Podcast Episode - Suze School: The Keys to a Successful Relationship (Financially Speaking)

This Suze School came out the day of Suze and KT’s 14th Wedding Anniversary, so KT joined Suze to share their keys to making a successful relationship, not only with each other but with their money as well.  

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Podcast Transcript:

Suze: September 8th 2024. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen.

Suze: If you think that I'm going to talk about the rules of inherited pre-tax IRAs wrong, wrong, wrong. After two serious Suze Schools, even though one was with KT, we're going to leave that topic alone for a while to let you all digest everything that you do need to know. But I am going to reiterate that. I think it's really important that you mark last Thursdays as well as last Sunday's podcast because trust me one day, you are going to need those rules. So you will come back, listen to it again and again and hopefully you will know the answers. 

Suze: Now, I will in a few weeks after this is all settled down, do one on successor beneficiaries so that you understand how those rules happen to go, but not quite now. 

Suze: All right, obviously, last week was a horrific week in the stock market and I am sure all of you are going. What should I do? What should I do? Oh my God. Should I sell the emails that I'm getting to Suze? Should I get out? Should I do whatever you have got to understand when it comes to investing.

Suze: If you are investing, you are in this for the long run, you are not in this right now to make a few dollars, to have something, go up to have something go down to. No, investing is not about you adding confusion to your life. It's about you having a solid foundation knowing that you are invested in great quality stocks, ETFs or mutual funds and that over time, they'll continue to go up. But there is not one type of an investment that you own that won't experience a downturn, whether it's in bonds, think about it just a few years ago or even maybe a year or so ago. 

Suze: If you had been invested in a long term bond fund or in individual bonds as interest rates started to go up, you saw the value of those bonds go down and if you were somebody who owned those bonds in a brokerage account or whatever it may have been where you get statements every single month, you would see your balance go down and down and down and yet you were freaking out and you probably wanted to get out of them.

Suze: But if you had just kept them right now because interest rates are starting to come down, the value of those bond funds or bonds are now going back up and now you're happy again. The same is absolutely true with your equity investments. Whether it's in a 401k plan individual investment accounts. Roths. I don't care. 

Suze: I want you to think back about two years ago when great quality stocks, Apple, Amazon, all of them went down so significantly, it isn't even funny.

Suze: And then what did they do? They started to go up, up, up, up, up, up and now they're starting to go down, down down, but there's still a lot higher than back in 2022. That is the nature of investing. If you don't have what it takes to do that. If that is not your nature, then you shouldn't be investing because I promise you you will sell at the wrong time, you will buy at the wrong time. You cannot time this market.

Suze: But if you just continue to dollar cost average, be consistent, have good quality stocks again over the long run. When these great companies go down, you are essentially if you have the courage to do so and you invest in them, you are getting them on sale. 

Suze: However, with that said, it's important that you know, when should you dollar cost average at what price should you do? It? It's not always just as simple as, oh, it's going down. Therefore, I'll buy more over time. Everything will be ok. I just briefly want to say a few things a long time ago we started to talk about you should invest in Palantir. Palantir has just been added to the Standard and Poors 500.

Suze: That is great news for all of you. 

Suze: So that is a stock I'm telling you you should be looking into. Also, I just want to point out one other little thing which is, do you remember January 7th? I gave you seven exchange traded funds that I thought you should. Absolutely. If all you even had was $1000 that if you just bought one share of each, that you would be ok.

Suze: And even with the horrific news and the changes of the stock market, if you had done that, even with the market going down considerably recently, you would still be up 11.21% on your money.

Suze: And that is because it had a variety of things in it. It had health care, finance, real estate, biotech, the Dow Jones industrial average technology. So you had diversification there in certain areas that I wanted you invested in.

Suze: So even with this going down, you're still up 11%. I don't think that's such a bad thing on any level also. Do you remember on August 5th? I gave you the names of stocks that I really liked and over time I thought you should buy and things like that. Do you know if you did? So that you would, since August 5th, you would still be up 5.52%.

Suze: Some of those things that I gave you are up 10% or more. So, therefore, the market has not gone to, you know, where down under - KT doesn't like when I swear and KT is sitting next to me right now and there is a reason for that.

Suze: But anyway, so just stay cool. Don't worry about it. And the truth of the matter is, and I will reiterate this since most of you do not need this money for years to come. 10 years, 20 years, whatever it may be, even five years, just let the markets do what they wanna do in your retirement accounts, especially at work where you're putting money in every single month, your dollar cost averaging in the long run, you will be ok. And just remember sooner than later a program that is being created for you will come out to help you with all of this. All right. 

