Author Topic: Suze Orman again.......  (Read 9609 times)

cloudsail

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Suze Orman again.......
« on: June 25, 2019, 09:42:17 AM »
Suze Orman has bleak advice for millennials retiring early

https://a.msn.com/r/2/AADmria?m=en-us&a=0

I don't understand why medical issue has to equal financial hardship? Don't most health care plans have a maximum yearly out of pocket? Is it the long term care costs? I'm sincerely interested in figuring out the details of her reasoning here.

DadJokes

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2019, 10:37:33 AM »
In her defense, retiring in your 20s with $250k in America is asking for financial ruin at the first medical emergency.

Gin1984

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2019, 10:40:13 AM »
Suze Orman has bleak advice for millennials retiring early

https://a.msn.com/r/2/AADmria?m=en-us&a=0

I don't understand why medical issue has to equal financial hardship? Don't most health care plans have a maximum yearly out of pocket? Is it the long term care costs? I'm sincerely interested in figuring out the details of her reasoning here.
Yes, health care plans do have caps.  But you often need help outside of medical help when you are injured.  Home health aids are not fully covered by insurance nor are convalescent homes.  In addition, most people don't plan to pay their out pocket max every year.  And you may need to remodel a house or get a different car with certain injures.  Or you can't walk/bike/drive and need to take taxies. 
On top of all that Orman has been around for a while and has seen people not be able to get insurance because of medical conditions and may not trust ACA will be here to stay.

fattest_foot

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2019, 11:12:47 AM »
This seems like it's more commentary on how broken the US healthcare system is than anything to do with retiring early.

Medical costs can wipe you out no matter what portion of your life you're in, and unless you're super wealthy can take out all of your savings.

Was the girl in this story doomed to failure? Probably; $250k isn't going to take you far (and unless she's making mid-six figures, likely won't have enough in 2 years). But what if she had said "yes" when Orman asked if she had $1-2M saved? Does anyone here believe Orman's reaction would have actually been different?

dougules

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2019, 11:25:11 AM »
I think she has a good point that some folks in the US are pulling the cord on FIRE a little too soon to be secure against the insanity of how expensive a serious medical emergency or condition could be

BUT

If you compare people in FIRE against the average working person that has only a paltry Suze Orman style emergency fund, FIREd folks would fare much much better.  Any time anybody critisizes the FIRE movement, don't forget to make the comparison to the folks that are still working but don't have all that much saved. 

cloudsail

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2019, 01:39:54 PM »
She has a good point then, because even in countries that have free health care, long term and home care must still be paid for put of pocket. For instance, we're Canadians, and one of our FIRE contingency plans is to move back to Canada if health care in the U.S. becomes unaffordable, but this doesn't help if we need care for, say, Alzheimer's, which my grandfather died from.

I'm been thinking about long term care insurance and whether or not it makes sense. Research does seem to show that most people, if they do end up needing LTC, don't really live for much longer after that point. Our regular health care costs have always been pretty high, because of our special needs child, so we do budget for it. But I haven't really considered the disaster scenario of a devastating accident or illness completely altering our lives.

We're planning to retire in our mid thirties with a net worth slightly over $3M, with two school age children. I wonder what Suze Orman would say to us.

dangersquid

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2019, 02:47:55 PM »
That's one of the crazy things about Orman; she tells people not to retire because they might get hit by an unexpected catastrophic expense that they wouldn't be able to afford even if they weren't retired. It's like telling people "One fire extinguisher in your house isn't enough, what if a raging firestorm sweeps through and incinerates your whole neighborhood???" Granted, there might be a scenario where someone can't afford an expense in retirement that they could afford if they were still working, but those are not the scenarios that she every brings up. It's always "What if you need $250k/year worth of in-home care for the next 50 years???" or something similar.

It's also worth noting that if you need long-term care, you are almost certainly not going to be able to keep working anyway.

