Podcast Episode - Anger: One of the Three Obstacles to Wealth

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Suze talks about anger: one of the major obstacles to wealth that has a tendency to sneak up on you.

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Today's podcast. I want to talk to you about anger now. Why do I want to do that? Because over all the years that I have been seeing people about their financial problems, about what to do with money, it's been now close to 40 years. I have noticed that anger is one of the main internal obstacles to wealth. I've also noticed that most people are angry. They're always angry at something or somebody. I want you to hear something that I find just fascinating. Over the 13 years that I did the Suze Orman show, almost every single person that had a serious financial problem that had claimed bankruptcy. Those people when I would ask them certain questions, I would find that every single one of them was angry. So chances are if you're out there and you're listening and you claimed bankruptcy, I'm here to tell you most likely you are angry at yourself or somebody else. Why is it that sometimes money comes to you, sometimes money goes out, what is going on in your life, where you are causing money to be repelled from you, where you are taking actions that lead you down the path to poverty versus down the road to prosperity? Do you really just think it's a situation where somebody looks down and decides who's gonna have money, who isn't gonna have money? That Suze's gonna be rich, but you're gonna be poor. No, it's what we do, what we think, what we say, the actions that we take that determine whether we have financial freedom or whether we do not. It is not because of our circumstances. It is not because you are not good in math, it is not because of where you grew up, it's all about what is going on inside of you. And money is such a fascinating teacher. It will teach you more about yourself than anything else in this world. And you keep hearing me say, money is simply a physical manifestation of who you are. And if something is going wrong in your financial life, it is because something is going wrong within you. Self-worth equals, net worth. You know, when I used to go on the Oprah Winfrey show, I would do this example that when you are like a glass, and you have holes in you. So image this glass that has all these holes in it. When you pour water in that glass, the water goes in and the water goes out. You can't stop it. Money comes in and money goes out. It will not stay with you. And the only way to get it to stay with you is to patch up your holes. And what are those holes? Those holes are holes of anger, of fear, of shame, of wanting something out of life that you're not getting, but you're looking everywhere else for it rather than looking within. You know, I have the saying. You have to look within to see why you are doing without. Now. Could it be just that simple? I'm here to tell you it absolutely is. But no, we all want to think, oh, we can fix our financial problems with money. You cannot fix the financial problem with money. You can only fix a financial problem when you recognize the root of that problem. The source of that problem. What your money is trying to teach you about who you are. So today, today's podcast focuses on anger because when you are angry, you go out and you spend money on things that you don't even need. And chances are you don't even want and probably to get back at somebody else. You spend money creating things that probably are there to hurt somebody else. But you can never hurt anybody else with your anger, your anger only can hurt you. You are not strong enough to keep somebody else from achieving their goals. Your anger can only destroy your own dreams, your own life, your own ability to enjoy every moment of every day. Because you're just too busy being angry now at the end of this podcast, I am going to have a Do It moment and I want you all to listen to it. I promise you that Do It moment will change moments of anger into a lifetime of wealth. So, my dear Sarah, are you angry at anything? Not right now. I am in a really good place. I gotta tell you I'm feeling really happy these days. That's all that matters to me. So do you have questions for me about anger? I absolutely do. This was a big topic for us in the inbox this week. So first question comes from Grace. Why do you say that you can never fix a financial problem with money? I have so much credit card debt and if somebody just paid off that debt for me, I'm telling you that would fix my problem. Big time. This is something we get a lot of. So I can't wait to hear what you're gonna say to Grace. You want to know what's fascinating? Is that the real question is why do you have credit card debt to begin with? Most people who get out of credit card debt now, they have all this available credit on their credit cards. Guess what happens? They get into credit card debt again. Do you know Sarah that most people who claim bankruptcy once claim it twice? Now the answer to that question really is because you have credit card debt for a reason. It's not because you didn't have money to pay for things. Although you probably didn't have money