What were the early days of Suze, before you became a media star and financial guru?
It was a world far removed from the Plaza. For seven years after college I was a waitress at the Buttercup Café in Oakland, CA. I earned $400….a month. I would not trade that time for anything, the people I met there were wonderful.
I decided that my life goal was to own a restaurant. So I called up my mother and asked to borrow $20,000. You have to understand, my father worked so hard to support his family, first with a chicken shack and then two delis in Chicago. No one ever worked harder than my Dad. But I did not come from a family that had $2,000 let alone $20,000 to let a child follow a dream. And the minute I asked I felt so bad that I had put my mother in the position of having to say no. I knew my mother would have done anything possible to help me. But $20,000 was not possible.
The next day I was moping around at the Buttercup –and moping was so not my style-when a favorite client, Fred Hasbrook, asked me “What’s wrong, sunshine? You don’t look happy.” I told Fred what had happened. Then I went back to work while Fred finished his breakfast. Before he left the restaurant, he came up to the counter and handed me a personal check for $2,000, a bunch of other checks and commitments from the other customers that totaled $50,000, and a note that read: THIS IS FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU, SO THAT YOUR DREAMS CAN COME TRUE. TO BE PAID BACK IN TEN YEARS, IF YOU CAN, WITH NO INTEREST. It’s a long story about what happened after that, but the most important thing is that dreams can come true. I’ve recently noticed all the news about “crowd-sourcing” where entrepreneurs are asking absolute strangers to help them get off the ground. It is talked about as something new given that getting loans from banks is so hard these days. Well, I was on the receiving end of some wonderful crowd sourcing, nearly 30 years ago! I didn’t ultimately go into the restaurant business, but that experience changed my life.
What do you love about the Plaza?
What’s not to love? Every time I walk into the building I feel I am stepping into a piece of not just New York City history, but American history. This is such an iconic building and setting, and the energy here is unique. That my life has taken me from earning that $400 a month to now having an apartment in the Plaza is really something.
My father died in 1981, before my career had taken off. Oh what I would give for him to have come visit me here. It’s something that KT and I pinch ourselves every time we walk into the building; knowing that our parents would just think it is a dream beyond a dream.
When you are not working on the next book or your show, how do you relax? What do you do for fun?
I have a confession. As much as I love the Plaza, my favorite place in the world is to be in our home in Florida and to be on a boat. With KT. If I have to be on land, New York City is amazing. But I have to tell you there is something magical about the Ocean in Florida and when we can get out on the water and just be. Right now we have a 28-foot Sea Ray, but our goal is to eventually trade up to something a bit larger that we could live on and explore the world. I am studying to be captain.
In New York City there are many people who earn over $100,000.00 annually and still live from paycheck to paycheck. They are possibly facing a layoff and do not have that 6-8 month emergency cushion in savings. What advice can you share with them?
It is so hard for people elsewhere to understand. Look, $100,000 is indeed a lot of money; it’s double the typical household income in the U.S. But the truth is, that $100,000 doesn’t really go as far in NYC as it does elsewhere. After taxes and putting away some money for retirement that $100,000 is probably $40,000 or so. Given what rents are here (let alone the cost of owning) you’re hard-pressed to get by on $100,000.
I get it. I am not blind to the math. But at the same time you can’t tell me it’s okay in this day and age to not have an emergency savings fund. If that means you need to move to a less expensive borough, or take on part time work, or maybe scale back the evening entertainment spending, well so be it. Your goal is to build a wall of protection for yourself. Seems to me that’s worth making some tradeoffs. Whether you get laid off, or face a year where an illness leads to expensive co-pays, or your kid needs some extra tutoring to get through a rough patch, well, that’s all where an emergency fund comes into play.
Who do you most admire?
It isn’t one person, I truly admire those in the United States who are struggling with everything that’s going on, and they make it, no matter what. They’ve lost their jobs, they’ve lost their home, they’ve lost everything and yet, they still have faith in who they are and what they can create. I admire those people.
What is your greatest fear?
Losing KT
I have seen many of your seminars about women and money. With all the research and books that you have written, what would be the number one piece of advice you could share with my female readers regarding their relationship with money?
To not put themselves on sale. By that I mean you don’t underestimate your value. From stay-at-home-moms (who by the way I think have one of the hardest and most important jobs in the world) who are afraid to ask their husband’s for money, to female corporate executives who aren’t aggressive about being paid and recognized for their effort, I find that most women aren’t hard-wired to demand they be respected and valued. And you know what? That problem starts from the fact that these women don’t value themselves. Find your inner strength; live with confidence and conviction and you will be amazed how the world responds to your energy.
Do you think that if there were more women on Wall Street making decisions we wouldn’t have experienced the downfall in the economy in 2008?
I’m not exactly sure that if women had been in those positions, that we would’ve avoided it. I think it’s sort of silly to say this was a gender-specific meltdown. Just because a woman is a woman, doesn’t mean she makes smart decisions. Not all women make great decisions and not all great decisions are made by women.
It’s not so much if you are a woman or a man, it’s how you think, feel and act about money. I’d love to see more women in positions of power and consequence. But honestly, one of my main goals is to just make sure that every woman, no matter where she may or may not be on the career ladder masters the job of being the CEO of her own finances. The decisions that we make within our own family units, the decisions we make at work – let’s build our way up there. There’s a saying in China that women hold up half the sky. The truth of the matter is that in the United States, I think women hold up more than half the sky. In many homes, women are holding up the financial ends of things and they’re holding up the family units, their parents, they hold up everything. Women have so much on their shoulders – they really strong but the problem is that they don’t know how strong they are. This goes back to my main message: let’s stop putting ourselves on sale. That’s where we start. And then you will be amazed where we can go and what we can do.
Will we have financial security again in our lifetime?
You can have financial security whenever you are ready to make the life choices that build that security. There are people who have financial security in these bad times; there are people who don’t have financial security in the good times. Whether you have security isn’t really dependent on what is going on around you, as much as what is happening inside of your life and your home.
Yes, there is much that government needs to do in times like these with the unemployment rate at 9 percent to help those who have lost their jobs. That we aren’t seeing meaningful policy to help them—and us as a nation-get through this period of deleveraging is disturbing. But your question also pertains to the other 91 percent. When you ask if they can have financial security in their lifetime, my question to them is “Are you ready to create that security?” That’s really at the heart of my book The Money Class. I wrote that book to show every American how to stand in your truth and create financial security. Not for this year. Or the next economic cycle. But for a lifetime.
Do you like to cook and what’s your favorite food?
I love to eat. Cooking, not so much. And I am so lucky that KT is an absolutely amazing cook. My favorite thing is whatever she happens to be cooking. And that’s another reason we both love living at the Plaza; if she’s not feeling like cooking we just have to pick up the phone and order something great from downstairs. It’s not even takeout; it’s right here.
Since we really are only in NYC to tape my shows then we leave to go back to our home in Florida I have to make the most out of every minute we spend here. So I also love that with just a short elevator ride I can have a business meeting in the Palm Court. How fabulous is that? I think that’s got to be one of the most spectacular walks to work in all of New York City. Just another reason we love having an apartment at the Plaza.
For more about Suze Orman go to www.suzeorman.com