Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Suze Orman.
You could argue that her old show on CNBC was the start of my personal finance education.
HOWEVER, she used to have a regular segment on her show called “Can I afford it?”
As you can probably guess, people would call in and tell Suze about their financial situation.
Then they would describe some big purchase they wanted to make and ask… “Can I afford it?”
And then Suze would let her New Yorker show and give her honest, on-the-nose – sometimes brutal – answer.
So what was the bad advice she gave?
It has nothing to do with giving the callers a thumbs up or thumbs down.
It was the underlying implication of the question – that your financial situation is impacted by large purchases.
It’s not. (Within reason, of course.)
Your financial success or failure depends on your spending HABITS, not on that one big purchase.
(Unless of course you have a spending habit of making big purchases.)
I gained 5 pounds over the holidays and it was NOT because I stuffed my face at Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas dinners.
It’s because I played it loose on the diet for 6 weeks.
If you want to improve your finances, don’t focus on buying or not buying that big purchase this year.
Focus on what you’re spending your money on every day/week/month.
