Podcast Episode - Join the FIFF Movement: Part 2

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Suze goes further to explore the power of finding the combination of financial independence and financial freedom by answering listener questions.

Podcast Transcript:

Sarah. I still love that theme song. I hope I never ever get tired of it. Do you still love it? Oh my gosh. I love it. I think everybody loves it. We've been getting great feedback about it. What, what kind of feedback? What is it what have people been saying? Everybody just loves it. They just say they love the new songs, they love, they love the new episodes. So I think people are just really resonating with how it makes them feel. Well if you love the song that’s our theme song you might want to hear it in full. All you have to go do is go to Spotify, it's by Effie. Together We’ll Survive, and download it then play it all the time. And then you can think about us. You can think about your money, you can think about yourself but really, maybe there's not a difference between you and your money. So you just can think about whatever you think about. Sarah. Here's what I really want to know. What did people think about our last episode? Are they totally confused? You know I just want to tell you before you answer that. So I get emails from people saying Suze, you're, you're creating a FIRE movement. Don't you know that there's already a FIRE movement? Financial independence for retire early movement. I go, no, I didn't say FIRE a few days ago. I said FIFF, financial independence, financial freedom. That's the dream of the FIRE movement. Right? But, but that's a whole new movement. So we're FIFF. So how are you fighting with me? High five, high five, high five, high five. I'm totally fine with high five. High 5, high five. That's what I said. Well, fine. I couldn't understand you. What? No problem. But what came in? What kind of things do people want to know? Well, listen first, I think what resonated with everybody is this idea that independence is about knowing you could do it yourself. It doesn't mean you have to do it yourself. It means, you know, you could if you had to. Bingo, bingo. I think that's, that's, that's a aha moment. No, really? You just did an aha. Which is that you don't have to do it yourself. But you know that you can like, you know last week I keep calling it last week. It was just a few days ago. But in my world, everything seems like months apart. It goes so fast. But I was telling you how we were fishing and that's when this whole idea came to me because we were trying to pick up a 40 pound wahoo out of our boat when our friend tried to help us. I got news for you. Next time he comes by now that I know I can do it and he wants to pick up a 50 pound wahoo. I can go be my guest. Go ahead, take it out of my boat, take it to my golf cart, take it to the thing. I don't personally need to break my back. I just wanted to know that I could, I could do that on my own. And so, so we got it. So we got aha! That's an aha moment on the FIFF on the five. So listen, you know, we launched our new voicemail with the new season, which by the way, if you want to give us a call at 877-545-S-U-Z-E. That's 877-545-SUZE. You can leave us a voicemail, and I want to play you a voicemail to kick off this episode, Suze. Because you know, we always talk about how this is not your ordinary podcast. And what's not ordinary is we want this to be interactive. Oh, that's right. You, I forgot everybody. It's me, everybody. I have nothing, don't you? Like when I say and there's nothing about me that is ordinary. Well, I can vouch for that. Thank God. Thank God. Alright, so episodes build on each other. So about a week ago we had the Broke No More episode, and um that really hit home for one of the people that called in and we had already done this part of the episode for broke no more. But I think it's really important to bring it into this financial independence and financial freedom that this all begins, getting that right begins with fixing your relationship with money. So I want you right here to listen to Donna and the voicemail that she left you. Alright, let's do it. I'm crying. I'm crying in my car. I'm looking around to see how messy it is. It really hit home when you talked about, it's a reflection of how you feel about yourself and your relationship with money. So what do I do first? I was gonna go gamble it all away, but I stopped in my tracks. I feel like I should clean my car. Maybe that comes first. I'm not quite sure what to do. I'm crying. I can't believe I'm crying over a podcast from you. You're so powerful. So should I clean my car first? That's my question. My name is Donna Maxim. Thank you so much Suze. Oh Donna, you know, they have a saying in India that tears are God's way of forgiving you. But I think what's important here is not necessarily that should God forgive you, but can you forgive yourself if you are sitting in a car and there's garbage everywhere. Alright, sure you can clean up the car. But you said something, you said something that really bothered me, you said you could sit here and then go and gamble it all away or you could clean up your car and when you're gambling away money, what you're really doing is gambling away your life. And why would you want to gamble away your life? What has gone on in your life with your relationship with yourself to make you want to gamble your life away? To live in a trash heap. To not respect yourself. Because respect has to start with you. Doesn't matter if other people respect you. It doesn't matter what other people think about you. All that matters is what you think about yourself girlfriend. So yeah you need to take a good look at yourself. So I suggest that you get a mirror and maybe have a mirror in that car of yours somewhere. But you get a mirror, and you look at it. And you look into it and don't look at the physical being that you're seeing Donna, look right into your eyes and see what you can see as you are looking at yourself, see what yourself can see about you and start keeping a journal. And you should do this every single day. Keep a journal of what you're seeing until you can really see how clearly you really are perfect just as you are without you being on the phone, without me being able to interact with you. That's really the best I can do for right now. But yeah clean up your car girlfriend. You know Sarah, interesting, interesting call. I mean that's somebody that I wish we could talk to and find out more about. But that's why when you hear somebody call in and make a call like that something clicked in them. It clicked for the very