Podcast Episode – Is It Better To Own Actual Gold In My IRA Or In An ETF?

On this episode of Ask KT & Suze Anything, Suze answers your questions about Roth conversions, where the best place to own gold might be and leaving property to children.  Plus, Social Security benefits after an annulment and more.

Listen to Podcast Episode:

---

 

Podcast Transcript:

Suze: January 29th, 2026. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast and Everybody Smart Enough to Listen.

Suze: What is today, KT?

KT: Today is a great day, Suze. It’s Oprah’s birthday. Happy birthday, Oprah. Wherever you are.

Suze: You know, out of all the people in my life that if I were gonna name one person that contributed the most to Suze Orman becoming Suze Orman, wouldn’t you say it had to be Oprah?

KT: Absolutely. I mean, that’s without a doubt. Suze and Oprah, like, you know, bread and butter.

Suze: Yeah. Wanna tell everybody a secret about me and the Oprah Winfrey Show and the 30 shows I did? How many—because most of them were taped—how many did I ever see?

KT: None. But I have them all. Matter of fact, we have every one of the shows. We have every magazine she ever wrote for Oprah, and Suze has never ever sat down and seen herself on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I don’t think you’ve watched yourself on The Suze Orman Show either. She doesn’t watch herself…

Suze: I can count on one hand the number of shows that I did on CNBC.

KT: What about Larry King? You were on there like 29 times. Didn’t watch that once.

Suze: Because it was live.

KT: I know.

Suze: But all the other shows were taped and everyone, everybody else was watching them and you would watch them. I’d go in the other room. Don’t you think that’s all strange, everybody, a little bit? But that is besides the point.

All right, so happy birthday, O. Now this is the Ask KT and Suze Anything edition. What are you taking from me?

KT: Julie.

Suze: I was open with Julie.

KT: You’re gonna do it. You don’t want me to do it.

Suze: No, I was gonna do it. That’s why it was in front of me.

KT: OK, so I thought I was gonna tell everybody who Julie is.

Suze: No, I want to now. As you know, if you want your question to be answered on the podcast, first of all, KT has to choose it, and you would send in your question to asksuzepodcast@gmail.com. That is number one.

However, just ’cause she chooses it doesn’t mean that I haven’t already read it. And the other day, about five days ago actually now, I was looking at some of the emails and I read this one from Julie. And Julie was correcting me because I was wrong on something.

And I have to tell you I love when that happens because there’s no way, everybody, that I could keep up on every single thing that’s happening in the world when it comes to money. This wasn’t a major wrong, but it was something that I want to correct.

And here’s what Julie said to me. I’ll just read it directly from her. She says, “In your podcast from January 22nd, there was a question from a listener with a TSP that had 50% in the G Fund, which is everybody like a government fund, like a money market so to speak, and 50% in the C Fund, C standing for common stocks.

“Suze, you shared the advice regarding retirees having at least three years of living expenses in funds such as the G Fund or money markets, etc., in case there is a market downturn so that retirees don’t need to sell funds like the C Fund at a loss.

“Now that’s great advice that I intend to live by. However, there is a TSP rule that every retiree should know.”

First of all, a TSP, everybody, is a Thrift Savings Plan like a 401(k) or a 403(b), but for federal workers.

Here’s what Julie taught me. She said, “When funds are withdrawn from a TSP in retirement, money is withdrawn from each of the funds based on the percent invested in each fund. So for the listener with 50% in the G and 50% in the C, let’s say the C Fund is down and this person is withdrawing $20,000 from her TSP. She can’t sell just G. In that example, $10,000 would come from G and $10,000 would come from C.”

Interesting. I did not know that.

So what is the fix, everybody, to this problem? The fix really is that all of you need an outside retirement account or an account that has at least three months of living expenses above your guaranteed income within that account. And if you then have to take money out, you’re taking it from where? You’re taking it from either a Roth IRA or an investment account that’s in a money market account or a savings account or something like that.

That’s one way that you could protect yourself and not have to take equal amounts out of your TSP.

All right, KT, next question. Thanks, Julie, by the way.

KT: Yeah, thanks, Jules. Next question is from Allie. “Hi, Suze and KT. I’m really grateful to you for introducing me to the concept of Roth IRAs.”

Suze: OK, KT feels the exact same way.

KT: “I have to admit I don’t always completely follow you when you explain Roth strategies.”

Suze: Like I was saying, KT feels the exact same way.

KT: “So I play your podcast back multiple times until I get it.”