to pay for things. It's why did you want to buy things that you couldn't afford to begin with when you have credit card debt. That is usually a sign that you feel less than. So you spend more than, and what's so interesting is most people who pay off their credit card debt, they take a loan from their 401K. Plan. They take a home equity line of credit out and they pay off their credit card debt and they feel good for one week, two weeks and before you know it they've charged up their credit cards again to the max and they have those other loans that they took out to pay off their credit card debt. So I could give you all the money in the world to pay off your credit card debt, and chances are you're gonna get yourself in debt again. So I can't fix the financial problem with money because the problem isn't money. The problem is how you feel about yourself. And you are probably somebody who defines yourself by the things that you buy and those things are what makes you feel so great about yourself and shows everybody how good you possibly are financially speaking. But the goal is for you to define the things that are around you versus the other way around. So Sarah am I making sense to you with this answer? Yeah. Let me ask you a question though. How do you begin to address the feeling of being less than? Where do you start with that? Does this go back to the eight qualities? This goes back to the eight qualities. And this goes back to my line, which is you have to go within to see why you are doing without. You know, Sarah, you know when you're embarrassed about who you are or you're not happy or you're trying to please everybody because you don't think everybody or anybody likes you? You think you're stupid. You think you don't know what you want, whatever it may be. You have to first recognize the problem within you before you can solve it. And what this really goes back to is the podcast that we did on creating new truths. Because we feel less than when we're afraid to show the world who we really are. We're afraid to show ourselves who we really are. And we keep telling ourselves over and over again. I can't. I'll never be good enough. I don't belong. I all these things that we tell ourselves from our minds. And so you have to start to create a new truth that tells you exactly who, who you want to be to yourself. So, all the listeners, if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, facing your fears, creating new truths, I suggest that you do. So, you know this is exactly right. That's the exact conversation I had to have with myself. After Charley came, I had to decide and create what my new truth was as a mom, as a person, as a professional. And it helped open up all sorts of things for me. Okay, Suze, let's go to our next question. I've got a question here from Anne. Where do you think my anger comes from? I've noticed that when I'm angry, that is exactly when I go out and buy a new pair of shoes or a handbag. So how can I get control over my anger so I stop doing that? Oh, Anne, I don't know exactly where anger comes from. I mean, that's not my specialty. But I do know that if you're somebody who's going out and spending money because you are angry, that the way that you can stop that is simply by saying to yourself, I'm only going to buy a need versus a want because usually when we are angry, that's when we go out and we buy things that we want, not things that we need. So, again, I've addressed this in previous podcasts and are all of you getting the idea that these podcasts really do build on top of one another? While one podcast can help you and change your life, two podcasts, three podcasts, all of these podcasts are all of the information that you need to become the powerful women when it comes to your money, that you are all in my opinion, born to be. So I would tell Annie that if she starts to recognize the fact that she already has because she wrote in that anger is what's making her go out there and buy things, that when she finds herself going out there to buy something, to just stop and ask herself the question, am I doing this because I am angry? Is that what I am doing right now? And if that is what I am doing, just stop and decide not to do it again if you don't have control over it. At that point, when you get to the item that you are about to buy, ask yourself the question that I just said previously, is this a want or is this a need? Chances are like I said, if you're a angry, you went out and you bought something that you wanted but you did not need. If it is a want, just don't buy it. If you could do those two simple things, you could at least stop yourself from making a purchase that you're never gonna use and waste money just because you're angry. Because if you're wasting money because you are angry, the only person you should be angry at really is yourself because usually your anger is at somebody else. But Sarah when you're doing things that are just stupid financially speaking, and it hurts you and nobody else you should be angry at yourself. So get rid of the anger. Just stop. Don't do it. Don't think it, don't say it. And you also can replace that anger with a new truth. And maybe that new truth is I love not being angry or I love that