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Why Friendship Isn't a Financial Plan · Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)

• 0:09
  Robert: May 17th, 2026. Welcome to the Women and Money podcast
• 0:12
  Robert: as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi, everybody, Robert,
• 0:16
  Robert: the producer here. Now, as you know, Suze and KT
• 0:19
  Robert: have been in Japan for the past couple of weeks,
• 0:22
  Robert: and they're now on their way back to the States.
• 0:25
  Robert: And yes, we did get a bunch of shows pre-recorded,
• 0:28
  Robert: but this one is going to be an important re-listen
• 0:31
  Robert: and let me tell you why I picked this particular
• 0:34
  Robert: episode for you today.
• 0:36
  Robert: As you may or may not know, because Suze teases
• 0:39
  Robert: me about it here on the podcast, I go to
• 0:41
  Robert: a fair amount of concerts every year. And the other
• 0:44
  Robert: day I was chatting with a person I met at
• 0:46
  Robert: a show while we were waiting for the band to
• 0:48
  Robert: come on, and she mentioned that she wasn't sure she'd
• 0:51
  Robert: be able to keep seeing concerts as much because her
• 0:54
  Robert: new financial advisor wasn't performing as well as the previous
• 0:58
  Robert: one did. So I asked her why she switched and
• 1:00
  Robert: she said, oh, I'm doing a favor for my friend
• 1:03
  Robert: who just started their financial planning business.
• 1:06
  Robert: So I pulled out my phone and I sent her
• 1:08
  Robert: the episode you're gonna hear highlights from today and suggested that,
• 1:12
  Robert: you know, if she wants to, maybe she should start
• 1:14
  Robert: following Suze.
• 1:16
  Robert: Now's a good time for "Friendship Isn't a Financial Plan"
• 1:19
  Robert: to come back to the top of your feed. We
• 1:22
  Robert: expect to hear all about Suze and KT's trip to
• 1:25
  Robert: Japan this coming Thursday, but for now, here's Suze.
• 1:32
  Suze: We're going to start Suze School with a story.
• 1:36
  Suze: And the lesson of the story is this friendship isn't
• 1:42
  Suze: a financial plan.
• 1:45
  Suze: Friendship isn't a financial plan, OK? That's the lesson of
• 1:51
  Suze: this story.
• 1:53
  Suze: Are you ready?
• 1:55
  Suze: So, I'm telling you this story truthfully because I really
• 2:00
  Suze: think every one of you needs to hear this, especially,
• 2:03
  Suze: you know, women, we tend to do things we don't
• 2:06
  Suze: want to do. We say yes when we want to
• 2:09
  Suze: say no. We think one thing, yet we say another,
• 2:12
  Suze: and I include myself in this, by the way. I've
• 2:15
  Suze: learned that lesson, trust me. My new lesson is don't
• 2:18
  Suze: say yes, Suze Orman, when you want to say no.
• 2:21
  Suze: So, if we're not careful, then this situation could possibly
• 2:26
  Suze: happen to you, and it can cost you a whole
• 2:30
  Suze: lot of money. There's this woman, and let's just call
• 2:33
  Suze: her Susan, OK.
• 2:36
  Suze: And she had about $2 million invested with a financial
• 2:41
  Suze: advisor who had been doing absolutely remarkable for her.
• 2:47
  Suze: And we're talking consistent 15, 20, even 28% returns over
• 2:53
  Suze: the past few years, which is spectacular.
• 2:57
  Suze: And he charged her a 1.5% advisory fee. Now, I know,
• 3:02
  Suze: I know. I told all of you I wouldn't be
• 3:04
  Suze: paying more than 1% in an investment advisory fee, but
• 3:09
  Suze: sometimes when an advisor is in incredible demand,
• 3:13
  Suze: and they are producing results like the ones I just
• 3:17
  Suze: told you about year after year after year that if
• 3:21
  Suze: they want to charge 1.5% and after that 1.5% fee
• 3:26
  Suze: they're still talking 15, 20, 28, 30% returns, I don't
• 3:31
  Suze: have a problem with that.
