Podcast Episode - How Can I Learn About Personal Finance?

On this Ask Suze & KT Anything episode, KT asks Suze your questions about what to do with money you don’t need for five years or longer, selling property, advice for getting young people educated about personal finance and so much more.

Listen to Podcast Episode:

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Podcast Transcript:

KT: October 16, 2025. Is everyone in the mood for delicious pasta?

Suze: What the hell is that all about? What are you talking about?

KT: Suze and I are going to Italy in two more days.

Suze: I'm going like, what is she talking about?

KT: All right, you take over...

Suze: What does that have to do with the Women and Money podcast,

KT: and everyone smart enough to listen and also hungry for gelato.

Suze: Oh Jesus, here we go. And this is the Ask KT and Suze...

KT: Anything, anything, anything.

Suze: So let's get right to it because we have to pack.

KT: OK, this is from Craig. I like this one a lot, Suze. He says, Help me help my son get on the right track. My son is 18, has a Schwab account, has 10,000 invested in ETFs and a couple of stocks. He asked me recently what are some good books or some people to read up on for learning.

I rave about your podcast, but what else can I advocate for my son to get him off on the right foot? Thank you both from another man smart enough to listen for over 20 years. You go, Craig.

Suze: I have to say I know I'm being self-serving here, but I really think one of the best books for somebody like 18 years of age is the book that I wrote many years ago now called The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke. Even though the numbers in there now have changed—like how much you can put in a Roth and everything—it will give him the basics, seriously, of what he needs to understand in a very simple and concise way. I love, love that book. Number one New York Times bestseller.

Other than that, I don't know. He's got $10,000 at 18. I think he's doing pretty good. I would actually also have him read Five with Fitz since it's free.

KT: Oh, that's, it's free.

Suze: Just get him used to what Keith Fitz-Gerald is talking about and things like that. Other than that, there’s so many out there. I have to tell you, one of the greatest books I think he could read is The Richest Man in Babylon. Just have him read that as well.

KT: I forgot about that story. Suze, you did the forward for that book.

Suze: Fabulous...

KT: Fabulous book.

Suze: Because you know it's...

KT: A classic.

Suze: ...not just about what to invest in. It's about values and how he sees himself and what he thinks and how he feels and his whole interaction with money. So there's more to it than just what to invest in.

KT: OK, good. From Paula. Hello, Suze and KT. I have followed you since I was 32 and now I will be 70 in a few months.

Suze: I was just going to say, oh, tell me she's going to be 72 now, right?

KT: I recently retired and filed for Social Security three months prior to age 70 with my spouse already collecting SS several years ago. Between the two of us, our monthly expenses will be covered. So my question is, should we open a CD with the liquid capital, of course less their emergency fund, or what should we do with our excess cash? They have about $300,000.

Just to give you a little backstory, Suze, they have $525,000 in stocks and bonds, another $275,000 to $300,000 in metals, and zero debt. Yay.

Suze: So does metals—do you think it means gold?

KT: I think so.

Suze: So let me just answer this quickly, and everybody listen to me carefully. I cannot tell you what to do with money because I don't necessarily know enough about you. What are your expenses? What is your health? Do you need a new car? Does your house need a new roof? Do you have a trust? Do you have a will? Do you have all of that in place? It's more than what should you do with $300,000.

Now, KT chose this, and here's what I want to say to you. Let's say you didn't come to me with this question. Let's say you walked into a brokerage firm, a financial advisor, and you say, Here, I have $300,000. What should I do with it? You now have set yourself up seriously, everybody, for the salesperson—or possibly also known as a financial advisor—to say buy this, buy that, do this, do that.

A great financial advisor can never tell you what to do with $300,000 just because you already have $525,000 in stocks. You have like $300,000 in gold. No debt. Not enough information. So don't go writing me saying what should I do with my money, what should I invest in? I cannot answer that question for you.

Because I don't know enough about you. However, at the age of 70, if you feel that you have everything under control—do you have a long-term care insurance policy? What happens if one of you ends up in a nursing home and now it's $10,000 to $20,000 a month? Have you really taken everything into consideration?

So before you do anything with that $300,000 I want you to look at every possible thing that could go wrong—your health, your caring for each other, your home that you live in, does it need a new roof, all of that. Whatever’s left over and you’re fine with everything, I don't know. Then at your age, if I were you, I would be dollar cost averaging whatever you can afford to put in the market wisely and take advantage of what's going to be happening with artificial intelligence. That's all I'm going to say here.

But Paula, really, you've been listening to me for so many years. You know what can happen when you get older. I just want to know before you invest anything, you've taken care of the what-ifs of life.

KT: OK, this is from Kyle. Kyle asks, Good morning, Suze. Thank you for all that you do for the men smart enough to listen.

