Hi everybody, Suzio here now. What is the goal of money? The goal of money is for you to be secure. And there is no better way for you to be secure than having an emergency savings account. It is essential for your financial foundation. So all of you should be participating in
The ultimate opportunity savings account at Alliant Credit Union. Go to myalliant.com to find out more and be secure. All right, Susie, KT. Are you ready for today's podcast? Yeah, Robert. Of course we're ready. Because we are unstoppable. Yeah, baby. I put my arm on so you are so Miami.
I put my arm on, I'll show you that I am I'm unstoppable I'm a version with no brakes, I'm invincible Yeah, I would never single-game, I ain't so powerful I don't need batteries today, I'm so confident Yeah, I'm unstoppable today
November 21st, 2024. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast, as well as everybody smart enough to listen. We're back a week away. Are we a week from Thanksgiving? We are. Wait, before you jump forward a week to Thanksgiving, we have to jump back a week because we've been gone a week and people are emailing us. Where were you last Thursday, last Sunday?
But we're not going to tell you anybody. No, I'm not going to tell anybody. No, it's our old little, even Robert didn't know. We took a vacation finally. But we're not going to tell you where we went. Not telling you nothing, mutton. Nothing. All right. Anyway, but we had a great time. We're happy to be back. And actually, we've been back since Monday. Mm hmm. And Katie has been a Wow. Fishing, fishing, fishing woman. I've never seen anything like it.
Yeah, we've been having great catches and enjoying and giving the whole island all this fish. Everyone's loving us and loving us. Jimmy Buffett's daughter Savannah happens to be visiting us, which we just love. And she went out fishing with KT last Tuesday, just a few days ago. And wow, it was so great. I'll post some photos.
You will, will you? Yeah. She doesn't like that. OK, we won't post. All right. All right. So wait, before you start a week from Thanksgiving, right? No, I don't care about Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. We'll get to Thanksgiving. OK. But right now, I had posted KT, a pic a few days ago, of who wants to be a millionaire, where one of the questions on the game show
was about Susie Orman and what does Susie Orman write books about? And they were like four categories. Obviously, one of them was finances. And he kind of looked down and I did a poll. Well, not an official poll, but this thing on the women and money community. Whether he got it right or not. And a lot of people said he doesn't look like he got it right. But there's a reason that I also posted that.
is because, yes, he got it right. Oh, he did. He did. And not only that, he went on to win $1 million. But wait, there's a story to this. I got a story. See what happens when you're not on for a whole week? You just want to talk and talk and talk. Anyway,
Because he won a million dollars, and my question was part of it, they had him on the Today Show with me. This is years ago now, and this was before, these were reruns, Katie, all of these shows. That was an old rerun with Regis years and years ago, like 2005, something like that.
And they had him on the today's show for me to tell him what to do with the million dollars. And I said, whatever you do, keep it safe and sound that you have to remember you won a million when it's after taxes. Maybe you're going to have 600,000. But if I were you, I would not be investing it in the stock market or real estate at this point in time.
Well, the hate mail KT that I got from some of the viewers of the Today Show, that is the worst advice I've ever heard. The markets are skyrocketing, real estate is skyrocketing. I can't believe it that Susie Orman doesn't want him to invest in the stock market.
Do y'all remember what happened in 2006 and 2007? Oh, yeah. Bank gets crashed, real estate crashed, and if he listened to me, that little $600,000 that he kept safe and sound is probably worth another million dollars today because he didn't go in the stock market or real estate at that time. All right, I just thought I'd tell you this story.
Is that a bad story? I'm going to look him up now. All right, you can. Find out what he's got now. Hope he keeps listening to you. All right, so this is the Ask KT and Susie Anything Edition. You've been pondering all the questions. Yeah, we're almost at Thanksgiving. Well, you stop it. Tell everybody who's going to be with us this Thanksgiving. Colo. There you go.
