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

• 0:08
  Suze: December 7th, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women in Money podcast,
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  Suze: as well as everybody smart enough to listen. And today
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  Suze: is Suze School.
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  Suze: So get out your Suze notebooks.
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  Suze: And we're going to start Suze School with a story.
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  Suze: And the lesson of the story is this friendship isn't
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  Suze: a financial plan.
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  Suze: Friendship isn't a financial plan, OK? That's the lesson of
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  Suze: this story.
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  Suze: Are you ready?
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  Suze: So...
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  Suze: I'm telling you this story truthfully because I really think
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  Suze: every one of you needs to hear this, especially, you know, women,
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  Suze: we tend to do things we don't want to do.
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  Suze: We say yes when we want to say no. We
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  Suze: think one thing, yet we say another, and I include
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  Suze: myself in this, by the way. I've learned that lesson,
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  Suze: trust me. My new lesson is don't say yes, Suze Orman,
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  Suze: when you want to say no.
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  Suze: So, if we're not careful, then this situation could possibly
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  Suze: happen to you, and it can cost you a whole
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  Suze: lot of money. There's this woman, and let's just call
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  Suze: her Susan, OK.
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  Suze: And she had about $2 million invested with a financial
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  Suze: adviser who had been doing absolutely remarkable for her.
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  Suze: And we're talking consistent 15, 20, even 28% returns over
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  Suze: the past few years, which is spectacular.
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  Suze: And he charged her a 1.5% advisory fee. Now, I know,
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  Suze: I know, I told all of you I wouldn't be
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  Suze: paying more than 1% in an investment advisory fee, but
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  Suze: sometimes when an advisor is in incredible demand.
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  Suze: And they are producing results like the ones I just
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  Suze: told you about year after year after year that if
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  Suze: they want to charge 1.5% and after that 1.5% fee
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  Suze: they're still talking 15, 20, 28, 30% returns, I don't
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  Suze: have a problem with that.
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  Suze: So here we are.
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  Suze: And one day, Susan is out to lunch with her really,
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  Suze: really good friend. And what do good friends do? They
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  Suze: always talk about their kids.
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  Suze: And the good friend happens to say, Susan, my son
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  Suze: just became a financial advisor.
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  Suze: And is it possible that you could do me a favor?
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  Suze: Do you think you would transfer your account to him
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  Suze: so he can look like he has clients that have money?
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  Suze: Think about what this good friend just asked Susan.
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  Suze: To change her account to her son who just became
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  Suze: a financial advisor.
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  Suze: Just so he can look good.
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  Suze: Now, besides the fact that I've told all of you.
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  Suze: In general, I wouldn't pay more than 1% for an
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  Suze: investment advisory fee unless the advisor is seriously worth it
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  Suze: and the numbers tell the story.
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  Suze: I've also said to you, I wouldn't dare invest with somebody,
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  Suze: especially in these kinds of markets who hadn't been an
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  Suze: advisor for at least five years, 10 years, 15 or
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  Suze: 20 years, many, many years.
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  Suze: I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
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  Suze: However, OK, but because Susan didn't want to upset her friend.
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  Suze: Because even though she may have wanted to say no,
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  Suze: she said, OK, yes, yes, I'll do it, and I
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  Suze: find that most women say yes out of guilt.
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  Suze: You know, I say this all the time.
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  Suze: Women would rather say yes out of fear that somebody
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  Suze: won't like them any more versus no out of love
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  Suze: for herself.
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  Suze: So what did she do? She actually called her financial
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  Suze: advisor up.
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  Suze: And told him, I'm moving my account.
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  Suze: And when the adviser said, why in the world are
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  Suze: you moving your account?
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  Suze: And she said, well, number one, and the most important
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  Suze: reason is because he's only charging me 1% instead of 1.5%.
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  Suze: OK, now I just want you to think about this.
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  Suze: And this is the Suze School lesson of the day
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  Suze: and the one mistake I want you always to avoid.
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  Suze: You never base financial decisions on friendship. You never judge
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  Suze: an adviser solely by their fee.