I was reading about structured CDs with market-linked returns. What is your expert opinion about MLCDs, and is there a particular index aligned to the CD that you would recommend if you recommended MLCDs?

Now, just so you know, Suze, Kyle says he's a year or two away from retirement. As an educator, I do have a pension plan through PSERS. Do you see these as viable options to limit risk in the market?

Suze: So, I think I answered him to tell you the truth, but that’s beside the point. First of all, MLCDs—market-linked certificates of deposit. I just have to tell you, I'm not somebody who likes when investments are joined. Either you buy a CD and lock in an interest rate, or you invest in the market by buying either ETFs or individual stocks and dollar cost averaging into them. I personally do not like when you combine those two.

Why? Because when you have a market-linked certificate of deposit, you do get an interest rate—probably a lower interest rate on your certificate of deposit. But then you also get upward movement when the market moves up according to a specific index.

You asked, Kyle, which index would I link one to? Well, if I bought one, which I wouldn’t, but if I did, I would link it to the Standard and Poor’s 500 index. I would not link it to any other index. But the problem is, in my opinion, if that index really goes, you're only going to get a percent of that increase. If it goes up 10%, you're not going to get 10%. You're only going to get maybe 8% or 7%.

And when it all comes down to it, I don’t think you’ll make as much money. You're being conservative, but put what you want in a CD and do that. Then put what you want in the market. Don't keep them together. Separate them. But listen, if you don’t want to lose any money and you don't really care about your return that much, you can do it if you want. Would I be doing it? No.

KT: She doesn't sugarcoat anything, does she?

Suze: Well, you should know—you’ve lived with me for 25 years now.

KT: Next question is from Monique. Hello ladies. What is a cash value life insurance?

Suze: It’s one of the investments I hate the most. There you go.

KT: She doesn’t sugarcoat. I recently came into some money. Is that an instrument that would be appropriate for me? I'm a 63-year-old nurse still employed. We love nurses, Monique. Tell her why you don't like it.

Suze: Listen, you say I'm a 63-year-old nurse still employed. You didn’t say I’m a 63-year-old nurse, my husband or my spouse is X, Y, and Z. You didn’t say anything about your children. You would only buy insurance if—and only if—you need a life insurance policy because if something happened to you, those who might be dependent upon you would need that money.

At 63, I doubt highly that is true. So number one, you don’t need life insurance and you definitely don’t want a cash value life insurance.

KT: Why?

Suze: Why? What do you think I’ve been talking about all these years? Cash value life—KT, ready? Is whole life, universal life—

KT: Ouch.

Suze: Variable life.

KT: Yikes.

Suze: And what have I always told you about those three kinds of life insurance? What have I told you I what them?

KT: You hate them.

Suze: That's right.

KT: She doesn’t hate a lot of anything, but she does hate those.

Suze: Now, a second ago I told Kyle, don’t mix investments. You want a CD, buy a CD. You want to buy an ETF or whatever in the market. Monique, you don’t buy life insurance just because it has cash value. You buy life insurance, again, because somebody is going to need money in case you die. And in that case, the only kind of insurance you should be buying is term insurance.

But at 63, it would be expensive. So no, you should not—and I repeat, you should not—be doing this under any circumstance whatsoever. You just came into some money. If you have a mortgage, pay it off if you're going to stay in your house forever. Oh, you want some money in the stock market or whatever, open up a Roth IRA and do it in there in an ETF, whatever you do, but do not, do not do cash value life insurance. All right.

KT: There you go, Monique. OK, next question is from Sokeri. Thank you for what you do for us. I'm a single mom, business owner, renting with an emergency fund and a 20% down payment for a house. I heard about seller financing, and I'm curious. Two questions. Do you think I should buy? If so, what are your thoughts about seller financing as an alternative option?

Suze: Here is a situation once again where all you tell me is you're a single mom, you're a business owner, currently you're renting, you have an emergency fund and 20% down. Do you think I should buy, you say. How would I know?

KT: I picked these questions that have a whole lot of blanks in them because it challenges her to figure out what advice to give you.

Suze: Here's the advice I'm going to give you. Is your job secure? Can you afford the monthly payments on a mortgage plus the insurance, plus the property tax, plus maintenance? Do you want to own a home, or is it better for you to continue just renting because maybe renting is far simpler for you?

What area are you talking about? Because in certain areas like Florida and maybe LA, you can't even get insurance anymore in many of the areas to even cover your home in terms of property insurance. And if you're going to take out a mortgage, you need insurance. So have you figured out all of those?

You're a business owner. What happens if you get sick and you can't run your business anymore? Then what are you going to do? There's so many things to consider, so I don't have a clue what you should do. Do you all understand? It's not just as simple as, "Should I buy a home, Suze?"