StarBright

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2019, 02:57:31 PM »
Suze is just a person with a strong inner bag lady - there are a lot of us!

I do think she has a point when it comes to 27 year olds going for Barrista or CoastFIRE though. There are people who get up to 200k or so and decide to leave their jobs to work part time at Starbucks for the health insurance and say "I can always go back to my real work if I need to."

I think it is awesome that there are people who have that kind of confidence and I might have felt the same in my very early 20s. But man, first the recession when I got out of grad school, and my subsequent health issues in my 30s, and then parenting have totally changed how I view stability. If someone came and asked me for advice, I'd probably be like Suze (Well I wouldn't say 10 mil, but unless healthcare in this country gets under control, I'm at least in the million camp).


jinga nation

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2019, 02:42:41 PM »
Suze is past her prime. Her PBS fund-raisers are nothing but shill-shows. Her core message of saving is good, but she's got millions and can't accept someone can FIRE for much less. She might be raw that Ramsey and the FIRE/ERE movements have made her message kinda-sorta-obsolete.

Not everyone needs an island and multiple homes like her. Unlike her, many of us have kids. And if people with kids can fire, well Suze can fuck right off to her island home.

Bless her heart. She decides she wants to live in hurricane alley, so be it.

Metalcat

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #9 on: June 26, 2019, 03:39:32 PM »
Suze is just a person with a strong inner bag lady - there are a lot of us!

I do think she has a point when it comes to 27 year olds going for Barrista or CoastFIRE though. There are people who get up to 200k or so and decide to leave their jobs to work part time at Starbucks for the health insurance and say "I can always go back to my real work if I need to."

Really?

Is this actually common at all?
Is this actually a population large enough to write national articles about?
Because from what I've seen here, this person is so exceptionally rare that I haven't seen a single case of this in my entire history here.

What I have seen a lot of is people in their 40s and 50s with 1-5M who are stressed out of their minds about pulling the trigger on retirement.

I would say the over-cautious are FAR MORE prevalent in the FIRE world than the over-optimistic.

This vague population of tremendously young people with significant sums of money who aren't sure what they want to do in life are simply not a population I worry about, nor should anyone else.

StarBright

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #10 on: June 26, 2019, 07:01:03 PM »
Suze is just a person with a strong inner bag lady - there are a lot of us!

I do think she has a point when it comes to 27 year olds going for Barrista or CoastFIRE though. There are people who get up to 200k or so and decide to leave their jobs to work part time at Starbucks for the health insurance and say "I can always go back to my real work if I need to."

Really?

Is this actually common at all?
Is this actually a population large enough to write national articles about?
Because from what I've seen here, this person is so exceptionally rare that I haven't seen a single case of this in my entire history here.

What I have seen a lot of is people in their 40s and 50s with 1-5M who are stressed out of their minds about pulling the trigger on retirement.

I would say the over-cautious are FAR MORE prevalent in the FIRE world than the over-optimistic.

This vague population of tremendously young people with significant sums of money who aren't sure what they want to do in life are simply not a population I worry about, nor should anyone else.

There are definitely a lot of folks over on reddit who talk about barista FIRE. And by a lot, I mean, enough that it gets talked about. The lady in the Orman anecdote sounds like a barista FIRE to me - 200kish and wants to retire in two years.

It is probably a matter of which forums people hang out on. Bogle forums lean cautious , some redditors seem WAY overly optimistic, and MMM is a happy medium.

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2019, 01:26:45 AM »
Suze is just a person with a strong inner bag lady - there are a lot of us!

I do think she has a point when it comes to 27 year olds going for Barrista or CoastFIRE though. There are people who get up to 200k or so and decide to leave their jobs to work part time at Starbucks for the health insurance and say "I can always go back to my real work if I need to."

Really?

Is this actually common at all?
Is this actually a population large enough to write national articles about?
Because from what I've seen here, this person is so exceptionally rare that I haven't seen a single case of this in my entire history here.