anger does not dwell within me. You can also repeat that truth when you find that you are angry. Listen, I have to tell you if you're making these purchases out of anger and you're creating potentially credit card debt, then you're going to also add to that anger. You're gonna add to the discomfort. You're going to create that unsettled feeling and you're going to make it worse. It's a slippery slope. The purchase doesn't help. The purchase doesn't solve it. On all the years that I did the Suzie Orman show, I used to like to play this game. Sometimes I play it on this podcast by the way where I know the reason why somebody spent money before they tell me why they spent it. So I would always ask them, are you angry at your husband? Are you angry at your wife? Are you angry at your kids? Undoubtedly the answer would always be, yeah. How did you know that? So anger is the main internal obstacle to wealth. It is an emotion that will do you in big time. Next question, Let's go to Jamie, I'm constantly angry at my spouse for spending money we don't have on his boys toys and no matter how much I yell or beg or say anything, he keeps doing it. I'm at my wits end. What do I do to get him to stop? Tell me Suze. You understand and be compassionate with him. You understand that if he is spending money and he is not listening to you no matter what you say, that is a sign that he is afraid of his own life. I call it the dollar of the decades. And that is usually when men more than women, when men start to go from 50 to 60 to 70, and they start getting older and they don't know how to define themselves or they feel they haven't succeeded financially speaking and they have run out of time to do so. So they literally feel bad that they don't have the money to support the spouse, the kids, to do those things and they end up out of feeling less than, they go out and they spend more than to impress their friends, to impress the kids, to make them feel like they are a success. So the way that you deal with that is not through anger. If you're angry at him, then he's gonna continue to be angry at you because he's already angry at himself. And now we just have one big anger pot that's creating an empty pot of money. The way that you deal with him is through love, through compassion, through understanding he doesn't want to do this either. Believe me, he wants you and everybody around him to be financially secure. So therefore you deal with his insecurity by sitting down, talking with him, and saying something like honey, why are you doing this? I love you so very, very much. But it just doesn't make sense. Why do you feel you've got to spend this money that we don't have? Can you tell me what's going on with you? Are you afraid? Do you feel like you're getting older, whatever it may be. Can you try a compassionate conversation with him one night over a glass of wine or two or three or whatever it takes to get him there so that his defenses are down. But talk with him. Do not talk to him because when a female spouse talks to a male spouse and she talks in that tone, he immediately reacts as if she is his mother in my opinion and then all of his defenses go up. Talk to him like he is the love of your life. Because hopefully he is. Next question. Next question comes from Rachel. My problem is the opposite. I just feel numb. I never get angry Suze, but I also never speak up for myself when it comes to money. And the problem is I really don't have any. What do you think I'm doing that keeps me from having any money? Yeah. You never speak up. You don't have a voice. You know Sarah during this Me Too movement. What I started to realize is that women don't use their voices. That women don't say stop, don't do this. They don't take their power and they don't take their power because they feel like, oh, if I tell you what I'm really thinking or feeling, then you won't like me. So women, I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again. You think one thing yet you say another, you feel one thing yet you do another. You say yes out of fear that others will not like you versus no out of love for yourself. So I have a feeling that in this question here, we have a woman who has not voiced what she feels and thinks. She just stays silent. And when you don't have what it takes to say what you are thinking, then you also no self-worth. Because you don't think that yourself is worthy enough to be able to tell everybody what you are thinking. And when you don't have self-worth, what did I say earlier, you don't have net worth. Which is why she has no money. So you don't have to Sarah, be angry to voice something. You just have to feel that you're worthy enough and what you're thinking and feeling is valid enough that you need to say it. