or a lawyer or a big-time engineer? I think the college you go to, my personal belief, is not what is going to make you. You will make the college that you go to. You might make the community college that you go to.

You might even make the trade school that you go to. I have a personal belief. I don't know if it's true or not, but eventually many of the jobs that are out there, many of the careers that are out there will be replaced by artificial intelligence that is cost effective and that maybe elite groups of programmers and things, they'll still have a job. But I would not be going into student loan debt just so I could say

that I went to such and such school in less. Maybe you are going to be a lawyer, you are going to be a doctor, whatever it may be, but I don't believe in it. I mean, these kids that are going into social studies or psychology or whatever it may be, and they graduate with what? $120,000 of debt or social work. Do you know that it costs you as much to get a master's in social work as it does to get an MBA? A master's in business administration, you can make a few hundred thousand a year. Good luck making $30,000 or $40,000 a year as a social worker. What is wrong with that equation? It's a travesty. So no, I do not believe in it. I have to tell you one other thing. You want your kids to grow up and have a life where they love life and they love the water? Let them go and be a boat captain. Teach them how to do things like that. Be an electrician on a boat.

Be somebody who can repair engines. That's something that artificial intelligence can never replace. And when I say they have a great life and they make great money because I know what I pay my boat mechanic. Oh, my God. If I had kids, that's exactly where I would be gearing them towards anything else if they loved it. Right. You know, it used to be a little bit of a pejorative, but it wasn't meant that way, which is, hey, everybody needs a good plumber. And I'll tell you what, anybody who's built a house, anybody who owns a house who's not that handy by themselves, your air conditioning, your heat, you know, all the different systems

we have in our modern homes. It's really something that I have taken on. I have Mike Rowe on the podcast. You know, he's been a big influence on me in this area, but also living where I live and having the friends that I have, you know, I have buddies who are either landscapers, pool guys, maybe whatever they are, but they're entrepreneurs. See, people are like, I don't want to clean pools for a living. Yeah, neither does the guy who owns Pooltastic Pool Company. But what he does have is a $900,000 sport fishing yacht because he owns 60 different trucks and all these, they're businessmen. And people say, well, I want to go into business, so I'm going to college.

Who do you give the advantage to if one of you is going to college and you're going to have somewhere between 70 and 120 grand in debt, and the other guy has gone to trade school as a fraction of that and is now ready to start a business with his own certificate?

So I appreciate you weighing in on that because it's not the most PC thing to say. One other thing, if you're comfortable in this area. I am. Studying the necessity of our economy to find different sources of fuel. Okay. I believe that's beyond dispute. The timing is very much in dispute, but that gets into politics. We never hear about something that you and I grew up with is very taboo. never hear about something that you and I grew up with is very taboo. And I think it's time to rethink it. No one talks nuclear power. It's about 17% of our power, as you well know, but you should know. China, India, France, people are using their newer technologies for nuclear, but even if they're not, they're really ramping up their nuclear. Here, we don't do that because of the Simpsons

and Three Mile Island, and we all think that our head is going to glow if there's nuclear within two time zones. Do you think that we have falsely passed by a good interim energy source going from fossil to a less carbon-based economy? The answer to that depends. If I knew that there was intelligence behind all of what happens to the waste, where do they dispose it, what does it do, and all the things that I still don't think they know right now, that I wish they probably had stayed with nuclear.

But, you know, Chris, it's not even just nuclear, though. It's all the waste of everything. I mean, look at how many people, even in their drinking water, what happened in Flint, Michigan, what's happening in all kinds of places. The real sad part about everything is that we create all these things, even electric cars. We create all of these things saying, we're going to solve this problem and that problem and everybody's making money over it. But the people that suffer

are the people that live near those sites. Like, where are we going to get all this stuff that batteries are made out of? And what does that do to the earth? And when you're, all of it presents a danger on some level. So if I thought that we really cared about what are the ramifications of our actions on what we're creating versus, oh, let's do this because we can make money. We could do this. We could become billionaires.

We could do that. It would be an easy answer. But I've learned that I don't trust many people. You know, I'm having a really hard time with our government on some levels, on both sides, to tell you the truth. It's like things just don't make sense anymore. And the people that are suffering are the people who are making $50,000 a year or less, $60,000 or $75,000 a year or less. They are suffering. They are in poverty. Now, they can't even afford to rent an apartment anymore.

Why all these landlords are getting so seriously rich on real estate that appreciated. So I find it very, very sad out there. So you, Chris, me, everybody needs to not look at our own bottom line. We need to look at what can we do today to help those that don't feel like they can help themselves. What can we do to empower others that everybody has essentially said, you're irrelevant. You don't count. We don't really care about you because you're not financially contributing to our bottom line. I think all of us who have big bottom lines

and are lucky enough to have had that happen, we so need to contribute back to those that deserve to have attention paid to them. Agreed and appreciated. To end where we began, you were talking about earlier, you wanted to know who is Susie Orban when she's not on TV writing,

doing this and that and that. I want to know your answer and then I'll give you mine, although mine wasn't voluntary when I had to figure it out. What did you decide? Who is Susie? I'm somebody who believes very much in God.

