Podcast Episode - Suze School: Savings vs. Consumption

In this episode, Suze talks about how savings versus consumption will help you feel secure, which leads to true wealth.  She’ll cover what’s happening in the Stock Market and outline why compounding in your investments and having focus will get you there.

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Podcast Transcript:

May 18, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Suze O here, and today is Suze School. So get out your little Suze notebooks, although by now they should be fat little things. But what's so great about a podcast is you can always go back, listen to it again, read the transcripts if I happen to be confusing you on something anyway.

Today's podcast, Suze School, is all about the stock market and investments as well as compounding and things for you to understand, obviously. So before I go into the stock market, I want to go into a little bit of a Suze Story about what I did with my own money.

Now I wasn't always good with money, you know, the story about how I was in credit card debt and blah blah blah blah, and when I finally started to make money, I didn't quite trust myself, and I wanted to just commit to a certain amount of money every single month and just put it in to this one investment.

And no matter what, and this was 40 years ago, put in $700 a month into this annuity that American Express happened to be offering that at the time was at 5%.

And I thought, OK, but at least they'll bill me for it every single month as part of my American Express card, and I have to pay it and I have to come up with it, so that will be my discipline of saving, and I did for 40 years now. I have put in $700 a month, and it has always made 5%. Because that was the minimum guaranteed interest that they were going to pay.

Do you know that after putting in $8400 a year for 40 years, which is really a total of $336,000 that is how much I have put into that annuity.

That today it is worth over $1 million. That that annuity has earned $705,000 in interest. I want you to think about this. I still put in $8400 a year.

And right now that annuity earns $50,000 a year in interest.

Do you see how compounding my money is making interest? That interest is making interest, and over 40 years now I have $1 million in that annuity, and I'm not going to stop. I'll just continue to do it. American Express continues to bill me $700 on my Amex card.

But that is how true wealth is built little by little, month by month, you don't hit it big overnight, and I've done the same with many of my investments. So the question really becomes for today's Suze School is what kind of investor are you?

What is your game plan? Are you somebody that just wants to hit it big? You make a lot of money, you sell, you get back in, you're doing this, or do you want to be consistently building wealth for yourself? And if the answer is you want to consistently build wealth for yourself, then your game plan has to be one of savings versus consumption.

Understanding what money is really for, and a lot of you think, oh, money is for buying a new car, a bigger house, designer brand clothes, games and things for my kids, no.

The truth of the matter is money is for savings. It's for savings for the day that you can no longer work and bring in the money to support what it takes for you to live. Obviously for you to have enjoyment and things like that, but your main goal of it, everybody, really needs to be savings to watch it grow cause you never ever know in life.

When something can happen and you no longer can work, you no longer have that job that you thought you were going to have forever. You no longer have the home that you owned outright in California and your insurance company happened to cancel you one month before the fires hit a little bit ago.

And that was everything that you had. It was a multi-million dollar home. You thought you were going to be OK forever and now you have nothing.

So today's podcast really is about how do you build something out of nothing.

And you build it one paycheck at a time, one investment at a time, one savings account at a time, getting out of debt, one credit card at a time.

Cause it's over time, that true wealth can be built.

Let's now take that concept and let's put it towards the stock market right now.

Because a lot of you are thinking, oh, I need to lighten up on my investments here in the United States because the United States is going down. I can't trust anything here. I'm afraid of it here, and I want to start putting my money overseas. Now you heard me say a little bit ago that diversification was key.

But I didn't mean to diversify outside of the United States. I meant to diversify within the United States the type of stocks you own, the ETFs that you own, the real estate that you own, the gold that you own, the bonds that you own, all of those things.

And so many of you have really taken what I said to heart in the wrong, wrong way. So let's straighten it out right now. What do I think is going to happen here in the United States when it comes to the stock market? I think over the next 2 or 3 weeks, as I said, the roller coaster rides will continue, and you might see that these markets go down for the next 2 or 3 weeks. OK.

But after that, all the way through the end of this year, the very beginning of 2026, I think you are going to see the stock market absolutely skyrocket. That is what I think. We have now since 2009, been in what's called a secular bull market. Obviously a bull market is one that goes straight up.

A bear market is one that goes straight down. Secular meaning long term.