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, listen, this is the one that makes the most sense to me. Having a voice, finding a voice. Particularly in a relationship. When it comes to money, learning how to talk about it, ask about it, is the the only way to be successful. I have had instances in my own relationship where I didn't ask enough questions, I didn't feel comfortable with the decision and ultimately what my gut was telling me was right and the decisions ended up not that great and then I paid for it. And if I would have just spoken up, and I have done a lot of work, thinking about how do I learn to speak up? How do I use my voice? How do I participate in the conversation? And I think this is one of the most important things women need to do. So that would be the answer. And so ladies, if you're listening, these questions and these answers are vital for you, they are vital to turn your financial lives and your relationships by the way around. So they are successful and they last forever. Any more questions. I have one more question for you, it's from Crystal, she says, every time I finally get money something happens. My car breaks down, my air conditioner breaks, and there goes all the money I have. Do you find that this is normal? Am I doing something that's causing this to happen? As strange as that may seem, this happens to my best girlfriend summer all the time. As soon as she gets up, she's down. And it's a cycle that she can't break. Tell me what we tell Crystal and my friend Summer. Well you know one really has to know more about the person to accurately answer that question. But I remember that happening to myself when I was a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery. Remember everybody that from the age of 23 till 30 I was a waitress making just $400 a month. And every time I just started to save money, something would happen and there it would go. And I would have to start all over again. Sometimes I think that happens for money to teach us a lesson. You know money is the greatest teacher of all. It will teach you more about yourself than any other thing out there. Remember, money is just a physical manifestation of who you are. And if something is going wrong with your money, there's usually something going wrong with yourself. For me, I then decided that was a sign saying I'm not living up to my own potential. I meant to actually make more money. I am just settling in my life to get by, and of course I'm going to run out of money and nothing's going to happen and work for me if I'm just willing to settle. And even though I'm saving some money, if I was able to make more, if I was able to have more confidence in myself and to go out there and see what else I could do, then I would be able to save more and more and more money, and then when the car broke down and then when something happened it wouldn't matter because I would have even more money in savings so it wouldn't use up all of my savings. Now. Your friend that you were just talking about Summer Sarah, does that sound like her? Is she living up to her potential? You know, I think she is to be honest with you. Um but she lives in an expensive city, and she has been hustling, she's 38 years old, she's been hustling, hustling hustling and she just can't seem to put enough away and then little things happen to her and she can't get ahead. We're just having a conversation about this yesterday, honestly. And what then what's interesting about that is that if she's hustling, look at the word that you just even used. Hustling. Do you feel like you hustle in your life? I don't feel like I hustle. Now I work really, really hard and so do you miss Sarah. But you don't feel like you're hustling. So when somebody is trying so hard to do something, then something is wrong because life in my opinion doesn't need to be that hard. And if we were to look at her spending habits, it would be curious to see, does she spend more, does she go out to coffee? Does she do all of these things that she really can't afford to do since she lives in an expensive city and therefore she can't save as much as she should be able to save, which then cause causes her to hustle? And when she's hustling all the time, when you feel like you're hustling, that makes you feel powerless. And when you are powerless, the number one law of money kicks in, which is power attracts money. But when you're powerless, it repels money. That's another podcast people that you should listen to. So does that feel right when it comes to your friend Summer? Yeah, it does. And you know, let me tell you she's coming to the Apollo because I said, listen, come listen to Suze talk. I really want you to hear her. She sent me copies of her tickets. I love that. You know what's interesting about the tickets for the Apollo is this. You know when I was first saying to everybody, I'm going to do this, they wanted to price those tickets at 100 or $200 or whatever it would be in the front row, $500. And you can come meet me behind the scenes. And then as you went up to the balcony, they were $75 and on and on. I said, no, I do not want you to be able to buy your way into meeting me or just sitting in the front. I want uniform pricing. So I made it so that all the seats were $45 and that all the seats also included a copy of my signed Women & Money book that will be out in hardback at that time. And so what's interesting about that is I wanted people who sat in front to be the ones that really wanted to see me. So they bought their tickets right away. Sarah. I can't even begin to tell you how angry, and I bring this up because how angry certain people were by saying to me, but Suze, we're not going to make as much money as we can