What I have seen a lot of is people in their 40s and 50s with 1-5M who are stressed out of their minds about pulling the trigger on retirement.

I would say the over-cautious are FAR MORE prevalent in the FIRE world than the over-optimistic.

This vague population of tremendously young people with significant sums of money who aren't sure what they want to do in life are simply not a population I worry about, nor should anyone else.

There are definitely a lot of folks over on reddit who talk about barista FIRE. And by a lot, I mean, enough that it gets talked about. The lady in the Orman anecdote sounds like a barista FIRE to me - 200kish and wants to retire in two years.

It is probably a matter of which forums people hang out on. Bogle forums lean cautious , some redditors seem WAY overly optimistic, and MMM is a happy medium.

If you were to bet, which do you think is far more likely in this scenario? 

A 20's something person who already managed to save up a couple hundred grand & barista FIRE's.

A) Spends a lot of time following their passions over the first few years, eventually ends up plugged back into the economy making money again, this time though, doing something that really matter to them.  Ends up a millionaire later in life due to pursuing these missions.

B) Develops a horrible life-limiting medical condition by 30 and ends up bankrupt.

Personally, I'd bet 1000:1, former:later.  I think many people live life in fear over the least likely things.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2019, 04:40:07 AM »
One of my pet peeves about the FI/RE movement; is it's frequent unwillingness to engage it's critics, especially when they have a good point.  We should be thanking these folks even if we disagree with them because they often point out insights that we miss.  I do not agree with Suze Orman on her very strong aversion to RE or her view that you must have incredibly high amounts put aside to RE but she makes some very good points to consider.  First I think that a relatively young person looking to lean FIRE or Barista FIRE or whatever you want to call it is being foolish.  Plain truth is your young years are likely to be some of your most productive and easily employable years.  If your plans don't work out, then getting a good job in your 50's is going to be a lot harder.  Sorry.  Age discrimination is a thing.  Even if discrimination isn't the issue, your cognitive abilities do decrease, as is your willingness to take the sort of risks that can drastically increase your income.  Entrepreneurship is usually, but not always, a young persons sport. That doesn't mean that RE is unattainable for younger folks, but I would be tending strongly toward FAT FIRE if I were in my 30's or 40's and interested in RE. 

Next, Ms. Orman is bringing in her experience or perhaps we should call it older person wisdom borne of hearing and seeing too many horror stories, particularly about medical costs.  Again, most of the folks who I know of who are looking at RE are younger.  And one of the joys/liabilities of youth is a sort of feeling of invincibility.  Reality is it is very likely WILL get sick at some part of your life.  You WILL see friends or family members get hurt, end up getting cancer, end up with Alzheimers, etc.  "Just going back to work" might not be realistic when it happens to you or your immediate family.

FindingFI

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2019, 06:10:30 AM »
The thing that gets me is the sweeping generalizations.  Because a small subset wants to Barista FIRE in their 20's with relatively low savings, the entire idea of FIRE is crap? Hardly. That particular plan includes far more risks than say retiring at 40 or 50, still plenty early by traditional standards, with far more substantial savings.  FIRE encompasses a wide range of strategies to escape the rat race. If you are going to attack a movement, attack the core of the movement, not the fringe.

Gin1984

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2019, 06:20:49 AM »
The thing that gets me is the sweeping generalizations.  Because a small subset wants to Barista FIRE in their 20's with relatively low savings, the entire idea of FIRE is crap? Hardly. That particular plan includes far more risks than say retiring at 40 or 50, still plenty early by traditional standards, with far more substantial savings.  FIRE encompasses a wide range of strategies to escape the rat race. If you are going to attack a movement, attack the core of the movement, not the fringe.
I don't think anyone here is saying the entire idea of FIRE is crap.  We are saying some of Orman's issues with FIRE have a basis.