Suze: Now, the other day, I had the great honor of being invited to go to Telemundo and not only be on Telemundo, you could all see it. I'll post that link for all of you, but it is in Spanish. They've dubbed me over because Telemundo is all in Spanish. And what's a shame is that I couldn't do it in Spanish because I have a belief that every one of us should know how to speak Spanish as well as English. But that is, besides the point. 

Suze: After that I went and I gave a seminar to about 200 people as well as it was broadcast out to many people online. And there was one question that seemed to strike a chord with the audience more than really any question that I was asked. And the question was Suze, how do you deal with a relationship when maybe you're the saver, your spouse or partner is not? How do you deal with it with kids? But it seemed like that was when the audience really, really perked up. How do you have a successful relationship when it comes to finances?

Suze: And the reason that Miss Travis is sitting in the room with us right now, even though this is normally just Suze School, is that today? September 8th is what Miss Travis?

KT: Our wedding anniversary?

Suze: How many KT?

KT: 14 years

Suze: 14 years baby. And even though we've been together now, how many?

KT: 23 something like that.

Suze: But remember everybody, we really couldn't get married. It wasn't legal here in the States.

KT: We went to Africa,

Suze: we went to South Africa and did it just that simple. But anyway, so given that it is our wedding anniversary.

KT: Happy anniversary, Suze.

Suze: Awe KT! KT want to tell everybody about our last year anniversary?

KT: Oh my God. We were in, did they remember we were in Madrid and Suze surprised me with the most extraordinary breakfast in Madrid that consisted of rose petals leading to a table in a cafe. Early in the morning, I had no makeup on. I had on like my gym clothes. I looked horrible. I thought I was gonna have coffee and toast. No, no, no, no, no. She had the most exquisite breakfast served. She had musicians, she had an opera singer.

Suze: Two opera singers,

KT: They sang Beseme Mucho. But they also sang some beautiful, beautiful arias that I love.

KT: We had champagne, a cake, everything and this and there were other people sitting around us wondering like what are they celebrating? It was great balloons, balloons.

Suze: I have goosebumps.

KT: How can you forget that? You cannot.

KT: It was unbelievable

Suze: and ask me what I have planned for this anniversary Nada, nada.

KT: She goes from extreme to nada. Nothing.

Suze: Although I do have a little anniversary gift for you.

KT: You do?

Suze: Do you want me to give it to you on the podcast right now?

KT: You have it here in the studio.

Suze: I have it in my words.

KT: Oh, ok.

Suze: So my gift to you is you get to pick three things that you can do once, twice or three times with me. All right. So any of these three things you can do all three you can do one at a time. What however you want to do it?

KT: What are they?

Suze: So, and you get to choose and whenever you want to do it, I have to say yes, number one, take a walk with you. Number two, play golf with you and number three go in the ocean with you.

Suze: Happy anniversary.

KT: I love all three. Can we do all three today?

Suze: If you want to do all three today, we can do all three today. If you want to hold them for other days, you can. But that is your anniversary gift whenever you want to do those three things. I, no matter what I'm doing, I have to stop and say, let's do it.

KT: I love that. That's the best gift ever. And so a little kiss in between,

Suze: Maybe. Alright. But anyway, so why is KT here? We're here number one to celebrate the joy that we have being together. But also because I know how much you love KT as well to talk about spontaneously, KT,

Suze: what makes our relationship successful, financially speaking. What do you think that is? And what advice?

KT: Well, the first is so easy, Suze, we, we both have 100% transparency and communication with each other. We have never ever hidden or not disclosed or we're afraid to talk about money with each other ever. And for me, speaking about money has always been extremely easy, very easy, which makes me the perfect partner for Suze Orman.

KT: But I think that is the key is communication, communication, communication

Suze: Besides communication because obviously everybody, it is really, really important. So get out your little Suze notebooks. What is the key or keys to a successful relationship? Financially speaking, because if you can't be successful, financially speaking, trust me, you are not going to be successful on any other level, you're just not. Remember one out of two people who get married, get divorced, couples. The number one reason for divorce is arguments over money.

KT: What's the number two for you?

Suze: Number two, for me, truthfully is to, yes, we're totally one with our love, our communication, our relationship. But also you are one with your money, totally with your money. I am one with my money even though we know your money and my money is our money.

Suze: You have total autonomy over the money that is in your name. You are not dependent upon me in terms of how to invest it. You have your own relationship with the brokerage firm that you're totally independent with it. You look at your statements, you look at my statements. I don't look at statements because I look at them online and I'm looking at it every single day.