Okay, Susie makes the best turkey, best Thanksgiving ever. I know I've given you my stuffing recipe like how many times now? All right, ready. Actually, I don't have a question to start with. I have a love letter. You love starting these with a love letter. Yes, I do like starting the podcast with a love letter. And this is from Alison. She said, I want to tell you both how grateful I am for you.
I have only been listening for a year and you've helped me conquer a lifetime fear of money. As a 52 year old freelance photographer, my financial status has always had huge swings.
The highs are manic with irresponsible spending and the lows are terrifying and depressing. Susie, you have helped me feel secure. You have given me a plan to ease these financial extremes. Finally, for the first time as an adult, I know that everything is going to be okay. You have taught me to save and to honor and be grateful for those savings, even if I wish there were more.
The piece you have given me is invaluable. I hope you can feel the gratitude your listeners have for you, even if we are bad about letting you know. Much love to you both.
I picked this for another reason. What was that? The word freelance, I started as a freelance illustrator back in 1972, 1971, 72. And I'll tell you something, it's tough. The word freelance always attracts me to any question because it's a very difficult part of every anyone's life, if you're a freelancer.
That's why you chose it? Well, that's one of the reasons. It just attracted me. I know how difficult it is. Why? Because one of the most important parts of the Women in Money podcast is the ability to create hope.
Hope for those who feel hopeless. Hope for those who feel like they're never going to get out of debt. Hope for those who have never experienced what it's like to have a savings account. Hope for those who have never owned a home, never owned a car, never owned a car outright, never thought they would be able to retire, never thought that they would be able to do the things that they are doing after having listened for just a year.
Imagine three years, imagine longer, imagine the 20 years with the Susie Orman show and everything. Do you have any idea? The hope that I know we have created in this world simply
by telling the truth about money and people. Fabulous, Katie. All right. All right. So this next question is from Sabrina. Hi, Katie and Susie. Hope you're both doing fantastic.
I have a small issue I'm hoping you could help me with. My 85 year old mother has dementia. She loves going to the casino. This made me smile too. Although she doesn't go as much as she used to, she always wants to go and she will take any opportunity if it presents itself. She went with a group of people a couple of weeks ago and told my brother and I about it after the fact.
Someone had to help her pull money from the ATM. It scared us. Can you imagine her and her brother listening to the mom tell me? She said it scared us because someone knows her pin and she could have pulled way more than she did this time.
Here's the second part of the issue. I fear I made a mistake of taking 25,000 from her account, leaving her only 5,000. I had her permission, but now I don't know what I should do with this cashier's check.
So, my intent is a high yield savings account. I want to keep it liquid for her, but I don't want to pay taxes and have it added to my income if I put it in my name. Also, I was thinking a Roth IRA could earn interest tax-free, but not sure of the rules at her age.
85 years old. She will eventually qualify for assisted living and she'll need this money. Any help would be greatly appreciated. So Sabrina needs some advice about the money. So first of all, don't fear that you made a mistake. If anything, I would have told you to probably take out even more than that.
leave her $1,000. And if she goes and she wants more than that, she has to ask for it. But you did not make a mistake number one. The real mistake would be because you said later on in this email, soon she's going to be in assisted living and she will need this money. What if she had taken out all $25,000 and gambled it away?
The good part is she obviously gets enjoyment out of doing that. So what would also be interesting is maybe if she didn't have any money at all in her name, just listen to me, tell her that she needs to be protected.
And that you give her in allowance, so to speak. Like, believe it or not, remember, Katie, I used to do this with my mom. She got $1,000 a month. I paid all the bills and everything, but she got $1,000 a month. And that is because she was kind of in the same situation. She didn't understand. She was now in her 90s.
I took all of her checks that she had that she thought she could write checks on. There was absolutely nothing in the account. And everybody knew that if she sent them a check that they should just thank her for sending money. But you really have to protect your elders. You honest to God do. Not feel like you're taking their power away from them, but you have to protect them when dementia especially starts set in.