MrUpwardlyMobile

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2019, 06:28:00 AM »
Suze is just a person with a strong inner bag lady - there are a lot of us!

I do think she has a point when it comes to 27 year olds going for Barrista or CoastFIRE though. There are people who get up to 200k or so and decide to leave their jobs to work part time at Starbucks for the health insurance and say "I can always go back to my real work if I need to."

Really?

Is this actually common at all?
Is this actually a population large enough to write national articles about?
Because from what I've seen here, this person is so exceptionally rare that I haven't seen a single case of this in my entire history here.

What I have seen a lot of is people in their 40s and 50s with 1-5M who are stressed out of their minds about pulling the trigger on retirement.

I would say the over-cautious are FAR MORE prevalent in the FIRE world than the over-optimistic.

This vague population of tremendously young people with significant sums of money who aren't sure what they want to do in life are simply not a population I worry about, nor should anyone else.

Yep,  this isn’t a statistically significant group. I’ve never actually seen or heard of someone that was barista FIRE.  My understanding is that it’s a theoretical thing more than anything or more of a discussion about one more day syndrome versus working part time.

FindingFI

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2019, 06:52:59 AM »
The thing that gets me is the sweeping generalizations.  Because a small subset wants to Barista FIRE in their 20's with relatively low savings, the entire idea of FIRE is crap? Hardly. That particular plan includes far more risks than say retiring at 40 or 50, still plenty early by traditional standards, with far more substantial savings.  FIRE encompasses a wide range of strategies to escape the rat race. If you are going to attack a movement, attack the core of the movement, not the fringe.
I don't think anyone here is saying the entire idea of FIRE is crap.  We are saying some of Orman's issues with FIRE have a basis.

“I can’t wrap my brain around FIRE,” Orman told MarketWatch in an interview. Or, to boil it down: “I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!”

That's what I take issue with. Because she doesn't understand it, she says its an awful idea for anyone.

StarBright

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #17 on: June 27, 2019, 07:47:13 AM »
But Orman is also targeting her information for her audience. We are not her audience!

If the only questions she gets for her show are "I'm 27, have 250-ish of assets and have debt: Can I retire in two years?" - No wonder she speaks strongly against it.

According to the story, her first question was, "Do you have two million dollars?" and her second was "do you have one million?" - I would say that most of us around here are aiming for a million - so she's not totally wacky.

Is there an instance of someone asking her if they are ready for retirement when they actually have a million dollars, no mortgage, and live on less than 50k a year? I would like to hear what she says to that? I bet it would be slightly different (I believe it would still be conservative, like "I wouldn't do it, and are you thinking of long-term health care costs?" )- but I don't think it would be an eye roll.

cloudsail

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2019, 10:52:19 AM »
I thought the 20-something example was just an extreme case put at the beginning to capture attention, not that Suze or anyone seriously thinks all FIRE people are like this.

However, I remember reading in other articles Suze addressing the more mainstream FIRE movement with pessimism. I'm pretty that if I came to Suze with my own scenario of $3M and two kids, she'd also tell me not to FIRE, because of all the unexpected expenses that can arise with children. But my husband and I are naturally cautious people, and we don't have MMM's optimism, so some of her points do resonate with me. I'm just wondering if they're resonating with over-cautious fear or the caution is justified.

dougules

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2019, 11:16:40 AM »
I thought the 20-something example was just an extreme case put at the beginning to capture attention, not that Suze or anyone seriously thinks all FIRE people are like this.

However, I remember reading in other articles Suze addressing the more mainstream FIRE movement with pessimism. I'm pretty that if I came to Suze with my own scenario of $3M and two kids, she'd also tell me not to FIRE, because of all the unexpected expenses that can arise with children. But my husband and I are naturally cautious people, and we don't have MMM's optimism, so some of her points do resonate with me. I'm just wondering if they're resonating with over-cautious fear or the caution is justified.