Suze: That’s the one thing KT doesn’t do the same way.

KT: “The Roth strategy truly is powerful. Here is my question. I have a traditional IRA with $470,000. I want to contribute to a Roth using a backdoor strategy. I did some research and I’m able to roll my IRA into my workplace 401(k).

“If I want to contribute for 2025, do I need to roll my IRA funds into my 401(k) plan first, then contribute to a traditional IRA and then convert to a Roth? Or does the order of operations not matter as long as my traditional IRA is zero by year end?”

Suze: Allie, here’s what you gotta get. It’s actually too late to do anything already for 2025. You have to do this for 2026. And why do I say you have to do it for 2026? Even though I know that you can open up an IRA or Roth IRA right now all the way till April 15th for 2025. That’s true.

But you want to do a backdoor Roth. So then once you open it up, you could do it this year if you wanted to for last year. But when you convert it to a backdoor Roth, a conversion is deemed to have happened in the year you convert it. So that will now be a backdoor Roth for 2026, not 2025. Did that make sense?

So here’s how I would do it if I were you. I would actually, right now, roll all of your money from your traditional IRA into your traditional 401(k) at work. Done. You don’t have anything now at all in a traditional IRA.

I would then fund a nondeductible IRA, and I would absolutely do what with it? I would convert it to a Roth right away, and you are fine. That’s how you do a backdoor.

Now, do you have to do it all at once? No. You could do little by little by little, as long as all the money in the traditional IRA is out by the end of this year, December 31st, just so you know. But just don’t play around. Just do it all at once and then do the backdoor Roth.

OK, KT.

KT: I have another Roth question, Suze.

Suze: Does that surprise you since you picked them?

KT: From Nicole. Kind of making a little theme here.

“Hi KT and Suze. I’m 30 years old. I’ve been following your advice for the last year.”

Suze: I thought she was going to say for the last 25…

KT: “Your advice has given me the confidence to plan for my future. Last year I started a city job. I make $41,500 a year. My job offers a 457(b) and a Roth 457(b).

“I was planning to pick the Roth because you say it’s the better option, but the representative at Nationwide convinced me to pick the 457(b). Should I convert it to a Roth 457(b) or keep the 457(b)?”

Suze: Now, I won’t get too mad at you because you’ve only been listening to me for a year. But don’t you think, Nicole, you’d rather take advice from somebody like me than this idiot who gave you the advice to do the 457(b)?

All you are making right now is $41,500 a year. That will put you in one of the lowest income tax brackets out there. Why in the world would you do a traditional 457 simply to save money on taxes—which will be very little—and give up compounding tax-free with a Roth? Are you crazy?

So no. You are to do a Roth 457(b), and you are to never ever take advice from this person again.

KT: So, Suze, my next question is from Maria. My massage therapist mentioned she rolled over her husband’s work traditional 401(k) into a gold traditional investment IRA two years ago, and it has doubled since then. Is that possible, Suze?

Suze: Yes, it’s possible.

KT: So now Maria said, “Suze, I was thinking of maybe a Gold Roth IRA. So what do you say to that? Is there a gold Roth IRA?”

Suze: Actually, within a traditional Roth IRA or IRA for that matter—one that you would get at Fidelity, at Schwab, at a major brokerage firm—you cannot hold the physical commodity gold. You cannot do it. To buy the physical commodity and hold it in an IRA, you have to go through… it’s just a mess. There are ways for you to do it like your massage person did, but personally I don’t think it’s worth it.

Maria, here’s the thing. Right now when you have gold that has gone up so high, do I think from here it can double? I do not.

However, if you want to participate in gold within a Roth IRA, I think the best way for you to do it at this point is by buying an exchange-traded fund by the symbol GLD. Just that simple.

KT: Well, because I have another gold question. This is from Janna. “My husband and I listen to you all the time. Back in June of 2022, you recommended a gold stock by the name of Barrick Gold.”

Suze: I most certainly did. One of the best calls I’ve ever made.

KT: “It was $18 at the time. The symbol was GOLD. I remember my husband wanted to buy 1,000 shares, and I didn’t. So we decided to only buy 500 shares, or about $9,000 in his Roth.”

Suze: Fabulous. See? There’s gold in a Roth.

KT: “He recently died, so I’m trying to figure things out. I looked up the symbol GOLD and it shows a stock, but it’s not Barrick. Did Barrick go belly up? So is all the money gone? I’m just trying to figure things out.”

Suze: So Janna, here’s what happened. Sometime about a year ago, Barrick changed its symbol. It’s on the New York Stock Exchange under the letter B.