• 3:33
  Suze: So here we are.
• 3:35
  Suze: And one day, Susan is out to lunch with her really,
• 3:40
  Suze: really good friend. And what do good friends do? They
• 3:43
  Suze: always talk about their kids.
• 3:45
  Suze: And the good friend happens to say, Susan, my son
• 3:51
  Suze: just became a financial advisor.
• 3:55
  Suze: And is it possible that you could do me a favor?
• 3:59
  Suze: Do you think you would transfer your account to him
• 4:04
  Suze: so he can look like he has clients that have money?
• 4:09
  Suze: Think about what this good friend just asked Susan.
• 4:16
  Suze: To change her account to her son who just became
• 4:20
  Suze: a financial advisor.
• 4:23
  Suze: Just so he can look good.
• 4:25
  Suze: Now, besides the fact that I've told all of you.
• 4:28
  Suze: In general, I wouldn't pay more than 1% for an
• 4:32
  Suze: investment advisory fee unless the advisor is seriously worth it
• 4:36
  Suze: and the numbers tell the story.
• 4:39
  Suze: I've also said to you, I wouldn't dare invest with somebody,
• 4:45
  Suze: especially in these kinds of markets who hadn't been an
• 4:49
  Suze: advisor for at least 5 years, 10 years, 15 or
• 4:53
  Suze: 20 years, many, many years.
• 4:58
  Suze: I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
• 5:02
  Suze: But because Susan didn't want to upset her friend.
• 5:07
  Suze: Because even though she may have wanted to say no,
• 5:10
  Suze: she said, OK, yes, yes, I'll do it, and I
• 5:15
  Suze: find that most women say yes out of guilt.
• 5:19
  Suze: You know, I say this all the time.
• 5:21
  Suze: Women would rather say yes out of fear that somebody
• 5:25
  Suze: won't like them any more versus no out of love
• 5:30
  Suze: for herself.
• 5:32
  Suze: So what did she do? She actually called her financial
• 5:37
  Suze: advisor up.
• 5:39
  Suze: And told him, I'm moving my account.
• 5:44
  Suze: And when the adviser said, why in the world are
• 5:47
  Suze: you moving your account?
• 5:49
  Suze: And she said, well, number one, and the most important
• 5:53
  Suze: reason is because he's only charging me 1% instead of 1.5%.
• 6:03
  Suze: OK, now I just want you to think about this.
• 6:06
  Suze: And this is the Suze School lesson of the day
• 6:12
  Suze: and the one mistake I want you always to avoid.
• 6:16
  Suze: You never base financial decisions on friendship. You never judge
• 6:22
  Suze: an adviser solely by their fee.
• 6:25
  Suze: It's not the fee that matters. It's the results. It's
• 6:29
  Suze: the track record. It is the performance. Would you rather
• 6:34
  Suze: pay someone 1.5% who has proven that they can make
• 6:39
  Suze: you real sizable returns year in and year out, or 1%
• 6:45
  Suze: to someone who's absolutely brand new?
• 6:48
  Suze: Untested and simply hoping to save that 0.5% and to
• 6:53
  Suze: help them out.
• 6:55
  Suze: You have to know the answer to that. You just
• 6:58
  Suze: have to know.
• 7:00
  Suze: And the lesson here is what friendship is not a
• 7:05
  Suze: financial plan. Guilt is not a strategy. Do you get this, everybody?
• 7:10
  Suze: And loyalty does not grow your money. It does not.
• 7:16
  Suze: So I want you to write this one lesson down.
• 7:20
  Suze: You must protect your own financial security, even if that
• 7:25
  Suze: means saying no to someone you care about.
• 7:31
  Suze: All right, so now that we know that friendship isn't
• 7:34
  Suze: a financial plan, the next thing I want you to
• 7:37
  Suze: learn is about tax-loss, harvesting the correct way. And the
• 7:43
  Suze: reason that I say the correct way is because I
• 7:47
  Suze: talked about this, and I told you some of the
• 7:49
  Suze: things that I was doing in my own account, and
• 7:52
  Suze: then you go to do it and you write me
• 7:54
  Suze: and I go, no, no, don't do that.
