Podcast Episode - Suze School: The World of the Unexpected
August 13, 2023
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With all the recent natural disasters occurring throughout the world, are we prepared for what could happen in an emergency?
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:00
Intro / Outro: OK, Suze, are you ready for today's podcast?
00:00:03
Intro / Outro: Oh, you bet I am because I'm unstoppable
00:00:08
Intro / Outro: Music (in).
00:00:29
Suze: August 13th, 2023. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money Podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen. So I'm recording this from Florida. We came to Florida a few days ago because, you know, you have to sometimes come back off the island to get your teeth cleaned, haircuts, things like that.
00:00:56
Suze: And so when we're here, we tend to do things that you can't do on the island, like going to a movie. So I had this brilliant idea and I said, KT, I'm taking you to a movie
00:01:12
Suze: Now while we were there, KT took a video of the sitting in the movie theater
00:01:21
Suze: and scanned the entire theater saying, look here we are, Suze rented this movie theater for us. I love it or whatever she said. And then I thought, OK, I'll post it
00:01:37
Suze: and I posted it on the Women and Money community app with the question,
00:01:44
Suze: is this true or false saying that I would tell you on today's podcast. So many of you answered and you went, of course, it's false. Are you so sure? Everybody? Of course it's false, Suze Never, ever, ever would waste money like that. That's not who Suze is
00:02:11
Suze: then many of you said. Oh, that's so true. Of course she did. She has the money to do so. It's true. She rented the whole place out. Look at it.
00:02:21
Suze: Many of you were also fascinated by. But where's your popcorn, Suze? Aren't you eating popcorn? The answer to that is very simple. No, I'm not eating popcorn. I told all of you just a few months ago on a podcast. I'm not gonna eat popcorn until I've lost weight and I haven't lost weight. So I'm not gonna eat popcorn.
00:02:44
Suze: Well, that doesn't really matter because it seems like I'm eating everything else that I really love. So, what difference does it make? But when I say I'm not gonna do something, I don't do it. Now, before I tell you whether it's true or false,
00:03:00
Suze: I want to tell you just a little story. And the story dates back years ago into the late seventies when I was a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery and two men would come in and get coffee and get a dessert and I became friends with them at the time and their names were Steve. They were both Steves
00:03:25
Suze: and those Steves turned out to be Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who developed the Apple computer at the time that they were coming in, they were working on it in one of their garages. Steve Wozniak, I think, had something called 1 800 dial a joke that he had done. It was fascinating to get to serve them before I even knew who I was serving. Ok.
00:03:54
Suze: Then a while after Apple went public and they had made all this money I was reading or hearing it on the news or who knows how I found out that Steve Wozniak, who I think at the time was living in Santa Cruz, California decided he was going to rent an entire theater to watch a movie all by himself. And that is exactly what he did.
00:04:23
Suze: And I went, wow, that's something else. Now that you've heard that story, do you think it's true or false?
00:04:37
Suze: All right. Everybody after I heard that story about Steve Wozniak, I did not admire that story. I did not admire what he did with that money. I thought it was the most biggest ridiculous waste of money
00:04:55
Suze: ever in my entire life. Who would do something that stupid? Definitely not me. Suze Orman would never waste money like that. Are you kidding me? So, for those of you who said it was true? Really? You think that's what I would do with money?
00:05:21
Suze: Oh, boy. I don't know. You gotta learn to know me a little bit better. But no,
00:05:29
Suze: and that's the answer to that little quizzie that was posted on the Women and Money Community app.
00:05:38
Suze: Next, today
00:05:40
Suze: I was going to do a Suze school on
00:05:46
Suze: Roth IRAs, the five-year rules because there's two of them there as well as the rules on Inherited IRAs whether it's a Roth or a traditional because there was a little bit of a change on July 17th this year about inherited IRAs . But I have that all planned in my head. And as you know, when I do a podcast, it just kind of comes out, not like I plan it, plan it.
00:06:14
Suze: I just kind of tell you what I really want you to know.
00:06:18
Suze: So that's what was in my mind this morning
00:06:22
Suze: until I was watching television
00:06:27
Suze: and on television, I was watching Maui and what's happening there and how an entire town has been wiped out. So very first of all my prayers and well wishes and blessings to everybody who is suffering like that, who is in Maui knows anybody in Maui such a travesty.
00:06:52
Suze: But it started me thinking about the world,
00:06:58
Suze: the world of the unexpected.
00:07:02
Suze: And I've talked to all of you before about this. I think I did a podcast somewhere a while ago called Expect The Unexpected.
00:07:11
Suze: But we are living in a time and a place
00:07:17
Suze: where anything can happen at any time.