I have tremendous faith. I don't know, Chris, how you get through things or how anybody else gets through things. If you don't have faith, then everything happens for the best. So I believe that, you know, I'm a funnel and things come through me and I say things that hopefully help people. So I think of myself as the perfect light of God. That's who I really believe I am. That is beautiful. I can't say it as well, but when I was figuring it out, Susie was coming from a different place.

She'd had a lot of different success, but she then had a very scary and drawn out medical issue that she had to deal with that really could have gone one of two ways. And I was aware of it and following along and very happy for your signature strength and how you got through it by showing everybody you could still do it, which is how you've always done it. I got shit canned, as you all know, and I was home. And once I went through a few different waves of grief and I started to think

to myself, you know, I can't, I had to get my head out of the past for a host of reasons that my therapist was yelling at me every day. And that ain't cheap, but it's the best investment I've ever made. I arrived at this, okay, look, the only way I can get past the past is by focusing on what I do next, the next right thing. And it, for me, developed into a very simple philosophy of why I'm doing everything I'm doing right now. Whether it's as a parent, as a partner, as a pal, the podcast, why I went back on TV, which I was not going to do, as Greg, my producer here, is well aware. This was our deal. Maybe move it into YouTube more, but not this. I'm here to help. Anything I can do to help, I want to do it. I don't care if I'm number one at News Nation or it doesn't, I've been number one. I wasn't really that happy. And not because of CNN,

it's a great place, but I've been number one at a big place in Larry King's old slot, a huge mentor to me, and I know a friend of you. That wasn't enough. The only thing that is enough for me, the only thing that makes sense to deal with everything that comes with this, of course, I'm in a different area of it

than you were on the finance side. This is Thunderdome that I'm in, is that I'm here to help. And I'll take the beating because I'm built for a beating anyway. And, is that I'm here to help. And I'll take the beating because I'm built for a beating anyway. And as long as I'm here to help, that's what makes me feel best. And people don't have to believe it. In fact, I wouldn't really believe it. Most people would say to me, I'm here to help. Yeah, help yourself. What do you want me to do that's going to be good

for you? But personally, it was a really crystallizing moment for me. And I was raised with faith. I was raised with somebody who strongly encouraged me to be a Shabbos goy. One of my father's closest friends was a Lubavitcher Rebbe named Israel Maushwitz. And I understand faith. I understand the role of religion. I respect it very deeply. I don't judge anybody's faith or belief.

But I needed to keep it simple. And for me, it was just everything I'm doing has got to be geared towards trying to help. And that's got to be the obvious inference. You know, it can't be that it's this, this, this, and it's also going to help. If it helps, I'm there. I have three things that I want you to remember that I've always told you, all right, to help get you through the moments of doubt or the moments of questioning or whatever. And the very first one is this. The elephant keeps walking as the dogs keep barking. It does not matter what anybody else says. You are the elephant. You are your life.

Just keep walking. Okay? That's one thing. Next thing is let people think because they're going to think anyway. It does not matter, Chris, what other people think about you, what other people say about you. The only thing that matters is what you think about yourself. That's it. So let everybody else say whatever they want to say. Let them think whatever they're going to think, because they're going to do it one way or the other.

And what I always say when I'm finding that I'm challenged with something or whatever it may be, that I say this to myself, I am a warrior and I am not going to turn my back on the battlefield. I am not. And that gives me this stature. I don't know why it always has, but it's like, I can do this. And the last is you have to have faith that everything happens for the best. Because if you don't, then you start to feel sorry for yourself and you're like angry and you're doing all this stuff that brings you down. Chris, be the strong man that you are. Be the righteous man that you are. Be the person that you know you are. And one day, nobody will know anything else other

than who you are. That's what I'm afraid of. No, I appreciate it very much. It's great advice. I appreciate it, and I am trying. That I know. I'm trying. I can't determine all the outcomes, but I can determine the effort. Susie Orman, thank you so much for being a gift to my audience. I appreciate you. You are always welcome anywhere I am, but I'll understand that you'll probably be fishing. Maybe, but the one thing I want to know where all of you are is are you listening to the Women and Money podcast? And if not, are you kidding me? That is the definition of stupid. My wife loves it. It's geared so that women can feel comfortable and be empowered within the knowledge and the intellectual construct provided, but it's for everybody. As Susie said

earlier, and I'm not surprised by its success because in my lifetime, I've never seen you be anything but a success. God bless and be well. The best to everybody at home and tight lines, tight lines. home and tight lines, tight lines. Oh, what a great listen and watch. And I hope you're checking out Susie Worman's podcast. It is all the rage. It is strong. It is fun. It moves. If you're a woman, it's especially empowering and helpful. But I'll tell you, I think it is just universal. Easy, easy. Like everything Susie Orman does, it makes sense because she makes sense. Thanks so much for listening and watching, subscribing and following. Don't forget your free agent gear. And you know,

if a fraction of you guys watched my News Nation show, my ratings would skyrocket. News Nation, you can find it. We'll put a link up so that you can click to it and figure out where it is where you are, 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern, every night, five nights a week. Please watch me on NewsNation. I'll see you next time.