Suze School: A Special Way To Make Your Money, Make More Money

to do it. Now, when I started this podcast this year, I wanted the theme to be "Make Your Money, Make More Money." Do you remember that? Make your money, make more money. And what absolutely confuses me... Confuses me and kind of keeps me up at night sometimes is how so many of you, when I talk to you, you're scared to death. You don't know what to do with your money. You want to make sure

that it's making the most. And when I ask you where is your money right now, you tell me it's in a savings account at a bank. And I go, and why is it there? And you tell me cause you are afraid to put it anywhere else. Like Suze, I used to put it into Treasuries, but now I'm afraid that the Treasury's going to go under. So I took it all out of Treasuries and I put it in my bank account. Or, you tell me, like my friend just told me the other day who lost his mother, approximately 1 year ago.

We were talking to him about how is he doing, what is he doing with his money, as I talked to everybody about, and he said, Well, you know, Suze, she left me $100,000. And really, you know, I didn't know what to do with it, so what did he do with it? He left it at a bank and I said, What do you mean you left it at a bank? He said, I've had it in a savings account at a bank down the street from me for the past year. And I said, and can you tell me the interest rate that you're getting on it?

And he said, I think it's about 0.60%, something like that. I don't remember. Right, so let's just say it was .60, but I have to tell you, the savings national average in banks... 0.38%. So maybe .60%'s a little high, but let's just say that's true. So I said wait a minute, are you telling me that for one full year, he said, yeah, it's a full year now, Suze, maybe even a little longer. That you have left that money just sitting in a savings account, and he said yes.

I said, do you realize that if it's true what they're paying you is .60%? That over that entire year. Do you have any idea how much interest you made? And he said, maybe a few $1000. He said, I don't know. And I said, you're lucky if you made $600. And I said, why... would you do that? Do you need this money? He said, No. I said, Can you lock this money up for a year, 2 or 3? He said, Yes. I said, so why did you just let it sit there? And he said, because it was easy, it was convenient,

and I thought, why not? And I said, I'll tell you why not. Because rather than just having made $600 because your money was sitting in a bank account, you could have easily made in a certificate of deposit $44,500 a year. That is a big difference. OK, so when we got off the phone with him, I started to ask other people just out of curiosity, do you have money in a savings account? Do you have money at a bank? Do you have money just liquid? And people would tell me, absolutely.

I have anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 to somebody had close to $200,000 just sitting in a savings account. And I'm like I just can't even believe it. So to that end I decided, you know what, how many of you out there, and I need you to be honest with me right now. You have money sitting in a savings account that you do not need. Come on, be honest with me. But actually more important than being honest with me, you need to be honest with yourself.

Because if you have money that you don't need simply sitting in a savings account, making a 0.5% or whatever, you are not making your money, make more money. If anything, you're actually after taxes, inflation, and everything, you are losing money year in and year out. And given in times like we have now where inflation is still here, the cost of food is still high, rents are still high, interest rates on mortgages are still high, insurance premiums are still high. Every single one of you

needs to make your money make more money. You need to make your money make the most possible money it can make. Do you understand that? Now, I understand that so many of you have written in and said you don't want to do treasuries. And you ask me, Suze, what is a good interest rate that I could get on a certificate of deposit, and that is why I wanted today to be the day that this podcast drops. Listen to me closely.

Alliant Credit Union, which you know has been the sponsor of this podcast for a long time. After conversing with them and talking with them. Just for Suze Orman listeners on this podcast. So you're not gonna see this advertised really anywhere else. It's mainly for all of you. They are willing to offer starting today, and you better take them up on this. A 12 month certificate for 4.30 APY and for those of you who don't know, APY stands for annual percentage yield.

So if you hold your funds in that 12 month certificate for the entire term, you will get 4.30 APY on it. Now if you compare that rate to other things that are out there right now, you will see it is a great, great rate, especially because it's at a safe institution. It's safe everybody, whether you're already a member at Alliant Credit Union or not, just go to myalliant.com. That's my M Y A L L I A N T.com.

There you'll find all the terms you need to open either an Alliant certificate with that interest rate of 4.30 APY or you will become a member there and it doesn't cost you anything to do so. You need to know that I do not make a penny. If you decide to do it or you decide not to do it, so many of you think I get paid to say these things, and if you do it, I make more money. Wrong, wrong, wrong. That's true for this as well as any stock I have ever mentioned.

I don't get paid to say something like that. However, I do want you to get paid to make your money, make more money by if you have money in a savings account at a bank, wherever it may be making 0.5% interest or whatever you're not going to need it for at least a year. Why would you not immediately go to My Alliant A L L I A N T.com? And sign up for the one year certificate for 4.30 APY. It's something I'm serious that all of you should be

taking advantage of. I'm waiting for my certificate to mature this month sometime later on at Alliant Credit Union, and I'm only hoping that this will still be available. So what you have to understand is I don't know how long they can stay at this interest rate. Again, this was a special for the Women and Money podcast listeners. And so therefore I'm asking all of you to take advantage of it now when you buy a

certificate at Alliant Credit Union, the minimum is $1000. So it's not like you have to put in $10,000 50,000 dollars. You have $1000 that's just been sitting. All right, do it with $1000. If you have more that has just been sitting, do it with more. But it is really, really important to everybody that you take advantage of this. So that is essentially what I wanted to tell you

all today. So again, when it comes to your money, it is really, really important that you make your money make more money. Now another way that you need to make your money make more money is too many of you when I am talking to you again or you are writing me, you are still investing your money in traditional 401ks or traditional IRAs. Have you all lost your mind. And when I ask you why, you tell me because you want the tax write off. April 21st of 2024,

I did a podcast. Don't bears with Uncle Sam, which I explain in that podcast that it does not matter. If you're making 300,000 a year, 500,000 a year, I don't care how much money you're making a year. You are making the absolute biggest mistake in life if you don't take advantage of your Roth retirement accounts at work.