It's not just as simple as, "I have $300,000. What should I do with it?" You have to think more deeply about your entire situation. And you have to make these decisions on your own, because otherwise you're going to meet up with possibly a real estate agent, and they're going to say, "Oh yeah, buy this." You're going to go and see possibly a financial advisor that will say, "Oh, $300,000? I don't care what else you have—buy this."

Now maybe you'll meet up with an honest one and a good one—possibly. So therefore you have to start thinking more deeply about your own individual situations and what could go wrong. And if you know you can cover everything if it goes wrong, then it's right for you to do something with your money that you want to do.

KT: I want to give them one more piece of advice. I'll never forget—Suze's brother looked at us once when we were buying our condo in Florida, and he said, "Girls, remember one thing: Condo fees never go down."

Suze: Yes, he forgot to tell us about assessments as well. All right, go on.

KT: OK. Next question is Jessica. We have a significant amount of money in CDs, approximately $300,000. We have slowly been learning about mutual funds and stocks. Over time we have accumulated $130,000 in mutual funds and individual stocks. They are doing quite well. How much money should remain liquid and how much should we invest? We have no debt. Our home is paid off. We are 50 and 52, and retirement is on the horizon but a few years away.

And Suze, I'll just give you real quick. They have two kids, one’s in college with a free ride. The other one needs to be paid for. We have a small 529 plan. Our retirement 401(k) is $2 million combined plus I will have a fixed pension of $7,000 monthly. So there's a little more information for you. I think they're doing pretty well.

Suze: They're doing pretty well, but you're really doing really bad on one thing. You are 50 and 52 years of age. How is it possible that you haven't listened to me for all these years and you now have $2 million in a pre-tax retirement account and not in a Roth? That means later on when you go to take money out, you are going to pay ordinary income tax on it. You know, your two kids—alright, you die and leave it to them—they're going to pay ordinary income tax on it. You add that to your $7,000 a month pension plus Social Security and everything else—oh, now you're in a seriously high income tax bracket, and you have made Uncle Sam so happy I can't even tell you.

I don't care about what you should be doing with new money, how much you should keep safe, how much... I don't care about that right now. I care that you better figure out how to get that $2 million little by little into your Roth 401(k) so that by the time you actually retire, it is all there. And new contributions should be going to a Roth 401(k). And if you can figure it out, a Roth IRA as well. Period.

That is the move, Jessica, that you really need to start thinking about because you are just so, so wrong with having so much money in a 401(k) pre-tax.

KT: Because you don't have to give her a slap down so hard.

Suze: But I'm telling you, KT, for how many years now have I been telling people don't do pre-tax accounts? And yet you all still are doing them. Even if you're doing them, are you doing what it takes to convert little by little into a Roth? And you're thinking, "Oh, but I'm going to owe taxes." This is the biggest mistake, I am telling you—in my opinion—you are making, is to have a whole lot of money in a traditional 401(k) or IRA.

KT: So next question, Suze, is from Wendy. Dear Suze, my husband and I have invested almost all of our money in real estate.

Suze: Should we just call this podcast the Ask KT and Make Suze Aggravated Podcast?

KT: That's why we're going to Italy, everybody. She's going to calm down, have a little—she doesn't drink. I'll have a glass of wine. She'll have a little gelato or pasta—everything she doesn't eat.

KT: My husband and I have invested almost all of our money in real estate amounting to approximately $2 million in a beautiful Colorado resort mountain town. Knowing that real estate is always a good investment, we bought premium lots and a house in a down market, hoping to capitalize on our investments one day.

Suze: As long as you can sell it.

KT: Well, here’s the clincher. All of the properties have been listed for a while now, but due to the current market situation, we have been unable to sell.

Suze: While they still have the cost of... just go on.

KT: We have some stocks worth about $100,000 and are concerned they will be lost in a possible recession. Half of their value was lost in a previous recession, which took years to regain.

Suze: Yeah, 2007, 2008. Go on.

KT: We are business owners. We're wanting to retire. My husband is reducing the workload. As we have everything for sale, hoping to fulfill our dreams of travel, our accounts are dwindling.

Should we sell some of our stocks to reinvest in a high-yield savings account, pay off a $10,000 credit card debt, and create an emergency fund against recession? Now upon selling our properties—which has taken much longer than anticipated—we plan on reinvesting and achieving our retirement goals.

Any advice you would give would be greatly appreciated, as we are not particularly investment savvy but are learning. By the way—ready for this? This is the part that put a smile on my face. Do you know of anyone who might be interested in owning a beautifully renovated historic Victorian home in a quaint mountain town?

Suze: Oh, maybe we are.

KT: There you go. There you go. This is from Wendy, and let's be gentle because Wendy really wants to sell these properties, but maybe they just need to do a fire sale.

Suze: Now Wendy, I need you to listen to me. I talk about diversification all the time. And when you have 100% of your money invested in one sector, you're always, in my opinion, asking for trouble.