A secular bull market is a market that can last for 18 years, 20 years, even longer, where the overall trend is up.

But the overall trend can be disrupted by something known as a cyclical bear market where the market goes down for a period of time, and it is absolutely possible that the market could go down 10 or 20% or more.

And then it resumes its upward trend. So overall, the upward trend in my opinion is still up because we're in a secular bull market. Now within the secular bull market, obviously there are different sectors that will absolutely go more than others.

If you look at the stocks, I think you will find that large growth stocks are stocks that increase in price these coming next few months. Many of the magnificent seven, not all, will participate. Some of the fang stocks will participate. Do you even remember what they are? If you don't remember what they are, you should look them up. But anyway, I think they will participate.

I don't exactly think that value stocks will participate or small cap stocks right now, but I do think large growth stocks will do it now.

With that said, I said stocks. I didn't say stock.

Again, what's aggravating me are people are asking me, Suze, just give me the name of one other stock that you think's going to go up big like Palantir did. Are you kidding me? One stock, 3 stocks, 5 stocks does not a portfolio make. If you are going to be investing in the stock market in individual stocks, you best listen to me very, very carefully right now.

You need to have at least 25, maybe even 50 individual stocks so that you could have true diversification. I have over 100 stocks that I own.

And I do have true diversification, and I do that rather than exchange traded funds because I watch my stocks every day. I do option strategies on the stocks and I'm very active with them. But if that's not you and the majority of you, it's not you.

One of the best ways to invest is through an index ETF. Many of you have spiders, SPY, the Standard Poor's 500 index, or VOO or VTI Vanguard total Index ETF. You have that diversification. But what's interesting about those ETFs, now listen to me closely.

They're really a blend of stocks. They're not all large cap growth stocks. They're both growth and value like the spider SPY is a large cap blended ETF where you have about 23% is of growth stocks, 48% may be blended stocks of both, maybe 29% is value, so you have a combination there.

Now I think what's good about owning ETFs like that is that even though what we're going to see, in my opinion is that the move truly be in large growth stocks through the beginning of 26 or end of 25, then I think that you might see it switch to value stocks. So every cycle different stocks have a run.

So to make sure that you're safe and you don't come out and go, OK, now it's time for me to get out of large growth stocks and go into value stocks. No, that's when you have like a blended ETF like SPY or VOO or whatever it may be so that no matter what's happening in the market, you are participating.

However, if you would like to only have an ETF that specializes in growth, you could always do the SPYG, that is the symbol, which is the Standard and Poor's growth ETF or the Vanguard growth, which is VUG, and those are ETFs that are made up 100% of your growth. So you might want to mix a little bit in that for now.

But overall, a blended area is just fine for you.

Now with that said, I think it is possible that you will see these markets go up again to the beginning of 26 or the end of 25. Then I would not be shocked if it went all the way back down again to where they were in April, could go back down S&P to 4500.

And stay there for a while and then eventually resume and go all the way back up again. Do I think it's possible that you could even see 7000 on the S&P 500? I do.

But you have to be in it for the long run, remember to build wealth.

And so the biggest mistake that you can make seriously is if you're in this, you see it go up, let's just say, to 6 or 7000 at the end of this year, and you're just so happy and you watch it go all the way down again maybe to 4500 if that happens and you freak out and that's where you sell. Do you remember last week I gave you an emotional quiz?

If you scored low on that quiz, that means you buy at the wrong time, you sell at the wrong time, your emotions dictate what you do. The biggest mistake you can make is watch it go from 6000 all the way down to 4500, and that's where you sell.

If you think those are your tendencies, then fine, sell at 6000 and see what happens, cause who knows, maybe it will continue up, maybe it will go down or sell half. But if you've decided that you are in this for the long run, you continue to dollar cost average as it goes all the way down.

And then watch it go all the way up and just keep doing it and have your money compound like the example that I gave you with my annuity. All right, everybody, so that's what I think is going to happen now.

What's interesting is that I do think if you look at bonds, let's talk about them for a second here, bonds are just in limbo here. They don't even know what they're doing. I think it is totally probable and possible that you could see the 10 year go to 5%, but I don't think you're going to see it go a whole lot higher than that. But bonds seem to be on the rise right now.