And so, therefore, don't worry about you having to pay tax on this. What you can do if you want, obviously, you can open up a joint account with your mother so that it's in her name and your name. Maybe she could be taxed on it because that's the tax ID, but she doesn't know where it's at. You don't give her checks. You don't give her an ATM card, a debit card. She cannot access the money. And you just simply tell her mom,
I'm going to give you $250 a week for you to go and spend at the casino or $250 a month or whatever she can truthfully afford because you also don't want to take that joy out of her life. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but the truth is my mother loved going where Katie with her driver, Bill. Oh, my God.
Hooters. Hooters. Hooters. She loved it. They go for lunch every day and I would get a bill for $7,000 a month for the driver and hooters every day and she would treat. And they didn't drink. They just eat and have fun. And Bill loved it there and my mother loved it there for some reason.
And when I took that away from her, I said, Mom, I'm getting rid of Bill. Your full-time aide is going to drive you and you're not going to go to Hooters anymore. She did not talk to me. She was depressed, did not talk to me. Now, eventually she got over it, but you have to give them some joy. She was married like you. Oh my God. Like Susie took her boyfriend away and Hooters.
Right? And you know, it was like really everybody. So it's fine. Put it in a high yield savings account for her. Do it in a joint account with your name. So if anything happened to you, it goes back to her at least. So she has access to that money. If needed and leave instructions as to how somebody can tell her about it. In the meantime, who cares? Just do it and thank God you are. All right.
Keep her happy. So next question is from Susan. What is your recommendation, Susie, regarding C-T-R-E? You know what that is, Katie?
No, I figured. So a long time ago, I don't even know how long ago, one of the dividend paying stocks that happened to be a real estate investment trust that I recommended to everybody, because it was paid about five or six percent at the time in dividends, care trust. And what care trusts, it's so funny that you're even bringing this up at this moment in time, because this was a question on the women and money app.
Obviously, somehow you got this. But anyway, here's what's important is that care trust is a real estate investment trust that invests in nursing homes. So interesting that you're choosing this right after we had the question that we just did. All right. But what's the question? So the question is I have 103 shares
of C.T.R.E. cost basis is $21.99. That's fabulous. Should I keep or sell and put money into something else since the dividend was lowered? Now, what's interesting, K.T. and for all of those of you on the Women in Money podcast app,
I actually answered this on the app, right? But KT liked the question and probably liked it before I even answered it. So let me answer it again for all of you. One of the big mistakes you make is if you were to look at CTRE, that's the symbol of it, right now, it's at about $30 a share.
And if you were to look at it, it would be paying you about a 3.35% dividend, which is why Susan thinks her dividend has gone down. But the truth of the matter is over the past few years, CTRE has actually increased the dividend from 26 cents KT a quarter to 29 cents a quarter in 2024.
So why does Susan keep thinking that the dividend is going down? Because she's looking at what it's at if you bought it today at 30. Susan is actually up 40% on her money since she bought it, number one. And number two, she's still earning on her purchase price at today's dividend rate, 5.5% on her money.
So you just keep it right there, girlfriend. Don't even think about selling it. All right. So next question is from Chambers. This is a funny question. You know how I like short and sweet, ready everybody? This is it. Hey, how are you? I need to start saving my money.
That's it, that's it. Hey, how are you? I need to start saving my money. Well, then you need to do what so many people have done already. Go to myalliant.com, M-Y-A-L-L-I-A-N-T. Sign up for the ultimate opportunity savings account. Put in at least $100 a month every month right after you have signed up. Do it for 12 consecutive months. You'll earn about 3.10% on your money and at the end of 12 months.
You will get $100 from a lion credit union, which is about a 16 or 17% return on your money. That's a good way for you to start saving.