• 7:58
  Suze: So, let's try this again.
• 8:02
  Suze: Tax-loss harvesting is when you have gains in your investment
• 8:08
  Suze: account outside of a retirement account and possibly losses as well.
• 8:14
  Suze: And you want to offset your gains with your losses
• 8:18
  Suze: so you don't owe as much in income tax as
• 8:21
  Suze: you would if all you had was gains. So let's
• 8:25
  Suze: talk about this. You need to first know the difference
• 8:29
  Suze: between realized gains versus unrealized gains.
• 8:35
  Suze: So what is a realized gain? A realized gain. Think
• 8:39
  Suze: of the words that I'm using. A realized gain is
• 8:43
  Suze: obviously you realized your gain. You actually got it, which
• 8:48
  Suze: means you sold something. You took a profit, and you
• 8:53
  Suze: took a profit because you sold it for more than
• 8:56
  Suze: you paid, and that's a realized gain. The IRS sees it.
• 9:02
  Suze: And then the IRS taxes you on it. Just that simple.
• 9:07
  Suze: What is an unrealized gain? And this again is just
• 9:11
  Suze: a fancy word for you haven't realized them. You have
• 9:16
  Suze: a profit, but you haven't sold it yet, so the
• 9:20
  Suze: gain lives only on paper. You haven't realized it, so
• 9:24
  Suze: there's nothing taxable yet.
• 9:28
  Suze: So how does tax-loss harvesting work? All right, just listen.
• 9:32
  Suze: Let's say you have a stock you don't want anymore,
• 9:36
  Suze: and it's sitting at a loss. You can sell that stock,
• 9:41
  Suze: realize the loss, and use that loss to offset any
• 9:46
  Suze: realized gains that you already have.
• 9:50
  Suze: That's one way that you can do it now. Sometimes
• 9:53
  Suze: you actually have more of a loss than you do gains.
• 9:57
  Suze: So if you don't use up all of your loss,
• 10:00
  Suze: you can carry it forward to future years.
• 10:04
  Suze: If you don't have any gain at all, you can
• 10:07
  Suze: take $3,000 off and keep doing that every year.
• 10:13
  Suze: So why am I telling you all this? Because a
• 10:18
  Suze: lot of you heard me say you sell your losses
• 10:23
  Suze: against your gains so you don't owe income taxes. But
• 10:27
  Suze: here's the problem you never ever sell a stock at
• 10:32
  Suze: a loss if you want to own that stock, and
• 10:37
  Suze: you best write that down.
• 10:41
  Suze: You never sell a stock just to take a tax
• 10:44
  Suze: loss if you believe in that stock.
• 10:48
  Suze: Because listen to me, when a stock you love goes down,
• 10:51
  Suze: that is not the time to run from it. That
• 10:54
  Suze: is the time to do what, everybody? Dollar cost average
• 10:58
  Suze: into it. That is the time to buy more. So
• 11:02
  Suze: let's say you love Apple.
• 11:05
  Suze: And it drops. It's down. You don't sell it to
• 11:08
  Suze: take a tax loss. You buy more shares at a
• 11:11
  Suze: lower price and bring down your average cost. So can
• 11:15
  Suze: we just get that one thing straight? If you still
• 11:19
  Suze: want the stock, you keep it. You only sell a
• 11:23
  Suze: losing stock if you want to get rid of it
• 11:26
  Suze: and you don't want to own it anymore. Got that.
• 11:31
  Suze: So you really need to understand that because some of
• 11:36
  Suze: you are doing this because you're writing me.
• 11:39
  Suze: You have some losses in stocks that you actually like,
• 11:45
  Suze: great stocks.
• 11:47
  Suze: And you want to sell those stocks to take a loss,
• 11:52
  Suze: to offset some realized gains that you have in your portfolio,
• 11:57
  Suze: obviously outside of a retirement account.