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  Suze: It's not the fee that matters. It's the results. It's
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  Suze: the track record. It is the performance. Would you rather
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  Suze: pay someone 1.5% who has proven that they can make
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  Suze: you real sizable returns year in and year out?
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  Suze: Or 1% to someone who's absolutely brand new.
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  Suze: Untested.
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  Suze: And simply hoping to save that half a percent and
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  Suze: to help them out.
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  Suze: You have to know the answer to that. You just
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  Suze: have to know.
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  Suze: And the lesson here is what friendship is not a
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  Suze: financial plan. Guilt is not a strategy. Do you get this, everybody?
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  Suze: And loyalty does not grow your money. It does not.
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  Suze: So I want you to write this one lesson down.
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  Suze: You must protect your own financial security, even if that
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  Suze: means saying no to someone you care about.
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  Suze: All right, so now that we know that friendship isn't
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  Suze: a financial plan, the next thing I want you to
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  Suze: learn is about tax-loss, harvesting the correct way. And the
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  Suze: reason that I say the correct way is because a
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  Suze: few weeks ago I talked about this, and I told
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  Suze: you some of the things that I was doing in
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  Suze: my own account, and then you go to do it
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  Suze: and you write me and I go, no, no, don't
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  Suze: do that.
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  Suze: So, let's try this again.
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  Suze: Tax-loss harvesting is when you have gains in your investment
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  Suze: account outside of a retirement account and possibly losses as well.
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  Suze: And you want to offset your gains with your losses
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  Suze: so you don't owe as much in income tax as
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  Suze: you would if all you had was gains. So let's
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  Suze: talk about this. You need to first know the difference
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  Suze: between realized gains versus unrealized gains.
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  Suze: So what is a realized gain? A realized gain. Think
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  Suze: of the words that I'm using. A realized gain is
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  Suze: obviously you realized your gain. You actually got it, which
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  Suze: means you sold something. You took a profit, and you
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  Suze: took a profit because you sold it for more than
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  Suze: you paid, and
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  Suze: that's a realized gain. The IRS sees it, and then
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  Suze: the IRS taxes you on it. Just that simple. What
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  Suze: is an unrealized gain? And this again is just a
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  Suze: fancy word for you haven't realized them. You have a profit,
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  Suze: but you haven't sold it yet, so the gain lives
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  Suze: only on paper. You haven't realized it, so there's nothing
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  Suze: taxable yet.
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  Suze: So how does tax-loss harvesting work? All right, just listen.
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  Suze: Let's say you have a stock you don't want anymore,
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  Suze: and it's sitting at a loss. You can sell that stock,
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  Suze: realize the loss, and use that loss to offset any
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  Suze: realized gains that you already have.
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  Suze: That's one way that you can do it now. Sometimes
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  Suze: you actually have more of a loss than you do gains.
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  Suze: So if you don't use up all of your loss,
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  Suze: you can carry it forward to future years.
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  Suze: If you don't have any gain at all, you can
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  Suze: take $3,000 off and keep doing that every year.
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  Suze: So why am I telling you all this? Because a
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  Suze: lot of you heard me say you sell your losses
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  Suze: against your gains so you don't owe income taxes. But
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  Suze: here's the problem, you never ever sell a stock at
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  Suze: a loss if you want to own that stock, and
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  Suze: you best write that down.
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  Suze: You never sell a stock just to take a tax
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  Suze: loss if you believe in that stock.
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  Suze: Because listen to me, when a stock you love goes down,
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  Suze: that is not the time to run from it. That
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  Suze: is the time to do what, everybody? Dollar cost average
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  Suze: into it. That is the time to buy more. So
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  Suze: let's say you love Apple.
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  Suze: And it drops. It's down. You don't sell it to
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  Suze: take a tax loss. You buy more shares at a
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  Suze: lower price and bring down your average cost. So can
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  Suze: we just get that one thing straight? If you still
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  Suze: want the stock, you keep it. You only sell a
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  Suze: losing stock if you wanna get rid of it and
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  Suze: you don't wanna own it anymore. Got that?
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  Suze: So you really need to understand that. Because some of
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  Suze: you are doing this because you're writing me.