All right, my Fisher lady, what's it got? From Gloria, greeting Susan KT. My sister died in 2021, leaving me as the beneficiary to her traditional IRA. She was withdrawing required RMDs per the secure act since I was nine years younger than my sister. Am I considered
an exception to the tenure rule, which would allow me to withdraw RMDs over my life expectancy. So Susie, I went back to your podcast regarding this secure act, which indicated I may just have 10 years to withdraw. And I would need to do the first RMD in 2025. So this is the part that she's confused about. She said it took two years
to get her account at Wells Fargo transferred to my Schwab account. So I did not do RMD until the 2023 tax year. What a mess. Not sure what to do. So there you go. There's really nothing to do, my dear one, in the fact that
You are qualified to take it out over your entire life expectancy based on your life expectancy. You don't have to wipe the account clean in 10 years because you are what is considered an eligible designated beneficiary because you were less than 10 years younger than your sister.
All right, great. Good to know. And you don't have to worry about any penalties, because really, you don't have to start paying it until 2025, the RMDs on your life expectancy. But you've been doing it since 23, so don't worry about it.
Okay, next question. Hi, Katie and Susie. First time, ask her. I'll attempt to keep this succinct, but really need your advice from me and my wife. She's going to be 58 next year and 48 for me. Combined, we bring in 217,000 pre-tax that comes to about 10,000 net monthly.
Recently, I calculated our total net worth and it's just over $170,000. Not much I know considering our ages. We both didn't earn much until a few years ago and recently started getting serious about saving for retirement.
We are under the CA California rent control, CA, right? That's pretty great. All right. No house, no kids, no debt. What that means to know is they live in a rental unit. That's worth a whole lot more than if they moved out the owner of that rental unit.
could absolutely charge a fortune probably for it. But under rent control, they got a deal of their lifetime and hopefully they should stay right there. But anyway, go on. So this is interesting then, according to what you just said. We own our one vehicle purchased in 2017. Both have stellar credit, have your must-have-docs, term life insurance,
And she's going to wait until 70 to claim Social Security as she earns triple my salary. I we realize to gain this is the part that I need your advice to we realize to gain any real net worth we have to purchase a home. Where did she get that? I have no idea. She said one day maybe we could sell it and actually be able to afford to retire ready.
And then it goes on to say everything they do with the credit cards, they have no debt. In all honesty, I'm scared of doing it with a mortgage. Property taxes, repairs, maintenance, and the insane state of the insurance industry, especially in California. Although I know so many do live this American dream,
of owning a home, of course. I've never been one to follow the traditional path. All right, so Susie, what are you going to say? They want to have a home in order to live the American dream of owning a home, and that's going to give them the ability to retire. I don't think so. What do you think, Susie? So here's the thing, girlfriends, and it's really quite simple.
I've told you time and time again that the goal of money is for you to be secure. And you tell me in this email that you're scared to death to do this. First of all, can we get a clue about California?
Get a clue about the floods, the earthquakes, the fires. Get a clue about the cost of insurance going so high because of the natural disasters that many people have a higher insurance premium than they do a mortgage payment.
Get a clue that interest rates are still relatively high. And I don't think are going to come down that much. And in the meantime, let's get a clue that you are living in a rent-controlled apartment. Where did you get this idea? Really where?
that the American dream is to own a home and you own a home and then you sell it so you can retire. No. You accumulate money by your 401ks, by your Roths and things like that. You invest it in equities. You keep your expenses low. You stay out of debt. You make sure that when the time does come,
that your social security, the interest on your retirement accounts and everything else pays for your expenses. And if your expenses are simply a rent control department or something like that, fine. But I know many, many really wealthy people who have never owned a home. They never wanted to own a home.
So don't be like everybody else right now because you don't know what's going to happen in the real estate market nor does anybody else. What you do know is you're making a nice living. You're putting as much away possible in your retirement accounts. You are totally out of debt. You have a car that you purchased a while ago that you own outright. You're doing everything right.