Suze: But I think the key everybody for our success is that KT has power over her own money.

Suze: And I think we've set up our relationship in such a way that KT has trust that the power in this relationship is not because maybe I make more money than KT.

KT: Always have. She's always had far more money. Than me. But that doesn't matter...

Suze: Who's really the powerful one in this relationship?

KT: KT.

Suze: Why do you think that is?

KT: I know it is.

Suze: But why?

Suze: Because so many times KT, seriously, people get into when they're in a relationship that the person who has the most money, the person who makes the most money has the most power in the relationship. So why is that,

Suze: that really in our relationship? And everybody knows this to be true. You have the most power.

KT: I make decisions.

Suze: And I don't?

KT: You, you weigh in, you're a Gemini. She's a Gemini which means that she weighs in. She changes her mind. She's not sure she goes back. She analyzes things. I can make a decision

KT: flat out whether it's right or wrong is another podcast, but I do make decisions and I stick by them. And I have incredible confidence in my decision

Suze: Because she has confidence in her decisions and because she has power and knowledge of who she is in life. When she decides something, even if I disagree with it, I say yes, do it because my job in this relationship isn't always to be right, isn't to be the one that makes decisions and do the da da da. No, the key in this relationship. Everybody is for me to make sure that KT feels mutually respected, admired, honored that when she says something, I say, OK, that I don't put her decisions down that I do come to her and I ask that we have equal power.

KT: Yeah, I think Suze, it's respect, it's trust, it's communication. It's not even equal power. It's not the word power, it's more the word. You know, sharing, we're kind of in it together, we're in it together. And I think that we have very, very uniquely different roles but we respect each other's roles and is more important than the other.

Suze: But we're talking about finances now, KT. So when we first met, because a lot of people say Suze, my spouse is so horrible with money or Suze, my spouse doesn't understand money. I do. They don't want to learn about money, whatever it may be.

KT: When Suze and I met, which was very well. We were 50 when we met each.

Suze: Actually, when we met, we were about 48 I was 49.

KT: So, and we were both, I was a baby millionaire and Suze was a very big millionaire. So we already met each other with significant wallets. Let's put it that way.

Suze: You knew nothing about.

KT: I knew nothing about finances. I was always extremely responsible and good with the money I had. But have I, I wish I had Suze a lot earlier. I did not know anything about finances, investments, things like that, but I was very responsible, not in debt.

Suze: So that's a big key. Everybody when you get in a relationship, you better know is your spouse to be, or partner to be in debt. What do you know about them? Financially speaking, write this down. You need to be as intimate, financially speaking as you are personally with your spouse or your partner. Don't be afraid to talk about money. 

Suze: So when KT and I first met and this is the main reason I wanted you on today, KT when we first met, I wasn't afraid to ask KT serious questions about how much money do you have? What do you owe on your home, if anything. Do you have a car? Are you leasing it? What do you have and what's going on in your finances? When KT answered the truth of the matter is what KT?

KT: When I met her, I was so proud that I had this whole life insurance policy sold to me while I was working in Hong Kong making a lot of money and this was sold to me under the guise that this would be a great way to have a retirement fund in my later years. And I was so excited. I was real proud. I thought, oh, this is gonna impress her. She's gonna love this.

KT: Well, that's not exactly what happened.

Suze: She put in $15,000 a year on her birthday into this for 10 years. She deposited 100 and $50,000 in this policy. Now you tell the rest, KT:

KT: She looked at me. She said, ok, we're gonna cancel. I said what and

Suze: Why are we gonna cancel? What was your cash value?

KT: It was very little, it was $50,000.

Suze: Here's my question to you during the time that you owned this investment, had you ever bothered to even look at what it was really worth?

KT: No, not really because I just trusted it was a great thing I was doing every year by putting that money in.

Suze: This is very important. Whether you're in a relationship, you're not in a relationship, you cannot just do something every single year or a month and not look at the results of what you are doing. KT had never bothered to look at what was that? $15,000 a year doing.

Suze: Well. I'll tell you what it was doing. It was making her insurance agent rich.

KT: It was, yeah, he got a big and I like I liked him so much and I said he sends me a birthday card and, and holiday cards every year. And she said, of course he does KT

Suze: The point of the matter is I wasn't afraid when we first met to ask her about her money. Look at her money, see that after all those years, 10 years of doing something, she only had 50,000 in this investment. So we had open communication for her to listen but not all of a sudden go, No, Suze, this was good and stand by it so that she didn't have to appear wrong. She immediately canceled it so many of the things truthfully KT that you were doing based on the advice of other financial people, whether it was with your home, your car, whatever it may be, they were all wrong, they were just wrong. But we had the open communication to make it right.