00:07:22
Suze: It upsets me greatly the war that's going on in Ukraine. I can't even believe that it's still going on, I look at the devastation there
00:07:33
Suze: and I think about all the people there,
00:07:38
Suze: especially Kiev because you have to remember my father was from there. Ukraine holds a very dear and near place to my heart. But I think about all the millions of people, all throughout that area that don't have homes anymore. Tens of thousands of them don't know where their kids are, that the buildings are destroyed. It's like what's gonna happen there yet it happened.
00:08:06
Suze: And I think about that there are warships now from China and Russia in the coast off of Alaska and things like that. And I'm like, really everybody
00:08:19
Suze: and then I think about Beijing and China where they have all these floods now in places that I've walked the streets and that, you know, I taught a little thing at Beida University and all these things and I'm looking at all the destruction in the Philippines,
00:08:40
Suze: and the tornadoes that are absolutely ripping up the Midwest and in places that nobody had any time to really prepare for or expect. Um It makes it very difficult for me
00:08:57
Suze: at that point in time to want to talk about
00:09:02
Suze: Roth IRAs to put it very mildly.
00:09:06
Suze: I want to take this time
00:09:09
Suze: for you to think about all these things very seriously as well. So I really want to stress
00:09:19
Suze: that all of you think about that
00:09:23
Suze: and if something were to happen like that, what would you do?
00:09:30
Suze: What do you have in place where are all your important must have documents? Do people who don't live with? You have copies of them?
00:09:44
Suze: Do they have copies of everything that you want to have a copy of your marriage certificate, pictures that you want? Because it is possible that other people can hold very valuable things for you
00:10:01
Suze: that don't live anywhere near where you live.
00:10:07
Suze: So what backup plans do you have? Now? obviously, when you have things on the cloud, your insurance policies, maybe all the pictures of your loved ones and things like that, pictures of your birth certificates, your marriage certificates, your divorce decree, whatever it may be,
00:10:29
Suze: then it's easy enough for somewhere when you get to a place to be able to download all those things again and have your life in order,
00:10:44
Suze: at least for the things that really, really matter.
00:10:48
Suze: And I can tell you that having gone through the Oakland fires way back when, where 3000 homes were destroyed and doing so much work with the fire insurance of these people, the biggest thing that was devastating wasn't the fact that they lost their home, so to speak,
00:11:13
Suze: but was they lost their pictures, they lost the Mementos and the things that they can't ever replace.
00:11:24
Suze: So I think it's really important that you have an inventory and you do it right now
00:11:34
Suze: of absolutely everything that is in your house. Because even if you listen to the stories of the people on Maui, they had minutes, minutes
00:11:48
Suze: to get out if they even got out.
00:11:51
Suze: So if your house was to catch fire or all of a sudden, a tornado with no warning came through and your house is just sticks and stones and everything in it is gone.
00:12:08
Suze: What are you gonna tell the insurance company? Can you really remember every single thing that is in your home?
00:12:19
Suze: Now, part of one of the programs that I did
00:12:24
Suze: was called the Insurance Evaluator and part of that was the home inventory tracker. So I'm going to see if I can put on the women and money community app, the inventory tracker for you to be able to use or download
00:12:50
Suze: so that you can use it and go through every single room of your home
00:12:58
Suze: and take pictures of everything, put down what it was worth, put down things that I know you will not remember that you're probably insured for, but you're not gonna get the insurance for it if you can't claim it and you can't claim it if you can't even remember that you have it.
00:13:37
Suze: but
00:13:38
Suze: you need to go and do that with my inventory tracker. Or not and really make a list of everything and the value of it because you need that for your insurance.
00:13:54
Suze: Now, if you keep it online or you send a copy of it to your insurance agent before something happens,
00:14:03
Suze: then when something happens, you will be totally ok.
00:14:10
Suze: So that's one thing.
00:14:14
Suze: The next thing I want to talk about is something else that really upset me deeply this morning, which is why it's just, I don't just want to talk about Roth IRAs. So this morning, I got a text from a woman that I've been working with for so many years now, who is a survivor of domestic abuse, a very real thing. Everybody
00:14:41
Suze: that so many people go through
00:14:45
Suze: her abuse was so horrific and I had been interviewing her for something and this woman just, she was so tough, so tough. But her toughness touched my heart
00:15:01
Suze: and somehow we struck up a relationship and I've worked with her very closely over all these years, so much so that she went to college. She got a degree,
00:15:17
Suze: obviously KT and I had to help her financially to do so. But it was our privilege to do that because she had at the time two Children, she now has an 18 year old, an 11 year old and a six month old.