• 12:01
  Suze: And I'm like, please don't do that. And people are
• 12:05
  Suze: asking me, well, why shouldn't I do that? And the
• 12:09
  Suze: reason you shouldn't do that is when you take a
• 12:12
  Suze: loss in a stock. You cannot buy that stock back
• 12:17
  Suze: for at least 30 days. Now 30 days may seem
• 12:22
  Suze: like a really short period of time.
• 12:25
  Suze: But not in these markets. I have seen stocks go
• 12:29
  Suze: down 40 points and all of a sudden in 2
• 12:33
  Suze: weeks they're up 60 points. So you think you're gonna
• 12:37
  Suze: outsmart these markets and all of a sudden you sold
• 12:39
  Suze: for a little loss.
• 12:41
  Suze: And now 30 days hasn't passed, and now you sold
• 12:45
  Suze: it at let's just say $50 a share.
• 12:48
  Suze: You bought it at 60.
• 12:50
  Suze: And now it's at 80, but you weren't able to
• 12:53
  Suze: still be in it because you sold it at a
• 12:55
  Suze: loss simply to take a loss? No.
• 13:00
  Suze: Again, you only sell a loss when you no longer
• 13:05
  Suze: want to own that stock, and you can use that
• 13:08
  Suze: loss to help yourself for tax purposes. Anything else? I
• 13:13
  Suze: don't think so.
• 13:16
  Suze: So you're confused about that. If you have, however, a
• 13:21
  Suze: stock that you no longer want, which was true in
• 13:24
  Suze: my case, there were two stocks that I had a
• 13:27
  Suze: loss on, and I no longer wanted to own those stocks.
• 13:32
  Suze: I made a mistake. Fine, I'm going to take the loss.
• 13:37
  Suze: But at the time when I did that, I didn't
• 13:40
  Suze: have any realized gains to offset that loss.
• 13:46
  Suze: I didn't realize any gains yet. I had a lot
• 13:48
  Suze: of unrealized gains, lots of unrealized gains, but no realized gains,
• 13:55
  Suze: cause I still like all the stocks that I own,
• 13:58
  Suze: except for those two. OK.
• 14:01
  Suze: So what did I do? And this was just an example.
• 14:06
  Suze: I sold the number of shares of stock that I
• 14:09
  Suze: had a big gain in that was equivalent to the
• 14:14
  Suze: loss that I was taking, so they offset each other directly.
• 14:21
  Suze: So what did I do then? I immediately bought the
• 14:24
  Suze: stock that I had to gain in back the exact
• 14:27
  Suze: same numbers of shares. Now, what did I gain by
• 14:31
  Suze: doing that? Let's just say I bought that stock at 7.
• 14:36
  Suze: And now that stock is 160 or 70.
• 14:42
  Suze: So, even if I just sold 10 shares to offset
• 14:45
  Suze: my loss, let's say that was true.
• 14:48
  Suze: And I bought those 10 shares back immediately. Now my
• 14:52
  Suze: cost basis on those 10 shares
• 14:55
  Suze: is $170 a share. If that stock continues up, and
• 15:01
  Suze: I now sell it at, let's just say $300 a share.
• 15:07
  Suze: I'm only going to have a gain of 130 points
• 15:12
  Suze: versus $7 to $300. Do you understand what I did?
• 15:19
  Suze: So don't think it's just so simple where you sell
• 15:23
  Suze: stocks to offset gains.
• 15:26
  Suze: You only sell stocks that have a loss in it
• 15:29
  Suze: to offset gains, if you don't wanna own those stocks
• 15:34
  Suze: ever again.
• 15:37
  Suze: All right. Do I think that's enough for Suze School today?
• 15:42
  Suze: I think I do. So what did we learn? We
• 15:45
  Suze: learned that friendship is not a financial plan. We learned
• 15:49
  Suze: that you only sell stocks at a loss to offset
• 15:54
  Suze: gains when you no longer want to own those stocks.
• 15:59
  Suze: So until Thursday when Miss Travis joins us again.
• 16:04
  Suze: For another Ask KT and Suze and me thing, there's only
• 16:08
  Suze: one thing that I want you to know when it
• 16:09
  Suze: comes to your money, and it's this people first, then money,
• 16:14
  Suze: then things. Now you stay safe.