Suze: So that's what's important is for you to be able to talk about everything. We knew each other's FICO scores. We looked into everything about both of our personal finances. Nothing was a secret between us. What's important is that during that time, KT from then till now, it's amazing how you scour everything, right? The mail comes in. Obviously, we own a lot of individual stocks, probably close to 70 believe it or not. And when you own an individual stock, you get these prospectuses, you get these annual reviews. KT what do you do with everyone?

KT: Every single one I look and, and you also get an individual statement on the buy and sell, call for the stocks. I look at every single one, everyone and if there's something that looks a little odd or I don't understand a term, I immediately either look it up or make a phone call or ask Suze, what does this mean?

Suze: Right now, the reason that that is important is that KT went from knowing nothing about her money, even though she was good with saving her money to now knowing every possible thing there is to know about her money except understanding inherited IRAs which she never wants to hear about that topic again as long as you live.

KT: Tell them what I said after we did that podcast, I said, Suze, I'd better die before you because if I, if you die before me and I have to deal with this thing and listen to this podcast about inherited IRAs, I'm gonna go crazy. 

Suze: The good news is though. KT you're my spouse. So you don't have to think about a lot of that stuff. You just need to know you are an eligible designated beneficiary and really given that we're almost the same age, it will just go into your account. That's all you need to remember. All right. That's it. Simple. Right?

Suze: The next thing that you need to write down is that if you're in a relationship, you both need to take responsibility for everything.

Suze: We both look at the bills that come in, we make sure that everything that we're charged for whatever it is that it is something that we purchased, that it is something that we have. We both look at it. It's just not KT's responsibility when it comes to our monthly expenses and everything. It is both of our responsibilities. 

Suze: So, if you want a great personal relationship, you have to have a great financial relationship where you are both wanting to know everything about what's going on with your money every single month. So you need to make a date once a month that when everything comes in, you sit down and you look at it but not like, oh, I have to look at it.

Suze: You'll do it. Like we get to look at what our money that we have put all our efforts into earning is making for us. Oh, we get to look at how we are spending our money. Are we spending it wisely or are we wasting it? Oh, we get to cut expenses here, whether you have to cut expenses or not, you get enjoyment out of saving true saving. And if you can start to do those things and be open, then you will have a successful personal relationship as well. 

Suze: How does this relate back to the topic that I started with in the same way that when you get into a personal relationship with somebody, you enter it with the desire and the hope that you're in it for the long term, in essence, till death. Do you part that is part of the vows that many of you have taken?

Suze: And as you know, my belief with money is money is just a physical manifestation of who you are. You know, everybody that I believe that. So the truth of the matter is you are also in a long term relationship with your money. And when you invest, you invest your money just like you're investing in a personal relationship, you're investing in it for the long term. It is not short term. It's not five years, two years, it's long term. 

Suze: And just like in a personal relationship where there are ups, there are downs, obviously there are fights, there are disagreements. KT and I have arguments. We have disagreements. We do things that we wish we hadn't or we say things that sometimes we wish we hadn't. But since we know we're in this for the long term our thoughts never go to. Oh, this is it. We're out of it.

Suze: Same thing with money and your investments. There are times when it's up, times when it's down, but you cannot just think. No, I'm out of it. I'm selling, I'm gone. If it's a good quality investment portfolio, you are in it for the long term. So let the ups and downs happen whether it's with your money in your relationship no matter what.

Suze: But if you understand everything and the long term goals that you have, then in the long run, you too will be happy to what KT celebrate your anniversary. What do you want to say? My love?

KT: I love you.

Suze: Do you love me more than I love you?

KT: We love each other the same.

Suze: There you go. So there's only one thing that we want you to remember on this most incredible day of our 14th wedding anniversary is this

Suze: People first,

KT: then money,

Suze: then things and respect each other. Honor each other, love each other and remember you're in it for the long term. So until next Thursday and what happens on Thursday?

KT: We're going to Spain baby to Majorca.

Suze: Yeah, we are going to Spain for one week. So we will try to get our Ask, Suze and KT anything in before we leave, we may have to do another, Ask Suze and Katie anything for Suze School. So at least you have some new material but until then we really want you to do what? Stay healthy, stay safe and stay unstoppable.