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  Suze: You have some losses in stocks that you actually like,
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  Suze: stocks like Oracle.
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  Suze: Stocks like PayPal, great stocks.
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  Suze: And you wanna sell those stocks to take a loss,
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  Suze: to offset some realized gains that you have in your portfolio,
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  Suze: obviously outside of a retirement account.
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  Suze: And I'm like, please don't do that. And people are
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  Suze: asking me, well, why shouldn't I do that? And the
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  Suze: reason you shouldn't do that is when you take a
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  Suze: loss in a stock, you cannot buy that stock back
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  Suze: for at least 30 days. Now, 30 days may seem
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  Suze: like a really short period of time.
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  Suze: But not in these markets. I have seen stocks go
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  Suze: down 40 points and all of a sudden in two
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  Suze: weeks they're up 60 points. So you think you're gonna
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  Suze: outsmart these markets and all of a sudden you sold
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  Suze: for a little loss and now 30 days hasn't passed
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  Suze: and now you sold it at let's just say $50
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  Suze: a share.
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  Suze: You bought it at 60.
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  Suze: And now it's at 80, but you weren't able to
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  Suze: still be in it because you sold it at a
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  Suze: loss simply to take a loss? No.
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  Suze: Again, you only sell a loss when you no longer
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  Suze: want to own that stock, and you can use that
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  Suze: loss to help yourself for tax purposes. Anything else? I
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  Suze: don't think so.
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  Suze: So you're confused about that. If you have, however, a
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  Suze: stock that you no longer want, which was true in
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  Suze: my case, there were two stocks that I had a
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  Suze: loss on, and I no longer wanted to own those stocks.
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  Suze: I made a mistake. Fine, I'm going to take the loss.
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  Suze: But at the time when I did that, I didn't
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  Suze: have any realized gains to offset that loss.
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  Suze: I didn't realize any gains yet. I had a lot
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  Suze: of unrealized gains, lots of unrealized gains, but no realized gains,
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  Suze: cause I still like all the stocks that I own,
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  Suze: except for those two. OK.
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  Suze: So what did I do? And this was just an example.
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  Suze: I sold the number of shares of stock that I
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  Suze: had a big gain in that was equivalent to the
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  Suze: loss that I was taking, so they offset each other directly.
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  Suze: So what did I do then? I immediately bought the
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  Suze: stock that I had to gain in back, the exact
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  Suze: same numbers of shares. Now, what did I gain by
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  Suze: doing that?
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  Suze: Let's just say I bought that stock at seven.
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  Suze: And now that stock is 160 or 70.
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  Suze: Which is true in this one particular stock, Palantir.
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  Suze: So even if I just sold 10 shares of Palantir
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  Suze: to offset my loss, let's say that was true.
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  Suze: And I bought those 10 shares back immediately. Now my
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  Suze: cost basis on those 10 shares
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  Suze: is $170 a share. If Palantir continues up, and I
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  Suze: now sell it at, let's just say $300 a share.
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  Suze: I'm only going to have a gain of 130 points
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  Suze: versus $7 to $300. Do you understand what I did?
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  Suze: So don't think it's just so simple where you sell
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  Suze: stocks to offset gains.
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  Suze: You only sell stocks that have a loss in it
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  Suze: to offset gains if you don't wanna own those stocks
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  Suze: ever again.
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  Suze: Am I clear on that now?
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  Suze: So, I have one more Suze school for you today.
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  Suze: And this lesson is about we live in a day
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  Suze: and age where scamming is rampant.
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  Suze: And you cannot be somebody who just sticks your head
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  Suze: in the sand, and you don't check your statements, you
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  Suze: don't check your accounts, you don't check your credit reports,
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  Suze: you don't look at your credit score. You cannot do
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  Suze: that in a day and age like this. You have
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  Suze: to freeze your credit reports. You have to do things
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  Suze: that protect you.
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  Suze: And by the way, I'm just going to say, and
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  Suze: to that end, come March next year, I will have
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  Suze: something that will seriously protect you and would have protected
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  Suze: you in this particular situation, but you're going to have
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  Suze: to wait for March to see that, OK.
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  Suze: And here's how it goes from Cheryl.
