Product Description

This guide takes you through the financial milestones of life and shows how money can be made to work for you. It deals with such matters as starting again after divorce or death, sorting out one's debts, home-buying, and investing for the future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72589 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Talk about an audacious title! But Suze (pronounced "Suzie") Orman means business in this anecdote-rich compendium of tips on marriage, homes and happiness. Orman has made plenty of the mistakes she warns against, like getting a 30-year mortgage instead of a cheaper 15-year one, using Visa cards as magic carpets to calamity and losing thousands in borrowed capital to bum investment advice. Then she became a Merrill Lynch broker and an author capable of selling 10,000 books in 12 minutes on QVC.

Orman's point--in this and her number one best-seller The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom--is that you had better face fiscal facts and avoid fear, denial and the self-fulfilling low expectations the novelist William Wharton called "the Poverty Mind". She comes from a nation of cheque-bouncing, late-fee-incurring, guilty bad planners. How long will it take to pay off that £3,000 Visa bill with minimum payments? Thirty years, you poor, dear fool! What would you gain if you bought stocks instead of your daily latte for 30 years? £165,152! Her book might have been titled The Courage Not to Be a Self-Sabotaging Neurotic.

Orman yearns to enrich your life emotionally, too. If you can't stand discussions of the psychological origins of fiscal decisions, or self-help lingo like "money is attracted to people who are strong and powerful, respectful of it, and open to receiving it", you will want a more nuts-and-bolts adviser. If you want pep talk, true tales of woe and makeovers, and a jolt of a true pop culture phenomenon, Suze is for you. --Tim Appelo

From the Publisher
Expanded and updated paperback edition of Suze Orman’s groundbreaking bestseller.

From the Author
My thoughts about my books
I have received lots of letters lately asking me to explain the differences among my three books, some from readers seeking specific advice (which book talks about Roth IRAs, for instance), and others from other readers wondering if there¹s a specific order in which the books should be read--or whether reading one of the books is enough. These letters have gotten me thinking, and I¹ve begun to realize just how much I¹ve grown and changed since my first book was written. Over the past few years, I¹ve spent much of my time on the road, talking to people, hearing their stories (and worries and fears) about money, learning more, I suppose, about the ways in which we interact with our money--or don¹t, and the rewards and blessings we can bestow upon ourselves by turning toward our money, and saying yes to the possibilities of what it can do for us--if we let it, and if we help it along. In other words, I think I myself have grown over these years, and I believe that my books have grown deeper as well. The stories I¹ve heard, and the lessons I¹ve learned, are the stories and lessons that inform all my books. Another way of saying this is that if I could have, I would have written my most recent book, THE COURAGE TO BE RICH, first--if I had known then what I know now. So many people ask me why it takes courage to be rich, and my answer is that it takes courage to face anything we are afraid to do--and there is nothing in life that most of us are more afraid to face than our money. And what do I mean by rich? Richness of the kind that infuses this book has far more to do than with just money, for I know many people who have lots of money but they are anything but rich; rich means living a life that is generous and expansive in all ways, not just financially. I would be the last person in the world to tell you that money alone would ever make you happy, but I would be the first to tell you that lack of money sure can make you miserable. THE COURAGE TO BE RICH invites you, quite simply, to make the best choices with the money you have, in order that you will be able to create the money you want. This is the book that, in retrospect, I wish I had written first, and the book I would read first. COURAGE is about money, day to day, the money we spend and how we spend it, the money we save, the best ways to use our money to buy what we need, from cars to houses to your morning cup of coffee. It asks you to think today about the money you need tomorrow. It talks about how to live a ³rich² life when sustaining your relationships--marriage and money, transcending divorce, money and lifetime partnerships, money and your children, overcoming a death. It delves into some of the emotional barriers from your past that may be standing in the way of what you could achieve with your money today, and it asks you to forgive your past, as a means of financial healing. If you believe that your financial state dictates your emotional state, then I ask you to read this book, which argues the opposite, because I truly believe that it is your emotional state that dictates your ultimate financial state. If you are persuaded by this after reading this book, then you will have found the courage to be rich. THE 9 STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM is the book I would read next. It came out in 1997, and I can¹t tell you how gratified I have been (and still am) by all the mail I¹ve received from readers who have found the book to a big help in their lives--financially, spiritually, and emotionally, for these are subjects that many readers encountered together here for the first time in their lives. And let me tell you, money, emotions, and spiritual queries are tied together in ways that, once you understand them, can really set you free financially. These nine steps were developed over eighteen years of dealing with my clients and realizing that there were logical reasons why people spent more money on their credit cards than they could afford. There were reasons why people were not saving for retirement, even though they knew that day was going to come, or why people did not have a will or a trust, even though we all know we¹re all going to die one day; it¹s just a question of when. This book came out of a seminar that I was giving for Avon Life Designs which cost $500 a day per person. I wanted to make this information available to more people at an affordable price; thus the book. It opens with an exercise I used in my seminar, asking you to go back to your past and recall a money memory, and links that memory to your greatest fears of money today. Next it suggests ways to break your ties to the past and to get on with living your life, both practically and financially. Financially, it covers, among other topics, trustx verses wills; long term care insurance, whole life insurance; durable power of attorney for health care; mutual funds; finding the right financial advisor; retirement plans; and getting out of credit card debt. Spiritually it addresses how to embrace your financial destiny--how to be financially free. YOU¹VE EARNED IT, DON¹T LOSE IT is a very quick read of the true stories of eight people who came to see me after it was too late. They had already made financial mistakes that had devastated them--mistakes that could have been avoided. There is nothing sadder than having to tell someone in their sixties, seventies, or eighties that there is nothing that can be done, and this is what I had to tell these people. I wrote this book so what happened to these people never happens to you. If you are about to retire this book is for you. I like to say about this book that will not teach you how to save for retirement, but it will literally save your retirement. If you can say with pure confidence that your financial emotions and financial affairs are in perfect order, that you are without financial fears or doubts, that you know all you need to know about your money, then please don¹t buy my books, and please accept my congratulations. Most of us aren¹t so lucky, nor so knowledgeable. If, on the other hand, the subject of your money has made you feel paralyzed or afraid, if worries about money punctuate your days and nights, if you simply don¹t know what to do with your money or can¹t make yourself do what you should do, then I ask you to turn toward my books as a way of turning toward your money, and changing course in your life--financially, emotionally, spiritually. It has become my mission to help as many people as I can enter the new millennium with what we need to know about our money in order to thrive, and with the emotional tools we need in order to take the actions we know we should take. If you haven¹t cared about your money before, I ask you to care about it now. I ask you to protect what you have, seek the financial freedom that I believe is available to us all, and to find the courage you need to do so. Respectfully,Suze Orman