And if you qualify, your Roth retirements that you can open up as an individual, an IRA Roth, and if you are making too much money of modified adjusted gross income, if you don't have a traditional IRA or a SEP IRA right now, OK. Then you can do a back door Roth. Do you hear me? What's so upsetting to me is I was

talking to another friend. So this is going to be a podcast about Suze talking to her friends who drive her crazy anyway, but it's only because they don't get it, and maybe it's my fault they don't get it, but they should get it by now. But then KT doesn't get it, so what can I tell you when it comes to Roth? And she was telling me how she has money in a SEP IRA cause she makes too much money to qualify for a

Roth IRA. Remember, for 2025, if you're a single person, you can make up to $150,000 a year of modified adjusted gross income. To do what contribute the full $7000 a year to a Roth, if you are under 50. Or $8000 a year if you are 50 or older. Once you're at $150 and you go to 165, after $165 you no longer qualify. If you're married finally and jointly, it's up to 236,000. So if you make just below that. You can then qualify for a Roth. Once it goes

to 246,000 or above, you no longer qualify. That's when you could do a backdoor Roth as long as you don't have a traditional, or even a SEP IRA back to my friend. So she tells me how she has a SEP IRA, and that's exactly what her accountant wants her to do because her accountant told her she makes too much money, which she does.

She makes too much money to qualify for a Roth, so I said, Did your accountant tell you that you could convert whatever money you have in a SEP IRA and you could convert it to a Roth cause there are no income limitations on it whatsoever when you're converting and of course you said no, he never told me that I could convert it. So now she's on a plan of converting to a Roth IRA.

Just that simple. And in fact for those of you who qualify for a SEP IRA, all right, so you put money in a SEP, you get a tax write off for it, no problem, and let's say you put 30 or $40,000 into it. Right after you've done that, if you want, you could convert it to a Roth, and yes, now you're going to pay taxes on it, but it evens itself out. But that's how you actually get more money into a Roth IRA than if you were able to do a Roth IRA on its own.

So this is another way of your money making more money. And why does that make your money make more money to convert and use a Roth? Again, I'm asking all of you to listen to the April 21st, 2024 podcast that I did. Don't be partners with Uncle Sam, and I promise you you will get it. And then you will hopefully never do a traditional IRA

or 401k again. However, don't make the mistake if you happen to have a large amount of money already in a traditional 401k retirement plan, do not convert it all at once to a Roth because you will owe ordinary income taxes on it in the year that you convert. So do it little by little and see a CPA. Next, the way that you make your money, make more money is that you understand the tax laws and how

things work. What's recently upset me is that I've gotten a few emails saying, Suzy, I owe money on my mortgage. I owe $70,000. I have $100,000 in my IRA. And I'm going to take out that $100,000. And I'm going to pay taxes on that and get out of debt. Now the reason they have to take out 100,000 in their tax bracket. And the penalty they're going to have to pay to take it out, it's going to cost them $30,000 to

do so. But they felt that that was a fine thing to do because they have a half a million dollars in their IRA. That is not making your money make more money. That is actually losing money because when you lose $30,000 and that money is no longer there to grow for you and in fact that other $70,000 isn't there to grow for you.

In the long run you lose out and you make less money, so I tell you that because you are never to take money out of a pre-taxed retirement account to pay off your debt, to pay off a mortgage, you are not to do it. It will never, ever, ever make sense. However, I can tell you this if you had had that money in a Roth retirement account. Then possibly you could have taken out $70,000 income tax free, especially if the account had been opened at least 5

years and you were over 59 and a half. Hey, you could have taken it out totally tax free. So a Roth IRA is the way to go, but do not make the mistake. Of taking money out of a pre-taxed retirement account to pay off any kind of debt, do you hear me? You should always know that any of your retirement accounts are essentially protected against bankruptcy, so just don't do it now. I could go on and on with this.

But I really wanted this to be a short podcast and truthfully because today in its own right is Financial Independence Day by the offer that Alliant Credit Union is putting out there to all of you, we don't know how long it will last. So. Don't assume it's going to be there, but again, it's 4.30 APY for a 12 month certificate, as long as you hold it for all 12 months. Go to myalliant A L L I A N T.com.

And take advantage of it right now. And just remember you don't need to call Alliant to open up an account there. You can easily open a certificate by simply going directly to again myalliant.com and just follow the prompts just that easy. Cause if you don't I take advantage of it next time I go and I say, Can you do something for these people? Can you give them something that only the listeners can have and things like that, they'll say, Why? They don't do it anyway. You need to take advantage

of it if it makes sense for you. But bottom line, every one of you really needs to make your money, make more money. All right, everybody, until Sunday when it will be Suze School again and we'll get back on a regular schedule, there's only one thing that I want you to remember when it comes to your money. Normally I would say people first, then money, then things. Now you stay safe, but what am I going to say today? You need to make your money, make more money.

All right, everybody, bye bye and happy July 4th. You stay safe.