possibly make. What is wrong with you? And I said, we don't need to make that money. Everybody coming to see me needs to make that money. And the seats are all $45. I love that. Sarah I love that too. I think when you said first come, first serve, you want front row, you've got to buy your tickets right away. Everybody's $45. It's one of my favorite things about you. Here's the not so good thing about it is there's only a few 100 seats left. So if you're listening to this right now, come on, everybody, come on down. It's going to be aired. And I you already heard this and you know the opening of this podcast, the Oprah Winfrey network will be taping it and it will aired there. So who knows? Maybe you'll see yourself. Anyway, what else? You? That's the last thing I have. I just want to tell you though, every seat in the Apollo, I've been to the Apollo myself is a great seat. So that's the great thing is it doesn't matter if you're in the front row or the very last row, you're gonna have a great essentially front row view. But as long as there are seats left, that's the key. We'll see if there are any. So you never know. Let me tell you about Jamie, who's on the phone with us today. She is a middle school teacher from Illinois. She's 48 years old, she's single with a 15-year-old daughter and she is twice divorced. She has about $90,000 worth of income, which is about $65,000 after tax. She does have money in retirement. She does not have an eight-month emergency fund. She's got credit card debt, she's got student loan debt and she was seven days late with her rent this month. Let me tell you what she said to us that really caught me and wanted me to get her in touch with you Suze. She wrote in, I have chronic anxiety because of my money. My greatest financial fear is not being able to pay my bills, lose my apartment and never being able to retire. I'm a full-time teacher and I don't get much in child support from my daughter's father because he had convinced the state that he makes very little money. He has a cash business. She lives paycheck to paycheck, always floating checks and sometimes bouncing them. She has to dig into her retirement savings to afford her housing bills and things that her daughter needs. She says this, and this is what I want you to talk about. Sometimes I'm terrified to look at my balance, so I don't My inability to manage my money scares the hell out of me, Suze. Let me introduce you to Jamie. Wow, Jamie, we got a mess here, huh? So what do you teach? You teach middle school? What is your topic that you teach? I teach a class that is social studies and kind of an English class. It's a writing class. So you have mastered the English language for you to be able to teach it, you have to have mastered it. Am I correct? I would like to think so, yeah. Now is there anything harder in life when you think about it than using proper English? My English is horrific. I have good reasons for why it's horrific. But you are an English teacher, therefore I don't understand this. If you have what it takes to master the English language, which 99% one of the people out there have never mastered including myself, how is it possible that you think you don't have what it takes to master money, you don't even have what it takes to pay your bills on time. You don't even have what it takes to open up your bills, why do you think that is? I think part of it is because while I'm an English person, I am definitely not a math person. The math part of it scares me. And why do you think simply opening up a bill has anything to do with math? Well I think the fear goes down to just not being able to to pay the bill is the problem. No, that's not the problem. That's not the problem. The problem is your fear of not believing in yourself enough that you know you have what it takes to make the money. Money to support yourself, to take care of yourself, and to somehow just be independent. Because when I'm looking at your numbers Jamie you have money. You have money just let me give you an idea of how much money you have. You have $193,700 in an investment account. You have $95,000 in a pension account, you have $52,500 in a 403b Fidelity account. What does this mean that you don't have any money? You know just the month-to-month bills that I cover for myself and my daughter out of my just my paycheck. I try really hard not to ever go into my retirement savings like these accounts. I try not to touch them. It's just getting by month two months on my net salary. How much is your paycheck that you bring home every single month? About $4500. If you're bringing home $4500 a month, that means you have some money be taken out for your pension, some money possibly being taken out for your 403b. And you tell me that you have expenses of about $2500 per month. And that includes your rent and everything. What happens to the other $2100 a month? Most of it is expenses probably related to my daughter. I think some of it obviously goes to her entertainment with her friends and things like that. But here's what I need you to think about. You have not paid the rent in seven days. But yet your daughter is living the life of her dreams. She is not living the life that she can afford because mommy cannot afford to