Now you may have lost half of your money in the market back in 2007, 2008, 2009, and it took a long time for it to come back. If you had owned real estate back then, you could have bought something—let’s just say in Tampa, Florida—$700,000 that was worth $100,000. Real estate actually lost more than 50% of its value back then. So things can happen.

Right now, you need to sell this real estate. And I have a feeling that real estate is going to actually get slower rather than pick up. People are hoping that if interest rates go down, that people will get more interested. But still, you may need to do what KT said. You may need to keep lowering your price until somebody is seriously interested in it.

Because you have $10,000 of debt. You have about $100,000 in stocks. But you're concerned about a recession, so you're going to sell something that you should probably, in my opinion, absolutely be keeping. I don’t know which stocks you have, but if you're invested in the right stocks, in the next few years—are you kidding me?

Many of those stocks that I have been talking about, ETFs that I have been talking about on the podcast—I wouldn’t be selling them right now for all the money in the world. And in fact, if they happen to go down for whatever reason, I would actually be buying more.

The great thing about stocks is that they are liquid. Either pick up the phone and talk to a financial person, say sell—and you get the money. A few seconds later it’s liquidated. Or you go online and do it. You have invested in things that are not liquid. And that puts you in a dangerous situation. It just does.

So my advice to you truthfully is to liquidate them as fast as you can, meaning lower the price, get out of them, and then it’s done. But then Wendy, I don’t know how you’re going to reinvest that money. But you might really need some professional guidance in doing it because I would not be reinvesting it back into real estate 100%.

I would be absolutely doing something that gives you income that you can count on—dividend paying stocks, things like that. But you’re going to be needing help. But I would not be worried about a recession if I were you, and I would not be liquidating my stocks, assuming that they are good, good stocks.

KT: She's coming into season. It's in Colorado—quaint mountain town. You're coming into ski season and mountain season. Take advantage of all the people that could be interested. Go for it.

KT: OK, this is from Regina. Regina said...

Suze: Wait, am I going to get aggravated?

KT: No, I think this is a very simple and straightforward...

Suze: Should it be your quizzy?

KT: No.

Suze: No quizzy today?

KT: No, it said Roth converting, is it too late? I am 60 years young.

Suze: No.

KT: And then wait, Regina said, I have one more question. Is there such a thing as being over-diversified? I have about 14 investments in ETFs and stocks.

Suze: Yes.

Suze: But very serious, listen, I want all of you to get this. I want all of you to get this more than you’ve ever gotten anything I have ever said in the 40 years I've been doing this. In most cases you are not too old to be converting money to a Roth, especially if you're not going to be needing that money.

If you have money in a traditional retirement account and you are retired and you actually need to withdraw money for you to live on, then it doesn't make any sense to convert. But if you're not going to need that money or you're still young—like 60—you should absolutely be converting. Can you please, please get that?

I promise you, years from now you're going to love me for it. But you should love me right now, even without it. But that's beside the point. In terms of is there such a thing as being over-diversified? Oh, you bet there is.

I was looking at someone’s portfolio a little bit ago. Their financial advisor—and I may have told you this—had them in possibly like 30 different exchange-traded funds and mutual funds. Maybe even more than that. And if they looked at the holdings of each of those ETFs and mutual funds, they’re invested almost in the same thing.

So yes, you can be over-diversified. Truthfully, if I were going to be investing and I didn’t really know what to do, and I had at least five, 10, 15 years till I needed this money, I would take whatever money I had and I would put half of it—50%—into VOO. And the other 50% I would probably put into stocks like Palantir, IONQ, possibly Tesla, Microsoft, any of the ones that I have been mentioning. And that's what I would be doing if I were you anyway.

KT: That’s a wrap, Suze.

Suze: All right. You just loved today, didn’t you?

KT: It was good. Didn’t you all like that, everybody? They liked it.

Suze: They liked it, KT. Mikey liked it.

KT: They also like my Frothy Rothy drink. It's an energy drink and it’s really good. I think they’re all loving it.

Suze: Yeah, well, it took you long enough to post it, but that's beside the point. All right, everybody, in two days we are off to Italy until the 30th of October. However, we will pre-record for you quite a few of the Ask KT and Suze Anything podcasts so you have new ones, so you don't have to hear just the best of.

Hopefully I will be able to get to doing Suze Schools for you as well—things I may want you to know during that time. But we will be back after October 30th.

KT: And on a diet.

Suze: Probably. All right, but until then, there's really only one thing we want you to know.

KT: And that is people first, then money.

Suze: People first.

KT: Did you—did you forget?

Suze: I was going to say pasta. I was gonna say people first, then money, then things.

KT: Now you stay safe.

Suze: And healthy and secure. See you soon. We love you. Bye bye.