first time. And that's why I love what we do here. I love it because it's not just straight financial advice. Although the episode about what to do if you're a federal employee that was purely financial and so necessary, it's not even funny. So you will get that. But moments like just happened to Donna are worth millions and millions of dollars. I'm really glad we played that. I think well first of all Donna, if you're listening right now, I have a feeling that Suze and I are going to be giving you a call when you least expect it because we really want to tell - you ruined the surprise. You ruined the surprise. No way. She is. She's not. We're going to catch her off guard. I can assure you. All right, okay. What else you got? I got a few. I've got a few good ones. Um, a woman called Alta. She just got married. Her and her husband both have, have jobs they work, and she says how do I not lose my independence as my husband and I begin our little family? How do I maintain independence financially as we build and grow finances together? You keep separate accounts. You came into this relationship an autonomous human being. You have your own checking account, savings account, retirement account. I'm sure you made all the financial decisions on your own and now you have partnered with somebody. And it is true. M just doesn't stand for marriage. It also stands for money. And you can merge in certain ways. But there are certain ways. In my opinion, you must not merge. You each need your own individual accounts. Your checking accounts, even savings accounts, obviously your retirement accounts will be individual. You need separate credit cards so that when you make a charge, you're responsible. If you're going to pay that and whatever it may be, you have a joint account where you put in the same percentages of money, but not equal amounts of money to pay your joint bills. I will give you an example. You make all to $7,000 a month. Take home. Your husband makes $3,000 a month. Take home and your joint expenses are $3,000 a month. If you were to each put in 50% of your joint expenses, that would be $1,500 from you and $1,500 for him. That's like 25% for you and 50% for him of what you are bringing home, that is not equal. It may be equal money, but it's not equal percentages of the amount of money that you have available to you. So you are going to take your 7000 and his 3000 and you're going to combine it. That's $10,000. And you're going to divide that into your joint expenses of $3000. And that is 30%. So 30% of your take home is going to go into the joint account, and 30% of his take home is going to go into the joint account. 30% of $7,000 is $2,100, 30% of $3,000 is $900. So there's your $3,000. The rest of the money stays in your individual accounts. But you have to make sure that you're also autonomous in every decision that you make. Now that doesn't mean that you can't get help from him or he can't get help from you. But in the end, you have to know about every decision that is made. You also, also need to both pay bills together. Do not delegate things such as you pay bills, he does this, he does that, you do this. Make finance is a family affair so that you all know about everything. You both know about each other's investments. You both know about how much each other spends. You both know about each other's FICO scores. But again, you know how to do everything, and when you feel that you're losing that independence, you need to talk with him because he may love you so much that he says, I just want to take care of you. Also, please let me just do this for you. So I just took care of everything. No. When you see that happening or if you start to do that to him, you've got to stop and come together and help each other be as independent from you and from each other, financially speaking as you can be as you come together as one with your money. You know, here's what's funny everybody, right? I can see even though Sarah and I are not in the same location, I have her up on Skype so I can see her responses. She's got a cute little baseball cap on. She's got her glasses. She got her headphones on, she's not shaking her head at me. And so I just get through giving this incredibly passionate plea. I mean, who gives financial advice for such passion? I mean, really? And the Academy Award for Financial Drama goes to Miss Suze Orman. And so I finish this. I'm waiting for her to say something. And she's just sitting there like, yeah. And shaking her head. You know what, what were you doing? I'm calculating my own percentages with Kev on how much we put into our accounts to see if I've got the numbers right. That's because I'm like, can you talk? You're supposed to be my co-host here. But you are just sitting there shaking your head and I'm looking at you shaking your head going, hello? I'm calculating percentages. I'm thinking to myself, are we doing it? I know we do it pretty close to that. But I'm like wait a second. I need to get some calculators out. I need to get out the account and I need to start checking and making sure. There you go. Do you know that KT and I do not have a joint account and we never have. It's crazy. I mean I knew that, but it is it's funny to think because everybody assumes the first thing you're supposed to do when you get married, open a joint checking account. Now we don't have one joint account. We have our, you know our homes now the homes that we have left because we sold most of them. They're in joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Our car, we have one, only one car now right is a joint, you know is the golf cart whose name is The Golf Cart. And that's a good question. I don't even know if it's in either of our names. It's actually under my LLC. And the Bahamas. Okay. It's entitled to either of us right, and the insurance policy is under that. I have insurance on my golf cart. Do you find that crazy? Well, I mean I feel like you have to, if a hurricane sweeps through there, you're gonna need a replacement. But that's not why it's because if you run into somebody with a golf cart and you hurt them, you better have insurance. Well yeah. Yes. Any motorized vehicle? It's not, it's electric. Well do you have them on your electric bikes? No, I better get that right. You better get that. Yeah, but you want to know something that doesn't have insurance on the electric bikes? Well, I haven't if it's stolen, not if I hurt somebody. But, but there's no theft on the island. So why do I even have that? What a waste that it's just a waste of money. But I was gonna tell you something, I totally forgot what I was going to tell you. Well maybe we should