Make A Date With Your Money - Revisited

For this Suze School, we’ll revisit a lesson on making a date with your money, which is spending a day reviewing every aspect of your financial life.  Do you have the right insurance?  Are your beneficiaries in place? Do you have a plan to get out of debt? Listen to Suze explain why the answers to these questions are so important.    

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Episode Transcript

Robert (00:08):
November 2nd, 2025. Welcome to the Women and Money podcast,
as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi everybody.
I am Robert, the producer. Suze and KT have returned
safely from their Italian eating and painting adventure, but you
know how it is when you come back from a
long trip, sometimes you need a couple extra days to re-acclimate.

(00:29):
And that's what's happening now. We are going to keep, however,
the promise that Suze made on the last episode, where
you get a Suz e School podcast today. However, it's
got a little twist to it. You're going to hear
the main part of an episode that we did about
a year ago, but we think it's very important for
you to hear again right now at the top of

(00:50):
your feed. Today is November 2nd, as I just said,
that means there are two more months left in the year,
and it's really time.
To start preparing for next year.
And part of that preparation is making a date with
your money. Here's Suze to explain everything.

Suze (01:11):
Make a date with your money.
I really want you to take this time before the
new year starts to sit down, make a date, get
out your calendars, everybody, and make a date when you
or your spouse or your life partner or your children,

(01:32):
I don't care who, your parents. You sit down and
you make a date.
And that date is the entire day is devoted to
dealing with every aspect of your money.
Not so much what you're invested in.

(01:55):
But is everything in place?
Are you protected in case something happens? Check all your
home or rental insurance policies as to what they cover
and what they don't cover, and also have you increased
the coverage, really everybody, since you bought the home, given

(02:19):
that maybe it's worth a whole lot more than it
was 10 years ago when you originally got that insurance.
And the fact of the matter is, it costs a
lot more to replace that home today because of inflation,
as it did a long time ago. Next, what's really

(02:41):
important about what I just said is this when you
have as many homes that have been destroyed by hurricanes, tornadoes,
by all the things that are happening in this area,
and around the United States.
That makes lumber, materials, the cost of building because all

(03:06):
the workers, what do they do? They go to those
areas because they know they're going to get jobs, which
leaves these workers who are in your area possibly charging more,
so it's gonna cost more to replace your home than
it did 10 years ago than it did five years ago,

(03:26):
and I want you on this date with your money.
To make sure as you're looking at your insurance policy,
what are you covered for?
Are they going to allow you to rebuild your house
and pay for all of it, so is it replacement costs,
or do you just get the insurance value? Does it

(03:47):
pay for trees and does it pay for your garage
and the tools in your garage and all of those
things you need to check that out.
Are you insured for hurricane, for flood, for any of that.
Now your normal insurance policy is not going to cover

(04:08):
you for flood.
And unless you've added hurricane insurance on, or earthquake insurance on,
it's not gonna be there either, but you have to know.
So you have to look at your insurance policies.
And answer all of those questions. Am I insured for X, Y,

(04:32):
and Z? Is everything in my house insured and how
much is it insured for? Are my structures on my
property insured? My garage, is everything in my garage insured?
Are my trees insured? You have to ask every possible question.

(04:54):
And what is the answer to that question, only you
will know.
So that's the first thing you're going to do when
you have a date with your money.
Also, what I want you to do is I really
want you to look at every retirement plan and insurance policy,

(05:14):
life insurance policy that you have. I also want you
to look at the beneficiaries of your health savings accounts.
Because you have got to make sure,
that all the beneficiaries are the beneficiaries that you want
to get the money. You don't want to have had

(05:38):
a retirement account where you left an ex-spouse or whoever
it may be that money.
And now you're not even talking to that person.
And doesn't even matter if you're not remarried, but you
don't want that person to get it, and so you
have to look at the beneficiaries and make sure that

(05:59):
they are absolutely up to date.
If you happen to be married,
I want you to double check that a trust is
not the primary beneficiary of any of your retirement accounts
or your HSA account. I want you to make sure

(06:20):
that your spouse's name is the primary beneficiary of those
retirement accounts. If it's not your spouse because you're not married,
I don't care then.
Whatever you want to do, but it is not to
be anything other than your spouse as the primary beneficiary

(06:41):
if in fact you are married. Next, I want you
to check
all the interest rates that you are paying on the
unpaid balances on your credit cards, yeah.
A lot of you have credit card debt. You just do.