have the daughter do everything that the daughter is doing because you don't have the money to do so. And you're living in a situation where you know, in just three years from now because the truth of the matter is you're living in an apartment that your ex-husband owns and he rents it to you under market value. And in just three years from now when she turns 18, he's not going to rent it to you for that amount of money. And therefore you start to hold on to everything that you have now. What I find fascinating is that in your letter that you wrote, I can sense that you are so angry at your ex-husband because he has a cash business and because he has a cash business, he doesn't report the income that he should be reporting and therefore you don't get the money that you should be getting from him for child support. And you're going back to court to get hopefully an extra $400 or $500 a month from him. Is that correct? Now, I want you to listen to me closely about what I'm going to say to you. I've often talked about fear is the main internal obstacle to wealth. Another internal obstacle to wealth is anger. When you are angry at somebody, that anger literally will destroy any money that you have coming in. It comes in that anger eats a hole in you and it goes immediately out. We have $2,000 a month that's just going out, out, out and you kind of know where it's going, but you don't know where it's going. So are you angry at your first husband because he is not paying the child support that he should be paying. Now is there a way to change that anger into some other emotion? It would be difficult. But I could try. But do you understand when I say to you that anger is the internal obstacle to wealth because when you have that anger in you, it translates into things where now normally what happens is you go out and you buy something that you don't need, you go on and buy something that you want. You give money to your daughter that you don't need to be giving to her. But you just do it and all these things. Because what isn't making sense is why are you, Jamie acting in my opinion, so irrationally. And being late on your rent payment, being late on things you're holding on to everything because you holding onto anger, I need you to open up and let your energy start to flow through you again so that you can start saving money. So you can start spending responsibly, so that you can start being in control of your money. And the only way that you can be in control of your money is if you're in control of your emotions. And the main emotion that's ruling you in my opinion happens to be anger. Are you relating to what I am saying? Yeah, definitely. It makes sense. Therefore here's the next thing we have to change. How you look at the money that you have and we have to start using it in a way that frees up your energy because right now you are riddled with debt and debt is bondage. And if we could make your money work for you rather than your emotions work against you, then we can get you in a situation where you are making your life financially speaking work for you. So I'm going to give you some ideas right now and I just want you to stay open to what I'm about to say to you. Will you stay open to my suggestions? Definitely listen to me closely. Right now, you have $193,700 in an investment account. Now here here's what's important. These markets go up and these markets go down and right now as I'm speaking to you, these markets are seriously high and they're doing quite well. But you still have debt. Like on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you hate your debt? Oh my God, I hate it. You hate it. Here we are again. Hate is just another form of anger. So I have somebody I am speaking to that is grounded in anger rather than in peace. Therefore, here is my suggestions for you. I want you to take money out of your investment account and I want you to pay off your credit card debt, your car loan debt, your student loan debt, the money that you actually owe back to your pension plan of the $20,000. I want you to pay off every single thing that you owe. If you were to do that, your debt that you owe on your car and everything like that comes to about $32,000. If you were to pay off that $32,627 of those debts to begin with. that would free up $653 in monthly payments for you. Next you need to pay off the $20,000 that you have that you owe. Now if you just did all of that, you're still going to have approximately $139,000 left in your investment account. But you will owe absolutely no money. So now here's the choice for you. Do you feel more secure with $195,000 but yet owing you know close to $60,000 and not being able to afford to pay your monthly bills or would you feel better having $138,000 that you know that is yours? You owe absolutely no money whatsoever and now you have more money because you don't have money going out to pay your debt. Which one would make you feel better? I think getting rid of all of the debt probably and having more money per month, correct? Now we're going to increase your monthly income because you're not going to be paying your debt by about $700 a month. That is a lot of money girl, girlfriend. So tomorrow or even today you are going to pay off all the