unpack your financial bags now. How much time do you have? I got all the podcasting time out there. Alright so. Alright I wanna, I wanna go a little, I want to get a little heavier with you for a second. Um this is a woman named Laurie, she has been a full-time mom her whole life. She's married 32 years, children are out of the home, every once in a while she still does house cleaning now that the children are out of the house. She recently opened a bank account for herself to put some money into it because she felt like she wanted to start having some of her own money. Her husband found out about this account and caused a massive fight. Uh and he said to her, you better find a full-time job and it better be more than minimum wage because I'm not gonna carry you on my back in retirement. She goes on to say that the education that she has is long since relevant and any education she wanted during her marriage, she goes, you guessed it. He was against it. It was an eye awakening experience for me. When he said that to me, I'm taking my power back and want to be financially independent. But I'm horribly lost. How do I start saving now for my own retirement with basically nothing? Laurie. Um, here's the good news. The good news is if you're in your late fifties or early sixties girlfriend, you have a lot of time on your side still. So don't get discouraged. Little by little. You know I've been working with a woman by the name of Yana, who was part of my financial abuse series that I did for the domestic violence hotline and she starts saving $25 a month, $25 a week. Then she just had little amounts saved and she now has almost $1,000 saved. That is more money than she ever thought she would have in her entire life. And I am telling you if a Yana can do it, you can do it as well. If you have what it took or you had what it took to raise kids to make sure everything was okay, to make money on the side so that they were okay, you now can do the same for yourself. However, you are in a relationship with somebody who is totally disrespecting you, you are in a relationship with somebody who has told you they do not care about you. And you are in a relationship with somebody who is exhibiting financially abusive behavior which is why I brought up Ayanna. When you are in a relationship with somebody who does not want you to be independent, does not like that you have your own savings account, that wants to be totally controlling of you. That is somebody who wants to deny you of your financial independence, wants to deny you of your birthright to be financially free and therefore you have got to make the hardest decision you are ever gonna make in your life. And if it were me and I were in that situation I would leave because it will never change. I have learned that financial abusers do not change and you may just be somebody like most women who are financially abused. You believe that you can change him. That it will be okay. That if you just love him up, he'll take care of you. Oh he doesn't mean what he's saying. He absolutely does. He absolutely does. You know Maya Angelou had a saying that when somebody shows you who they are, you best believe them. So I am begging you that you believe what you know to be true. I don't know how old your three children are, but maybe since you put them through school or you help them, maybe they now can help you. Do they have a little extra money? Can everybody gather their forces? Can something go on so that you literally can just stop being there and leave, get a tiny little apartment and start your life over while there is still time for you to be great. Now you need to also know that if you've been married to him for at least 10 years or longer, then when it comes time for social security, you're going to be able to collect half of what he is going to get. So you will be getting income in the future based on that. If his half is bigger than what you would get on your own. But my advice to you is to become financially independent. You now have to become emotionally dependent upon yourself. You have to have the self respect and the recognition that you are, in my opinion, in a financially abused relationship and therefore you are being financially abused and only one person and one person only can stop that. And that is you by you leaving and taking your power. Now listen, you know what I love about Laurie in the email and this is why I picked her is because she said, I'm taking my power back and I want to be financially independent. She knows it's time, she knows that money can help her feel secure and I totally agree with you. She needs to look and know that she can do this on her own and she doesn't need him. But it's not only it's even bigger than that. Sarah, it's not that she doesn't need him. She shouldn't want him. She shouldn't want anybody in her life who doesn't want to be there for her. Especially in her time of need. One of the major laws of money is to keep good company. If you don't keep good company, oh, you will end up in a situation that you'll understand why you should have. So Lori is right now in a financially abusive relationship and she shouldn't need it. She shouldn't want it. And she needs to get out. And if you're listening to me and this rings true to you that you have somebody in your life that wants to financially control you, he or she doesn't want you to have credit cards in your own name, a savings account in your own name, a retirement account, an account for you to do something with your own money, your everything. Chances are you are in a relationship where you are being financially abused. You need to listen to me. You need to go back and listen to season one where we talk about financial abuse. We'll do it again this season. You might want to go to thehotline.org and watch my seven videos that I did with women who survived financial abuse and domestic abuse. And that is something you really need to do. That's why the theme song by F. E. Together We’ll Survive, that's what the Women & Money podcast is about to become. A community of women that tell the truth to one another. The truth that we have nobody else to tell. So that not only do we get strong financially and know what to do to be financially independent, but that financial independence rests upon a woman who is strong, a woman who is smart, a woman who respects herself, a woman who never lets herself be put down. A woman who never ever says yes out of fear versus no out of love for herself. A woman who loves her life and only does those things that makes her happy. That Sarah, is the Women & Money podcast.

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