suze-orman
—>Shrill, savvy financial guru Suze Orman is giving away downloads of the will and trust kit she hawks. Just type in the code 898989 (blogger Kelly Whalen spotted the freebie) and you'll be on your way to dictating your financial goals from beyond the grave. More »
—>Get to know the woman behind the patterened jackets: NYTM had an incisive profile of personal finance guru Suze Orman last weekend. At one point, she eats six hot dogs in a row. [NYTM] (Photo: pynchonoid) More »
—>But not for her advice* or her fashion sense, as you might expect. In addition to doling out advice on TV and in books, Orman is a licensed insurance broker in California, and in 1999 her firm the Suze Orman Financial Group sold some long-term care insurance to Ann Garat, who developed ovarian cancer two years later. When Garat filed a claim, CNA Financial—the issuer of the insurance—rejected it, saying their fine print stipulated it wouldn't cover care from family members. More »
—>Personal finance guru Suze Orman is changing her tune about credit card debt. Before unemployment reached a 26-year high — nearly every expert advised people to pay down their credit card debt before starting an emergency fund. Now it seems that the advice has changed. More »
—>Women's Wear Daily has published a short biography of Suze Orman, 57-year-old CNBC personality, Oprah repeat-guester, and aggressive promoter of financial advice and self. Her father's poultry shop burned down when she was a child ("Daddy was a failed man."). At age 30, she lost $50,000 of borrowed money in oil futures, which led her to give up her dream of opening a restaurant and instead enter a training program at Merrill Lynch to pay back the money. Her second book agent—the one who helped shoot her to the top—told her she had to lose 30 pounds to be marketable. And so on: seeing how someone aggressively pursues media stardom is a sausage-making experience. (That same agent says, "I just thought, 'Great. Finally an author who knows she can't write.'") More »
—>In Suze Orman's most recent book, "2009 Action Plan," she urges people with credit card debt to pay off their balances as quickly as possible using the high interest first method. "The fact that you pay just the minimum is a huge warning signal to your credit card company," she writes, "that you may already be on shaky ground." Now she's changed her mind and says you should just pay the monthly minimum and put the rest of your money toward building an emergency cash stash. Based on the way credit card companies have been behaving, we think she has a point. More »
—>Slate's James Scurlock has some harsh words for Suze Orman. He says she's a liar who is more interested in shilling cruises and luxury car leases than anything else. More »
—>"Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan" is free to download from Oprah.com for the next week. Unlike last year's "Women & Money," this book is intended for pretty much everyone. We haven't read it, so here's a line from the Amazon editorial review: "There are safeguards to put in place, actions to take, costly mistakes to avoid, and even opportunities to be had, so that you are protected during the bad times and prepared to prosper when things take a turn for the better." More »