So, as long as you compare yourself to what other people are doing, you are making the biggest mistake in life. There are a million people out there that would love to be in your situation, girlfriend. So, stop wanting to be somebody other than who you are and no one day you will realize.
your retirement dream. All right, Kate. All right. This next one, you did answer. This is important. I want to share this with everyone because I saw that Susie did answer Susan King. And Susan, I have to tell you, when I first read your question to Susie, it just made my stomach turn.
My Humana Medicare Advantage plan is terminating my coverage end of 2024. I had breast cancer in 2023 and suspect I'm being dropped for that reason. I don't know where to start to getting a new plan or if they'll accept me now. Susie, please advise. Everybody.
What you all need to know is that a Medicare Advantage plan cannot drop you because of health challenges. It's against the law. They can't do it. So you first have to understand, Humanae Medicare Advantage did not terminate you because you have breast cancer.
Medicare Advantage plans are not allowed to do that based on pre-existing conditions, including cancer. So I really want you all to get that, all right? The termination of your plan is likely due to other reasons, such as the plan being discontinued in your area.
There are many, many areas and hospitals now where Medicare Advantage is being discontinued for whatever reason. But that is happening. So what should you do? You have to find a new plan.
And since your plan is ending at the close of this year, you have two main opportunities to enroll in a new plan, girlfriend, so you don't have to worry about it. First of all, fall enrollment is running through December 7th of 2024. And it's during this time that you can join a new Medicare Advantage plan or if you really want to switch to original Medicare.
Now, because your plan is ending, you actually have a special enrollment period. And your special enrollment period doesn't end like everybody else December 7th in 2024. It actually goes from December 8th, 2024 till February 28th of 2025 that you have to change your Medicare health and drug coverage.
So yes, there are pre-existing conditions, obviously, but for all of you that may be in that situation, which is why I'm spending a little time on this, the good news is that Medicare Advantage plans cannot reject your enrollment or charge you more due to pre-existing conditions. And that, my dear Susan, includes your history of breast cancer. So this means you should be able to enroll in a new plan
without facing discrimination based on your health. So there you go. You know, and you can do Medicare plan, finder tools, all these things to find a new plan. I could go on and on about this, which I did in the email that I sent to you. But for all of you, that's what you need to know. All right. All right. This next question was very confusing for me. So I hope you clarify it. It says, Hi, Katie or Susie.
So let's say this is to KT. Quick question. I got an email from Treasury Direct reminding me to deliver my gift bonds. Yes. Okay. This is just to KT. I bought them three years ago. Is there a time limit on when they must be delivered? Yeah.
You're picking all the ones that I've answered personally. Yeah, but but answered for me. Do you have to deliver this on a certain time? And what does it mean? Deliver it? Deliver it means deliver it to the person that you're gifting it to. So it's now in their account. Now, here's what you all need to know. Right. First of all, I told this person, Tammy, that she should absolutely gift them immediately.
And the reason is that I don't get what's going on with gifting bonds and treasury direct, but eventually every single person is going to get an email, Katie, they did it in tranches. They're going to get an email that says,
If you have gift bonds, let me remind you that you should be gifting them and things like that. So I don't know at this point what changes they're going to make. I do know though that you might want to call up Treasury Direct and ask them that let's say over the years you gifted maybe $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 to somebody that you've never delivered.
and delivered means they're in your gift box and that you want now to start changing them over to the person's account whose name you want them to be in. But the problem is if they've already invested $10,000 in a series I bond in their account this year, then under normal circumstances, you can't give them another 10,000. But for some reason,
Some people are writing and they say that they have actually called Treasury Direct and they say it doesn't matter. Just start gifting it that even if you have $20,000 in a gift box, you can gift it all at once. Now, I do not know if that is true or not. But enough of you have written that have said you called because you were confused when you got this email and that they're not going to penalize you if you do that.