debt that you owe and repay back your pension. Next we need to talk about your daughter. I read in what you wrote that you give your daughter about $20 every other day for Starbucks and things like that. Do you know that you are giving her almost $4,000 a year to buy Starbucks and things like that? Or almost about 10% of your take home pay for her simply to have Starbucks? Do you know that? Yeah. I just I just looked at it the other day and realized the amount that is going out the door for that and it's not just Starbucks obviously it's just going to a movie which has gotten so expensive or you know going out to lunch or whatever. Now if that's true, you have heard me possibly say before. Sometimes helping is hurting and hurting is helping. Has your daughter ever worked for money? You know she really has not um she's 15 and she honestly she has not had really time, she's a varsity cheerleader and she's in summer school over the summer. And so she really has not um I've tried to get her to babysit. That hasn't really worked out. What does that mean? You tried to get her to babysit but it didn't work out? When a kid really needs to make money because they want something, they find a way to make money. But she doesn't have to because mama's always gonna give her money and do you know why mama you always give her money? I do. And why is that? Because I feel like I want my daughter to have the childhood that I had growing up and I want her to be able to have a social life and do things with her friends. Yet I know that I am a single mom and I can't afford it. I, there's a lot of guilt there and what you're doing is you're passing down to her that if she ever gets into the situation where she grows up, she gets married, she gets divorced, she has a child, that she too is going to grow up if she doesn't have the money and living a life of fear that she's behind on her rent, she can't open up her credit card statement. She hasn't really looked at her in investment account and she's living a life that she hates because you hate your life, Jamie, you hate your life and I know you hate your life. And the reason I know that you hate your life is when you cannot even open up your bills. When you cannot even face the truth of what you have created. You hate the situation that you're in and you feel you can't do anything about it right or wrong, Jamie. Absolutely right. And that's what you want to pass down to your daughter. Or you could give her what my parents gave me. The knowledge of Suze Orman. If you want any money, you're gonna have to go out and work for it. Suze Orman, if you want to go to school you're gonna have to pay for it. Suze Orman, if you want anything, you're gonna have to do it on your own because we don't have the money to do so and you're gonna have to help yourself. And now look at little Suzy Orman today, Jamie. If you love your daughter, if you love yourself, then tell her the truth that the two of you together have got to become a team. That you are so afraid. And cry with her. Show her how you really feel. Show her in just three years you're not gonna be able to stay in this apartment and that the two of you are going to have to start figuring this out so that you both have a place to live so you both can make it so that mommy can save for retirement, so Mommy can take care of herself, and that she's gonna have to figure out how she's going to go to college and which college does she want to go to because mommy doesn't have the money to send her to college. So should she go to community college or does she need to get straight A's so she can get a scholarship or whatever it may be. But these are the talks Jamie that you have to have with her right now. This is not a problem about you not being able to handle money, this is a problem that you feel you owe it to your daughter possibly because she doesn't have a father there and you're just raising her by herself. Right. I hit it there, didn't I? Yeah. So therefore we need to change that. That's what needs to change within you. Now. The question is, how do we do that, Jamie, do you have any ideas? Um I mean I think I need to sit down and have a serious talk with my daughter. I think she knows that there's money concerns there. I think she feels that anxiety, but I think we need to have that conversation. I think she's old enough now to be able to handle reality. So the two of you now need to do an exercise together and here is the exercise. Every single thing that you buy from this day forward. You have got to ask yourself the question, is this a want or is this a need? If it is a want, you walk away, If it's a need, you have to buy it, what is the difference? Want is eating out at a restaurant. A need is buying healthy food at a grocery store, you're going to have to start categorizing everything. Now one great exercise that you might want to do with her is to go through your entire household and you are to take out every single thing in her room as well as your room, in your cupboards, in everywhere, your basement, your attic, whatever it may be. And you are to put everything that you have not worn for six months to one year or everything you have not used, the makeup, the shampoos, all of that. You are to take them out