suze orman

Had a chance to watch Oprah yesterday. Heh, on a two-day MC, so had the opportunity to stay home and do all sorts of things!

Anyway, she had a guest yesterday, Suze Orman. A compelling speaker. And she's into Finance. Something that most women, have problem with. Why compelling, well.. Suze Orman apparently was in USD$250,000 debt when she was younger (now she's 50+) but she managed to turn her life around. So, she reorganized her finances, wrote a couple of books, went on a few talk shows and voila, rebirth! But it should be a lot of hardwork on her part too. While she was on Oprah, she offered advise on mortages to women who are currently in difficult situation.

Suze obviously knows her country's financial system well, from the way she talks about how to get the best out of mortgages, what to do when you're in credit card debt, why you shouldn't be taking a loan out of the IR8 something something (probably equivalent to our CPF or something like that). The US have different mortgages loans for the house. In Singapore, its likely to be a fixed rate mortgage where the borrower will contract that he/she will pay xxx amount every month for 20/30 years with yyy interest rate. In the US, they have another way of paying in which, the financial institution offers the borrower a lower amount to pay (for example xxx amount divide by 2, instead of $1500 per month, borrower pays $750 but for longer term say, instead of 20 years, now it become 30 years) So according to Suze, most people who opted for that, usually didn't know that the amount that they will eventually pay, is higher and for a longer term. And, because of the US market problem recently, these mortgage rates for this kind of loan, will be revised, so that the borrower instead of paying $750, will now have to pay $1500. So if the borrower, could only afford $750 per month, they will now have to scramble to raise double the amount and sustain it for 20 years if they do not wish to lose the mortgage.

Her advise is quite common sense. Like, she'll say something like, trust no one but yourself when investing because no one cares about your money more than you do. She likened financial advisors as no more than a salesperson in suits. Which is true anyway. Then a lady says but those people are the experts. Suze says, these people can only advise but the final decision should lies with yourself and if you do not know what you're doing with your money, then do nothing is better than doing something that you're not sure. Hehe, sounds like good advise to me. Nowadays I'm doing something and those something are really making me poorer!


More of Suze.