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  Suze: I've been a fan of yours and always have been
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  Suze: grateful for your advice and wisdom. In 2022, I purchased
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  Suze: two I bonds.
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  Suze: With all the financial fraud, I check all my investments
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  Suze: at the beginning of every month.
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  Suze: On July 4th I was unable to access my Treasury
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  Suze: Direct account.
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  Suze: As I never received an OTP and an OTP is,
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  Suze: once you go to sign in, they send you a
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  Suze: one-time password, and that's the password that you use.
• 16:13
  Suze: Again, Treasury Direct is a governmental institution.
• 16:19
  Suze: And most people who wanna buy Series I bonds, inflation bonds,
• 16:24
  Suze: you have to buy them through Treasury Direct and have
• 16:28
  Suze: a Treasury Direct account, OK? So you would imagine, wouldn't you,
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  Suze: that they were safe and sound. Please listen to this story.
• 16:39
  Suze: To make a long story short, someone changed the bank
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  Suze: linked to my account and requested a distribution which was
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  Suze: completed on July 8th. No one from Treasury Direct verified
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  Suze: that it was me, and my account of just $11,000
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  Suze: was emptied.
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  Suze: Even worse, my account was still locked. I called repeatedly
• 17:08
  Suze: with no adequate response and did not find out about
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  Suze: this fraud until TD sent an email to my secondary
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  Suze: email in October. This was July. Now it's October. Because
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  Suze: I don't always check that email. Oh, I will do
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  Suze: it daily now.
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  Suze: I only found out about it at that time.
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  Suze: I called at 8 o'clock in the morning asking to
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  Suze: speak with a fraud specialist.
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  Suze: And I was told that the only communication available to
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  Suze: me was to respond to the email when I continued
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  Suze: to argue with the person that I was talking to.
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  Suze: Her name was Rose, by the way, she hung up
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  Suze: on me.
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  Suze: I did respond to the email, but I Googled, Treasury
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  Suze: Direct complaints and found many similar stories. Every person posting
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  Suze: about these problems had their money sent to a checking
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  Suze: account at Pathword National Association.
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  Suze: And it goes on and on. Now I obviously wrote
• 18:20
  Suze: Cheryl back a variety of things that she should do
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  Suze: and she should try, but the first thing I wanna
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  Suze: say to all of you, if any of you are
• 18:28
  Suze: connected with Pathword National Association or if you have any
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  Suze: account that does business with them.
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  Suze: I am warning you right here and right now, I
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  Suze: would change that account. If you look them up, if
• 18:46
  Suze: you Google them and everything, you can see all the
• 18:49
  Suze: complaints that they have against them.
• 18:52
  Suze: But the reason that I'm telling you this story is
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  Suze: that you would think that the money that you have
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  Suze: in your Treasury Direct account is the safest of them all.
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  Suze: Obviously it may be, but it may not be.
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  Suze: So it wouldn't kill you to check it all the time,
• 19:14
  Suze: meaning at least once a month, twice a month, and
• 19:18
  Suze: pay attention to your secondary email addresses just in case
• 19:24
  Suze: Treasury Direct happens to contact you.
• 19:28
  Suze: All right. Do I think that's enough for Suze School today?
• 19:33
  Suze: I think I do. So what did we learn? We
• 19:36
  Suze: learned that friendship is not a financial plan. We learned
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  Suze: that you only sell stocks at a loss to offset
• 19:45
  Suze: gains when you no longer want to own those stocks,
• 19:50
  Suze: and we learned that we have to be on top
• 19:53
  Suze: of all of our accounts.
• 19:56
  Suze: Everywhere we have an account and continuously check our credit reports,
• 20:01
  Suze: our credit scores, our statements, and make sure that everything
• 20:06
  Suze: is as it should be. So until Thursday when Miss
• 20:11
  Suze: Travis joins us again.
• 20:13
  Suze: For another Ask KT and Suze and me thing, there's
• 20:17
  Suze: only one thing that I want you to know when
• 20:18
  Suze: it comes to your money, and it's this: people first,
• 20:22
  Suze: then money, then things. Now you stay safe.