and put them in the middle of the living room floor. And then you are to total up how much money you have wasted on the things that you wanted. Then you are to take all of those things and you are to donate them to a charity of your choice, get a tax write off for all of them. That will help you on your taxes. But right then and there is where your daughter will start to see all the money that has been wasted over the years on all these things that you have wanted. Can you do that for me? Yeah, I love it. So those are two things now that you are going to do the. Third thing which is actually the first thing is you are going to pay off all of your debt. You are going to try to change your emotions from anger for your first husband to either compassion or whatever. Because if he is lying to the government, it will get him eventually. And you don't have to be angry at him. You are the answer to the problems that you have created for yourself, Jamie. Nobody did this to you. You are not a victim to your circumstances. You did this to yourself. Do you see that now? I do. Therefore you can absolutely change that around now. Just a few other things and then I'll let you go. I did some number figuring and with the money that they put into your pension, with the money that you're putting in to your, you know 403b with Fidelity by the way. Do you have a Roth 403b that they offer you? I don't think so. Can you just ask just in case? However you're only you're only putting $100 a month away in that way. Once you start getting extra money, I'd like to see you open up a Roth IRA where you start putting money into a Roth IRA. You can put up to $5500 a year right now. Once you turn 50 you can put in $6500 a year. If you start doing that along with your 403b, along with the money that goes into your pension, you could very easily have one or $2 million by the time you retire. Uh wow. So you can have money there with given what you already have now you can have $2 million dollars maybe even more just depending on what you're able to put away. You don't have any debt, you might even have enough saved. So that in the next few years you'll have enough money to put down as a down payment on a home if that's what you want. But you have choices, girlfriend. But the choices start with are you going to choose to be powerful with your daughter? Powerful over your own money and powerful over your own destiny? Because the choice Jamie is up to you. All right everybody, here is your Do It moment for this week's podcast. I want all of you when you have time to do so because maybe you're driving. You never know right now. And I want you to write down all the names of all the people who you are seriously angry at now. These names might just include your own because it's very possible and probable you are really angry at yourself, angry for staying in a relationship that you know you want to get out of, angry because you didn't follow your gut, angry for whatever reason it may be. So don't forget to include your name if you're angry at yourself as well. I want you to write next to their name the reason why you are angry. Next. I want you to write down, how long have you been angry? Has it been for one month, one week, one year, 10 years? How long? Next, I want you to go back and look at what is the longest you have been angry at somebody for, and I want you to look if it's 10 years, if it's eight years, I just want you to look at that and then I want you to think about in the eight years that you have been carrying anger towards that person. How have you been doing financially speaking, did you get into debt? Did you have to claim bankruptcy? What has gone wrong with your financial life during the time that you have been holding anger at these people? On the other hand, maybe you'll say Suze, I'm not angry at anybody. I'm not carrying any anger at all. For those of you out there where that is the case, then I want you to look at your financial life and I want you to take a really hard look and go, hasn't been going right, hasn't been going wrong. Which direction is my financial life going. And if you're not carrying fear, if you're not carrying shame, if you're not carrying anger and you're coming from a respectful and self-worth place, I would almost guarantee you that your financial life is just fine. So it could go either way here, are you carrying anger or are you not? This duet moment is just about you looking at your life through the lens of emotional financial obstacles and see if you for once can uncover the block. Keeping you from being more and having more. Now. If you happen to notice that oh my God 10 years ago, I got really angry at this person. And then during this time I claim bankruptcy, that's a serious sign that your anger at least in my opinion, is absolutely destroying you. And I don't care how you go after that person. You will never hurt that person. The only person you will ever hurt with your anger is yourself. I want you to think about it. I want you to examine it and once you have discovered it, I want you to change it. I want you to let your anger go, and I want you to grow and be the mature, loving, respectful woman you were born to be.

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