Podcast Episode - How To Truly Honor Your Money

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On this Memorial Day Weekend, Suze offers a priceless message of gratitude and a new way to think about the money that you inherit as well as the money that one day will be inherited from you.

Podcast Transcript:

As I sit here and I record this podcast, it is a few days before Memorial Day, the day that in the United States we honor all those who lost their lives while serving in the armed forces. So to begin this podcast, first of all, my incredible gratitude to all of you who have given up your lives for our freedom, there is no greater sacrifice in life than that. So, I want to begin today's podcast with an incredible thank you to all. And on this Memorial Day, I want to talk about those that we all hold in memoriam. Our parents, our relatives, our friends, those who have left this world, but in leaving this world they also left something to us other than just memories, many of them left money. So I want to address two things that I have noticed, and all the emails that you are sending in and again, if you want to send in a question you can do so to asksuzepodcast@gmail.com. And as many of you know, I answer you back personally. I know you think it's not me. I know you think, is this possible that Suze Orman is responding to me? Is this really Suzy Orman? Or is there somebody else behind these words? Are you kidding me people? Of course it's me. Of course it's me. Who else is crazy enough to want to answer all of your questions personally. Really? I do! And why do I want to do that? I want to do that because I want you to have the best possible advice that's out there. I don't want you to get advice that's good for somebody else other than you. I want this to be for you so that all of you can become the strong, secure and smart women that you are meant to be. And of course the men who are smart enough to be listening as well. So of course it's me. So but what I've noticed is two things. Number one, that when you get an inheritance from somebody you love, specifically a parent, you tend to hold on to whatever it is that you inherited, thinking that your parents are that item or that investment that they left you so many times I write you back and I go, why do you still own XYZ stock? This is a horrific stock. Don't you think you should sell it? And you say back to me, oh Suze, my dad left it to me. He loved this stock so much. And so I just don't want to sell it. Your father would not want you to keep a stock that is not a good stock. Just because it was a good stock at one time, doesn't mean that it is a good stock now. You have to look at your investments as to what they are doing now. Are they worthy of your keeping them now? Not because a parent left them to you! You cannot keep your family alive by keeping the investments they left you. You can honor them however, and you can honor them and all of their hard work by paying attention to the money that they left you via these investments, and making wise decisions with them as to what those investments are doing right here and right now. So as I'm saying this, if you're out there and you're one of those people on this Memorial Day weekend, and you have an inheritance, and you have an inheritance where you have inherited stocks, house, a mutual fund Treasuries, whatever it may be. An old car. And it's something that has to do with money. Please don't keep the memories alive by keeping a bad investment. Enhance the memories of what you were left by making more out of less money. By making it grow, making it grow in their memory. Making it grow in their past efforts. But not just keeping it. Okay? Next. You write in and you talk to me about your relationship with the person that you're involved with. And you tell me that you love this person very, very, very much. And that you are about to get a very large inheritance from your mom or your dad or somebody. It doesn't matter who. Who is passing. And you feel that you really need to share this inheritance with the person that you're married with and you feel that you want this money. You don't want anything to happen to it because your family left it to you, and you don't want to lose it. You want to keep it safe and sound, and you don't want to share it with the person that you are married to. And you feel so guilty about this, and you don't know what to do. So what do many of you do? You end up putting it in a joint account, you share it. And then years down the road, what happens? You end up getting a divorce possibly. And now you have lost half of your inheritance. So here is what I want to say to you. When you inherit money, I do not care how much you love the person that you are with. I don't care how deeply you feel for them. This is your money that somebody who loved you left you. And the wisest thing to do with that money is to put it in an account in your separate name. As long as you keep that money in your separate name, it then is never considered part of everything that you share with your spouse or your loved one. And therefore it is always yours to keep. Now is that selfish? No. It's just smart. Because we don't know what the future brings. This whole podcast is about Memorial Day. Do you think those men or those women who lost their lives, they really thought that they were going to lose their lives if they went to war? They knew that was possible, but they never really believed it was going to happen to them even though they were afraid of it. And you, you live your life the same way. You know things happen all the time. There are car accidents, there are illnesses, there are freak things that just happen to people. But yet you do not believe it's going to happen to you. And that is a huge mistake. You should always plan for the worst and hope for the best. That's how you should live your life. So when you get an inheritance you need to keep it separate. Now once it is separate and it is your money you can do anything you want with it. You want to share the income from it. Okay. You can take it out and you can spend it on your loved one. Oh you wanna you know just do whatever buy something from it for your loved one, okay. But do not. And I repeat do not put an inheritance in any joint account ever. You are to keep it in your own name. Obviously, we're talking about inheriting money. So the question then also becomes, how did you inherit money? How was it left to you? Was it left to you in a way that it was easy? Was the passing of the money easy, or did you have to go through probate court? Did you have to deal with lawyers? Did you have to wait six months or one year? Because it's not just about the money that you inherited, it’s about the money that one day somebody is going to inherit from you. So it is essential, especially on this Memorial Day weekend, that you really take care of your own money. And how is it to pass to those that you love? Because it's not just about what you got. It's about what you're going to leave as well. Because if you did get it inheritance, one day, that inheritance, if you took great care of it, may be a lot larger than it is right now, and it will go down to your own beneficiaries. So do you have the paperwork in place to make it easy, where you have honored the money, and you're not gonna waste any of this money to probate fees and to lawyer's fees, into time, and all this stuff that you're going to do if you do not take the steps today to protect your tomorrows. So this is also a great time for you to ask yourself the question. Do you have a will? Do you have a trust? Do you have an advanced directive? Do you have a Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare? Do you have the Must Have Documents in place? And if they are in place, are they how they are supposed to be? Now, I did this myself. You know that all the time I go through my paperwork. And I want to make sure that if somebody new has entered my life and I want to include them, that I then change my trust to make sure that they are included. Or if somebody has pissed me off for whatever reason, and they're in my trust. Do I now want to exclude them? Because feelings change, desires change, your situation changes. So it's really important that you stay on top of it. So you should use this weekend as a reminder for you to check all the beneficiaries on all your retirement accounts. Are they who you want them to be? All the beneficiaries on your life insurance policies. Are they who you want them to be? All the beneficiaries in your will, in your trust, are they who you want them to be? And if you do not have those documents in place, you really need to honor yourself, to honor your own money, and to those who one day will be honoring hopefully your memory and your money, that you've left it to them in the most efficient way possible. Obviously I have a podcast on this. You can look it up. I don't quite remember what number it is, but you'll find it. It's under the Must Have Documents and you should listen to that podcast and you should get those documents in place. So this podcast is about memories. It's about honoring those that gave up their lives. It's about honoring the money that was left from those who gave up their lives or who passed for whatever reason. And it's about you and honoring your money and who you're going to pass it on to. And to do it by being a strong, smart and secure woman. Happy Memorial Day, everybody.

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