Customer Reviews

An enlightening way to look at your finances
This is the first book of this sort that I have read, and was surprised how often I found myself thinking, "Yep, thats me!". Although it was something of a relief to realise that there are so many other people who are hopeless with money. This book made me think a lot about how I spend my money. In the first few chapters she describes clearing the clutter from your financial life in order to make way for other things, ie, more money. Steps like opening your bank statements and checking them so you know how much money you have, not keeping everything for ever, and looking around the house and finding 25 things that you would be willing to throw straight in the bin. Suze emphasises the phrase "People first. Then money, then things", and backs up her arguments so sucinctly at times I found it hard to even think about arguing. She then goes on to cover other topics, such as coping with death (in a finacial way) both before and after the event, and the benefits of prenuptual agreements before the big day. Overall it was a very easy read, especially considering the deep thinking and lifetime habbits it wants to change.

DEVELOP THE COURAGE, MOVE YOUR STALLS ASIDE!
This latest book by Suze Orman continues her wonderful advice combining how to feel positive about making and collecting lots of money with simple "how to" investment advice about things like the common mortgage and retirement plan. This book is especially good for people who have unique problems and need basic financial advice. Her greatest contribution is to make people realize that on an emotional level, it is okay to want to be rich and her exercises help us develop THE COURAGE TO BE RICH. It is not as easy as it sounds. The psychological side of us keeps putting up "stalls" to succeeding. We need to ask ourselves some tough questions to deal with how we feel, what needs to be done and to develop solutions that make us and everyone else better off. I recommend THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION if you are interested in identifying your own "stalls" and want to start asking some of the tough questions. You will start to succeed in many new ways and at a much faster rate. Read both books to become so much more effective and develop the courage to accept the good things that come your way.

Mental Gains for the Emotionally Impoverished
The Courage to Be Rich provides support for overcoming your stalled thinking about money. If you lack confidence about money, have money problems, or have bad feelings about your relationship to money, you will find this book helpful. I have graded the book from the perspective of people in this category.

On the other hand, if you have lots of money and feel good about what you are doing, you will hate this book. This is a self-help guide more along the lines of Unleash the Power Within than it is a financial guide. If you want to add to your perspectives about how to make more money, I suggest that you shift to Rich Dad, Poor Dad instead. For you, The Courage to Be Rich is a one star book.

I appreciate the care and consideration Ms. Orman shows to her readers who may be suffering from emotional overwhelm (such as often occurs during and after a divorce, after a loved one dies, or while buying a first home). Her lists will probably help these anguished souls.

Although money has a lot to do with math, Ms. Orman correctly perceives that it is all about emotion as well. Emotion and math do not mix well, and she provides many useful insights into how to make them work better together.

An experienced and credentialed psychological counselor she is not, however. I suspect this book would have been better with two co-authors, one who is an expert on emotions about money and the other who is an expert on money to supplement Ms. Orman's skill as a communicator.

Ms. Orman is neither, so th is book's treatment is pretty lightweight in both areas. But if it gets you started in dealing with your issues, all the better for you.

The only part that seemed totally inadequate was her writing off of tax issues: You will spend a lot of money on taxes in your life and your choices do have a large impact on how much you will spend. Her advice is to feel good about paying more taxes because your income is higher. By contrast, someone who really wants to be rich needs to compound as much money tax-free or tax-deferred as possible. This book does not begin to address that subject.

The Courage to Be Rich is a better book for dealing with specific life traumas such as divorce, death, and so forth. This book would be a good gift to a friend who has such an event in his or her life.

Her stories are good, because they bring home the message of how crippling too much emotion can be, so we take this problem more seriously.

I think the biggest misconception people have about money is that they do not need to address their feelings about money. In that sense, Ms. Orman is doing a lot for us by reminding us that we have deeply held beliefs and attitudes that deserve being reexamined from time to time. I enjoyed reading the book, although it only added to stockpile of stories, rather than my knowledge.

Maybe the book's obvious appeal for general audiences can best be understood by thinking about the experience of watching a tear-jerker of a movie or television show -- you get a great feeling from knowing that the cataclysm is not happening to you.

If you have heard Ms. Orman speak at length on television (which she does a lot), you can probably safely skip this book.

To get a good return on your time with this review, I suggest that you pick one belief about money that you have where strong emotion comes into play. If that emotion does not serve you well, rephrase what you believe until it does serve you in the right way. Then, you'll have mastered a skill for having more!

Live with rich thoughts and warm emotions!