The Savings Game (Pt. 4) - Suze Orman
	The Savings Game (Pt 4) Suze Orman HOLMES: We just met two people who thought their financial futures were all set, only to be blindsided. When you're knocked down like that, is it possible to piece together your shattered retirement dreams? Well, here to answer that question is Suze Orman, best-selling author and financial expert, whose brand-new book is entitled "The Courage To Be Rich." Thank you for being here. Ms. ORMAN: Thanks for having me, Horace. HOLMES: I guess the--the person who really needs to have some courage right now is Nancy, who by her own admission, says that she's starting over from zero. Ms. ORMAN: Yeah, Nancy needs a lot of courage. Nancy's going to need the courage to get rid of the house that she's in, to go back and work, to be able to say things to her little son to make sure that it's OK to really become a warrior again and to start over. And to start over at 46, it's not too late. Thank God she's only 46. She can do it. HOLMES: You know, when we make the plans for our wedding... Ms. ORMAN: Yes. HOLMES: ...we don't plan on anything going wrong. Ms. ORMAN: That's right. HOLMES: Is there anything that she could have done ahead of time to protect herself? Ms. ORMAN: You know, it depends on what their situation was, but there is. She could have at least said, `I want my own checking account. I want my own money. I want to be a viable part of this marriage, which means I want to control some of the things that are happening here.' Instead what Nance did was she said, `OK, husband, I love you. Here, it's all for you.' And she gave up of her power, which has contributed to her powerlessness now. She should have remained an equal player, not only on the emotional level, the psycholic--the psychological level, but on the financial level as well, and that was the message she should have passed down to her son, by the way, that you stay involved with money. You stay strong and you don't give up your power ever over to somebody else an--under the guise of love, because that's not what love is. That's surrender and that's not necessarily good. And she's finding that out now. HOLMES: Absolutely. The hard way. Ms. ORMAN: Reality is one out of two marriages end up in divorce. The number-one reason they end up in divorce is arguments over money. So the time to say what's going to happen is during a time of love, when you want to take care of each other, not when, all of a sudden, between her and her husband, things are not good. She doesn't have any money to her account. I think I heard her say she has $200 to her name. HOLMES: Right. Ms. ORMAN: Who knows what her husband is doing. Now is not the time to deal with it, but now she has to. HOLMES: What about the rest of us? Do we really do all that we should to really control our financial futures and--and to plan for retirement? Ms. ORMAN: Actually, we don't. Nancy and Jerry are very typical. We are--we're all such good human beings, really. We want to believe that everything's going to work out OK. We want to believe that we're going to be with our husbands or our wives forever, that our employer is going to take care of us. So we don't do the research necessary. We don't look at our statements. We don't spend as much time taking care of our money as we do earning it. Think about it, Horace. We spend 40 to 60 hours a week earning this money. How many hours do you think Jerry spent in the whole time that he worked for that corporation looking at his money, figuring out how to invest it? We're all just like that. HOLMES: But you know what? 401(k)s have come in and they say that the numbers of people putting money in 401(k)s is through the roof and I guess we think we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, but we're not, huh? Ms. ORMAN: Most people, when it comes to their 401(k)s, they don't put in the maximum. Most people put in 6 percent, which is usually what their corporation that they're working for is matching. You know, we could put up to a maximum of $10,000 a year into a 401(k), 10, 15 percent of what you're earning. Are all of us at the maximum? No. We kind of just put in what our employer matches and then we stop and we think that's going to be enough. Well, the truth is, Horace, who wants to get old? HOLMES: Mm-hmm. Ms. ORMAN: You know, even though we're all aging, we all still feel like we're kids inside so mentally we can't get that we're getting older. However, we all need to be planning today for our tomorrows. We all need to be putting the maximum in our 401(k)s. We all need to have living revokable trusts, wills, durable power of attorneys for health care. We need those things in place today and just because t--we don't want tomorrow to come, I got news for you, everybody... HOLMES: It's coming. Ms. ORMAN: It's a-marching on its way, so you might as well let it march in your life and carry you into the new millennium. HOLMES: Suze Orman, thank you so much. Ms. ORMAN: Thanks for having me. HOLMES: When we come back, we'll meet two people who Suze would be very proud of. Mr. JARMAN: All of a sudden I find myself in a lawyer's office signing all these documents and stating that they were going to wire six figures into my account. And I just kind of said, `Boy, this is true and it's really happening.' Ms. SCHAEFER: In order to be successful in investing, you--there are just more things that you--you can't be. You can't be stupid. You can't be greedy and you can't be impulsive.