(07:03):
It's been very difficult possibly because of inflation. Maybe you've
been ill, maybe you lost a job, who knows what,
but you've been putting your everyday living or vacations or
gifts on your credit cards. You've been paying the minimum
payment due.
And maybe if you look at the interest rates on

(07:23):
there you'll find that they're at 13%, 20%, 28%, and
you're only paying the minimum payment due. You are never
going to get ahead. And how many times have I
said debt is bondage, you will never have financial freedom
if you're in bondage. So therefore I want you to

(07:46):
sit down on this date.
Make sure you have pencil and paper for all this.
Get out all your credit card receipts, and I want
you to write down in order.
Your credit card, the interest rate that you are currently paying,
the balance due, and the minimum payment due, and I

(08:09):
want you to do that on every single one of
your cards. And then I want you to arrange them
from the highest interest rate to the lowest.
Now if you in fact have a good FICO score,
maybe 720 or above, sometimes even 680 or above, credit

(08:31):
cards will take it, but you might want to consider
if you have a really high interest rate on these cards.
To do a balance transfer.
To a credit card that will lock in a 0%
interest rate for about 21 months.
A credit card that won't charge you an annual fee

(08:54):
and a credit card that will not charge more than 3%
of a balance transfer fee.
If you could do that, then pay as much as
you possibly can during those 20 or 21 months at 0% interest.
Hopefully your card will be paid off, or many of

(09:15):
your cards will be paid off,
by the time that interest rate is up, beware, once
the 21 months is up, your interest rate's gonna go
back up probably to 28%.
So currently,
if you look at your credit cards, you total up
the minimum payments that you are paying right now, and

(09:39):
whatever those minimum payments are, I want you to add 20%
to that amount. So let's say you have five credit
cards and the minimum that you're paying every single month
on all five is, let's just say $500 100 dollars
on each.
If you're paying $500 a month, I want you to

(10:02):
pay 20% more or another $100 and I want you
to pay at least $600 or more on the ones
with the 0% if you're able to do a balance
transfer if you are not.
Then what you are to do is put those credit
cards in the freezer. Just get rid of them for now.

(10:25):
You are to continue to pay the minimum payment due
that you are paying now. You are not going to
pay the minimum payment due that they're going to say
is due next month or the month after that. If
you can afford to pay that this month, you can
afford to pay it every month.
And you're going to pay the minimum payment due on

(10:47):
every credit card and add that extra $100 that I
was just saying to the one with the highest interest rate.
When that credit card is totally paid off.
You're going to take that amount plus that $100 that
you were paying, roll it down to the next highest.
When that's paid off, you're going to take the $100

(11:08):
the first credit card payment, the second credit card payment,
and roll it down to the third, and you're going
to keep doing that till you are out of credit
card debt.
Once you pay off a credit card, please do not
close down your credit cards because if you do, you
are closing down your credit limit, and that will affect

(11:30):
your FICO score. So talking about FICO scores and your
date with money, I want you to check all of
your credit reports and FICO scores to make sure all
is as it should be.
And it's important because now with so many people being

(11:52):
able to steal your identity to do all kinds of things,
the only way that you're going to catch it before
it becomes a really big problem is to be checking
your FICO scores as well as your credit reports. You
can get your credit reports for free by going to annualcreditreport.com.
But just check and see what's on there. If anything

(12:15):
looks suspicious, contact the credit bureau, and by the way,
while you're at it, if you really want to make
sure that you stay safe and sound.
Than freeze your credit reports. Last but not least, it's
really important that you make sure that you have created

(12:35):
and signed and notarized and funded, obviously what I talk
about all the time, the must have documents
a will, an advanced directive, and a durable power of
attorney for health care and a financial power.
And funding, by the way, simply means changing the titles

(12:56):
on your accounts and real estate from your individual name
to the name of the trust.
When something goes wrong, when you are injured, when all
of a sudden you have unexpectedly lost your life, think
about all the people who have unexpectedly lost their lives.

(13:18):
And now what's happening, their beneficiaries, their people...
you know, they probably don't even have paperwork. Who knows?
So it's really important that you have all of these
things together. You know about your insurance. You know about
your FICO score, you know about your beneficiaries. You know

(13:41):
about what your insurance covers, doesn't cover you know that
you have the must have documents in order. You know
all of those things.
And when you know all of those things, and there's
so many more, but I won't overwhelm you today.
Then really you start to own the power to control
your own destiny versus lack of knowledge, lack of wanting

(14:05):
to have a date with your money, and then something
happens and then you lack that power to control your destiny.
And that's not what I want for you.
So if you can do all that and remember that
there's only one thing that matters when it comes to
your money, and it is this

(14:27):
then things now you stay safe bye bye.