I think if we just look at gold briefly here, gold obviously is on its way down a little bit. You saw it at 3500. Now it's around 3200. I think gold is a safe haven, believe it or not. I think many, many people will feel safe there. I think if it goes below 3000, which it might, if you want to accumulate a little bit more, you can.

I think you are better off investing in the ETF GLD versus the miners now GOLD. The miner stocks just are not really functioning the way that they should be, so that's just something to know about there.

And let's talk about oil for one second here. You know, here's the truth of the matter is that oil obviously peaked when Russia attacked Ukraine in March of 2022. Do you remember this? It was at $130 a barrel, and ever since then you've been seeing it go down and down and down.

And recently it was at $55 a barrel, so a lot of you that are still in energy stocks and everything, you're a little freaked about it, however, here's what I want you all to understand is that the demand for oil, whether you want it to or not, continues to grow, and that's because there are more emerging economies that are out there, and they are increasingly demanding the use of oil.

So as much as I personally would like to see the green dream come a reality, I just don't think it's possible. I look at the blackouts that recently were in Spain as well as Europe across their entire electric grid, so wind and solar, it's just not stable.

And it just creates too much of energy at a point in time or not enough, so I think it is very possible and probable that over the next two years, do not be surprised if you see energy stocks and everything go back up and you see oil at about 100.

And $50 a barrel or higher, so it's still too early in my opinion to go into energy stocks, but there will come a day where you want to invest again in energy stocks, and I think that will be in around 2026. So just be patient there.

And one last thing that I want to touch on, which is Bitcoin. Listen.

I know that I've always said only invest in money that you can afford to lose and things like that, and that's because is Bitcoin going to stay? Is it legit? What's going to happen with it? I have to tell you, at this point in time, I do think Bitcoin is here to stay and some of the better cryptos that are out there. Why do I think that?

Because there is not a 40 year old, a 30 year old that I can talk to that doesn't want to put all their money into bitcoin, so this certain age of investors have a total addiction to assets like Bitcoin when I see that and I see stocks like Coinbase, which happens to be the entity that many of the cryptos are traded through, being added to the Standard and Poor's 500 index.

That just says to me the writing is on the wall, but do not think, everybody, that if the markets go down, Bitcoin is going to go up. Bitcoin will absolutely follow the Nasdaq 100 because that is what it has been doing. So if the Nasdaq 100 happens to go down, Bitcoin is going to go down.

A whole lot more. I still like investing in Bitcoin through the ETF IBIT. You also, if you want to do it through a stock micro strategies symbol MSTR is another way that you can do it since it moves along with Bitcoin.

But that is what I think. Do not be surprised to see Bitcoin one day at 130, 150. It can very easily go up there. How long it will take, I don't know, but here we are at 102. Did you ever think it would be there, right, everybody, that gives you a recap of kind of what's happening, but the real theme here.

The theme has to be savings versus consumption.

It's important, and here is the reason why it is so important.

The question also has to be asked and answered. Suze, what could make these markets go down next year? Why do you think that's possible and what will you be watching for?

Two things I will be watching for big time. Number one, believe it or not, politics. Politics has absolutely had an effect on these markets. Look at what happened in April when the tariffs were announced. The markets went down significantly as soon as it was announced that the tariffs

were going to be reduced. The market went up big time. Politics and what happens has got to be watched because it will have an effect. I don't care what anybody says. Next, the earnings of these stocks. It's too soon to tell if the earnings, which means the money these stocks have been making.

Will be up or down because it's too soon to tell the effect that the tariffs have had on their earnings, so we'll know that in the next months or so if the earnings are going down, politics are getting involved. I have to tell you that's probably what will be the start of the downward market. Time will tell. So if that were to happen.

That's why it's important to have savings versus consumption. All the things in your household, all the clothes, everything that you have around you are not going to pay your bills. They're just not.

So what you want is a life of true wealth. True wealth comes when you feel secure, because that is the goal of money, and the reason you feel secure is that you know you have savings to get you by if certain things go wrong.

So that is your goal. So until Thursday when Ms. Travis joins me again with the Ask KT and Suze Anything edition of the Women and Money podcast, there's only one thing that I want you to remember when it comes to your money, and it is this people first, then money, then things. Now you stay safe.

Bye bye.