00:15:37
Suze: However, she's been doing really, really well and she now just got a new job where for the first time they are offering her a life insurance policy for free as well as a 403 B Roth.
00:15:58
Suze: So she texts me this morning and she says, Suze, I'm so excited. I'm gonna have my first retirement account and first life insurance policy.
00:16:11
Suze: And I said, that's great. I said, who have you left as the beneficiaries of your life insurance policy?
00:16:21
Suze: And she says the names of her three kids
00:16:26
Suze: and she said, but I'm dividing it equally between them. Although the oldest, I'm giving 34% 2 and the other two, I'm giving 33% to.
00:16:38
Suze: And I said to her, but miners can't inherit money.
00:16:44
Suze: I said, you're gonna have to leave it all to the oldest one so that she has access to it so she can take care of with whatever amount is in this life insurance policy
00:16:57
Suze: so that she can take care of them because you have educated her that if something happens to you, she's gonna have to step in as the mother. You've done that correct. She said, yes, Suze, we always have these talks. She
00:17:13
Suze: knows what she's going to have to do because she knows what I had to do to make sure that she was ok. And she said, well, Suze, how old do the kids have to be before I can leave the money to them directly?
00:17:30
Suze: And I said 18, and she said, so I'm gonna have to live at least another 18 years
00:17:38
Suze: to be able to leave that money to my son. And I said, yes, that's true.
00:17:46
Suze: And she said ok,
00:17:48
Suze: but my oldest will make sure that they're ok.
00:17:53
Suze: And I said to her, what happens if something happens to your oldest? She said, oh, no, no, nothing will ever happen to her. Don't worry, nothing will ever happen to her. She eats well, she takes care of herself. And I said, have you ever heard of something like a car accident or something that an illness or anything? She said? No, nothing can ever happen to her.
00:18:21
Suze: And I said, and why are you so strong in that opinion? She said because without her, all I have is you
00:18:30
Suze: and I'm like, no, you don't have me that way. You can't count on me to take care of your kids. You have to figure this out. And she said, but Suze, I don't have anybody else.
00:18:46
Suze: And I said, what about your mother? What about your aunt? What about this one? What about that one? And for every one, she had an excuse.
00:18:57
Suze: And I said those excuses aren't strong enough. You have to put down your mother's name as the successor beneficiary or your aunt's name.
00:19:09
Suze: But somebody has to be there if something happens to your eldest child.
00:19:18
Suze: But here we have again, a situation
00:19:22
Suze: where you have to expect the unexpected,
00:19:26
Suze: you have to expect that something like this could absolutely happen. So my question then to all of you is, do you have a plan in place for that?
00:19:42
Suze: Because sometimes we have time when we get ill to put everything in order, but sometimes death can happen very, very quickly,
00:19:52
Suze: very quickly, very unexpectedly.
00:19:56
Suze: And if that were to happen to you,
00:20:00
Suze: do you know that everything is in place?
00:20:05
Suze: Right? Do you have primary beneficiaries? Do you know the difference between a primary beneficiary and a contingent beneficiary? Do we know what happens if the primary beneficiary was to die first even before you? And what that means for the contingent beneficiary? So I'm gonna have to do a Suze School on that because it's not exactly how you think it will be.
00:20:34
Suze: So you have to make sure that you know all of these things. So next week
00:20:43
Suze: we will be doing the difference between a primary beneficiary, a contingent beneficiary. We're gonna be talking about the things that can affect not just your life because if something happens to you and you die, you're out of here, but the lives of those that you love.
00:21:04
Suze: But for this week, I want this to be a thoughtful podcast. I want this to be a disturbing podcast on some level
00:21:14
Suze: disturbing enough that it makes you before next Sunday, go through your house, go through your paperwork. Look at who your beneficiaries are. Look at who your contingent beneficiaries are. Look, if there's a place for a successor beneficiary rather than a contingent beneficiary look at everything you need to know that if something were to happen today,
00:21:41
Suze: to you, to your property, to your town, to your city, to your state, to everything,
00:21:50
Suze: you would at least have everything in a place either online on the cloud or copies of it all with somebody else who doesn't live near you that you can trust
00:22:04
Suze: but that you have everything in place.
00:22:10
Suze: So today,
00:22:13
Suze: wherever I go
00:22:15
Suze: I will create with everything I have with every thought that I have with every prayer that I have with every wish that I have for others. A more joyful, peaceful and loving world.
00:22:34
Suze: And I can promise all of you
00:22:37
Suze: if you do everything I asked today on the podcast,
00:22:41
Suze: as well as what I want you to say every day,
00:22:45
Suze: I promise you, you will be unstoppable.
00:22:55
Intro / Outro: Music (out).
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