Let me tell you a little bit about Barrick so that you know. Number one, Maria from the question before, listen closely. The reason that I told everybody back in 2022 to buy Barrick Gold is number one, I thought eventually it would go up, but it was also paying 40 cents a share of a dividend. So it was like a 2.something% return on your money even if gold did nothing.

However, over the years, Janna, Barrick has raised its dividend to 70 cents a share. Based on the fact that you bought it at $18 a share, that’s a 3.8% return just in dividends alone. Fabulous.

Next, if you put in the letter B and look up the price of Barrick right now, it’s about $50 a share. So your 500 shares did not go belly up, my love. They are now worth about $25,500.

So here’s the only thing I’m gonna say. I’m very sorry for your loss. But the truth is you should have bought 1,000 shares. You should have listened to him. But don’t worry. Everything is so great I can’t even tell you. You did the right thing.

KT: There’s nothing worse than trying to figure things out and basically she thought she lost all that money.

Suze: Yeah, because you go to put in GOLD and it’s a whole different… Actually, truthfully, it was in June of 2022 that I first recommended it, so it wasn’t even four years ago.

KT: All right, so question from Lauren. “Suze, is it possible to convert a SEP IRA into a SEP Roth IRA? If so, how should that be done properly? My current investments are down about 2%. Does that make now a smart time to convert and potentially take advantage of tax loss harvesting?”

Suze: You’re not gonna be able to do any tax loss harvesting. Everybody, tax loss harvesting is when you take your losses and are able to offset them for your taxes. Don’t ever make the mistake that the money you have in a retirement account is subject to capital gains or losses when you sell within there. It doesn’t work that way.

However, the truth of the matter, my dear Lauren, when the money in a SEP IRA is down and you want to get it into a Roth, now is when you wanna do it. Because since it’s down and you do convert it, you’re not gonna owe as much on taxes. But it’s not known as tax loss harvesting.

Even though now legally you can have a SEP Roth IRA, good luck finding one. None of the major brokerage firms allow them. I can’t find any of them.

So here’s what you would do. Who cares if it’s another SEP? Just take your SEP IRA and convert it to a Roth IRA knowing you are going to pay taxes on whatever amount you convert. Now it’s all in a Roth IRA. You can keep your SEP IRA, fund it for as much as you can every year, and then just convert it to a Roth IRA every single year.

That’s how I would do it if I were you.

KT: Next question is from Anne. “Regarding Social Security benefits after 20 years of marriage that ended in an annulment, would I be eligible to receive one half of my former spouse’s Social Security?”

Suze: How is that possible? Anne, are you sure? Or did your ex-husband tell you that it ended in an annulment? Are you positive that it did? Twenty years is a long time to be married and end in an annulment.

If you look at the rules, you only get part of your spouse’s or ex-spouse’s Social Security if in fact you were married legally at least 10 years or got divorced. Because it was annulled—meaning you were never married to him—that’s what an annulment means. So given you were never married to him, you will not in most cases qualify for any of his Social Security.

However, there are limited technical exceptions and you should check whatever state you live in. There are specific state laws in which case maybe Social Security treats it differently. It’s something that I would absolutely look into given how much money we’re probably talking about here.

If it were me, I would have an expert review your decree to make sure that you really have an annulment and that the annulment is valid.

Wanna know what I really think? I’m not sure Anne knows that it’s absolutely valid. I think her ex-husband thought if she got benefits he was going to have to be the one who paid her. It doesn’t come from him. It comes from Social Security. It doesn’t lessen his.

So Anne, if I were you, I would get on my warrior outfit and do whatever I can to get that annulment declared invalid and get a divorce from him if you can.

KT: Annulment after 20 years… I thought annulments were when two kids run away to Las Vegas. They drink too much, they get married. They come home, tell their parents, and the parents say, “Oh, this is getting annulled.” Something is not right with the annulment.

Suze: Anne, you check it out. And let us know. I’m curious.

I have no idea what I’m going to do for Suze’s School on Sunday.

You wanna say anything else before we go, KT?

KT: Happy birthday again, Oprah. And stay safe and warm across this country.

Suze: All right, so until Sunday, there’s only one thing that we want you to remember when it comes to your money, sweetheart. What do I want them to know?

KT: It is people first, then money, then things.

Suze: Stay warm and seriously, given everything that’s going on out there—which I think is such a heartbreak and I have to tell you I think it is so wrong it’s not even funny—please all of you stay safe. Bye-bye.