You need to check it out because I don't know one way or the other. So if I were you, I would call the Treasury direct people directly and just double check on this. And if you do have gift bonds, you should start gifting them. Don't ask me why they're doing this, but they are. All right. Kind of confusing, right? Very confused. What are they up to?
I don't know. Sounds suspicious. Yeah. Okay, quiz time. What does that mean? I have a quiz for you. You're not doing a quiz, Susie. I'm doing a quiz.
You have been giving me quizzes this entire half hour or whatever it's been. No, no, no, no. This is my quizzi to you, Susie, and everyone listening wants the same quizzi to you. None of you have to guess this. This is Susie alone. You want one and only Susie. All right, girlfriend. All right. So Christine is the one that initiated this. She said, hoping to hear from you.
When will you be announcing the date of the launch of Keith's program? Susie, it's November. You keep promising promise. Wait, wait a minute, Christina, it's not just you. She keeps promising me. I said, what are we doing this? What's going on? So just waiting. Here's the answer. We're close. We're close. We're close. KT, I promise. Right. So I happen to talk to Keith last Sunday night about it.
Good. What did he say? He said, I have no idea. No. He said they are in the final testing of this program. Now, I know I've told you that before, but this is a seriously complicated program on the back end with hundreds of thousands of computations so that on your end, you have very little to do.
You're told what to do, when to do it, very simple for you, but very complicated for the behind the scenes because of all the hundreds of thousands of people that will sign up for this, and it's individualized for each one of you. So just imagine that.
But he is, he promises me, he's almost done. Number one, number two, I actually suggested, I said, you know, Keith, these markets are pretty high right now. It is probable that maybe these markets are going to pull back.
Maybe what we should do is we should maybe wait. Maybe we wait till the beginning of January. I know you're going to look at me, Katie, but maybe we start the year off fresh where we know everything works. The market has worked out all this stuff with the election and the Fed funds rate and everything.
And we let that just settle so that when we start something, we're not starting possibly with everything through the roof and immediately it goes down. So if you could just be a little more patient, just a little more patient, I have a feeling starting January, maybe before, but most likely January. And that was at my request, everybody.
Because he really said he would be ready to go in December. And I said, no, no, let's just wait till January. So I know everything is buttoned up. I have time to go through it and test it with every possibility. No, she's going to taste it. It's in the testing kitchen. And he's perfecting his recipe. And so the recipe is perfected, but it's in the testing kitchen.
No, it's making sure that the recipe works the way that it should, that the cake rises and it tastes good. It tastes delicious. Whatever she takes of any way. Did I answer the quiz for you? Yeah. Well, where's my ding ding ding ding?
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
We promise you you will be unstoppable. Unstoppable.
I'm unstoppable today I'm unstoppable today I'm unstoppable today I'm unstoppable today I'm unstoppable today
Hi everybody, Susie O'Hare. Now, if you are looking for a way to start saving to get the most out of your money, I want you to go to myalliant.com, that's M-Y-A-L-L-I-A-N-T.com, and look into opening an ultimate opportunity savings account, putting at least $100 a month every single month for 12 consecutive months,
Earn 3.10% interest on your money right now and get $100 at the end. Are you kidding me? It's the best deal out there. Start saving right now. Now, there's Susie Orman media nor Susie Orman is acting as a certified financial planner advisor, a certified financial analyst, an economist, CPA accountant or lawyer. Now, there's Susie Orman media nor Susie Orman
make any recommendations as to any specific securities or investments. All content contained in this podcast is for informational and general purposes only and does not constitute financial accounting or legal advice. You should consult your own tax legal and financial advisors regarding
your particular situation. Neither Susie Orman Media nor Susie Orman accepts any responsibility for any losses which may arise from accessing or reliance on information in this podcast. And to the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability for loss, damages, direct or indirect arising from the use of this information. The must have documents discussed in this podcast are legal documents created by a lawyer and distributed by Hay House.