Are there any potential expenses you weren't already thoroughly considered in your planning?  If so, then the caution is justified.  If not, it's just unneeded fear. 

cloudsail

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #20 on: June 27, 2019, 11:26:54 AM »
I thought the 20-something example was just an extreme case put at the beginning to capture attention, not that Suze or anyone seriously thinks all FIRE people are like this.

However, I remember reading in other articles Suze addressing the more mainstream FIRE movement with pessimism. I'm pretty that if I came to Suze with my own scenario of $3M and two kids, she'd also tell me not to FIRE, because of all the unexpected expenses that can arise with children. But my husband and I are naturally cautious people, and we don't have MMM's optimism, so some of her points do resonate with me. I'm just wondering if they're resonating with over-cautious fear or the caution is justified.

Are there any potential expenses you weren't already thoroughly considered in your planning?  If so, then the caution is justified.  If not, it's just unneeded fear.

Well, the low probability catastrophic scenarios that Suze talks about, for one. I've considered old age care somewhat, but not if something happens relatively early in our lives that doesn't kill us but completely incapacitates us. Although, I guess in that scenario even if we were working we'd be screwed, since we couldn't work anymore. The only advantage is that we may have accumulated a bit more money by the time disaster struck.

Also my old age plans aren't exactly detailed, because we're young and I have no idea what senior care is going to cost that far in the future.

Investment returns are what concern my DH the most, because he hasn't looked into the 4% rule as much as I have.

letsdoit

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #21 on: June 27, 2019, 11:29:22 AM »
ppl like Suze and money magazine are not concerned with the truth, they wanna sell magazines.  fear sells magazines, looking down at the milleneials sells mags

if everyone retired and stopped worrying about $,  they'd have less business .

moof

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2019, 02:09:30 PM »
She is a self-aggrandizing over cautious hand wringer.  When pinned down she basically says you need many millions to retire in your 70's, but that you should really consider working longer than that just in case you get hit with multiple rare events simultaneously.  The 25x rule is at least based on data, her approach has always been to shout about anecdotes and what-if scenarios.

It would be nice to know if the 250k person was real, and if so what the details are.  I have my suspicions that it is made up or a paid person planted in the audience.

Regardless, I can't say that I had 250k at age 28...
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 02:54:28 PM by moof »

MonkeyJenga

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2019, 02:54:30 PM »
I know someone from this forum doing Coast FIRE. And there was a blogger who gave early FIRE a shot, then went back to work when it didn't work out. Didn't seem like a big problem, though.

Whether or not Suze's specific example was true, there are people who downshift when young without 25-33x spending saved up.

penguintroopers

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #24 on: June 28, 2019, 08:49:58 AM »
According to the story, her first question was, "Do you have two million dollars?" and her second was "do you have one million?" - I would say that most of us around here are aiming for a million - so she's not totally wacky.

This is why I was surprised everyone was ready to run out with their torches and pitchforks. MMM spending, at $30k/year, would require a $750k account on the 4% rule, and that's with a paid-for house (which would be a significant spending category anyone's budget). Add in the stereotypical "I'm retired, I wanna travel" desire and I don't find it unreasonable to guess a $1-2M goal.

I do agree that $250k at age 28 is great savings, but probably too optimistic to quit working forever.

Metalcat

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #25 on: June 28, 2019, 04:29:00 PM »
According to the story, her first question was, "Do you have two million dollars?" and her second was "do you have one million?" - I would say that most of us around here are aiming for a million - so she's not totally wacky.

This is why I was surprised everyone was ready to run out with their torches and pitchforks. MMM spending, at $30k/year, would require a $750k account on the 4% rule, and that's with a paid-for house (which would be a significant spending category anyone's budget). Add in the stereotypical "I'm retired, I wanna travel" desire and I don't find it unreasonable to guess a $1-2M goal.

I do agree that $250k at age 28 is great savings, but probably too optimistic to quit working forever.

Everyone is "ready to run out with their torches and pitchforks" because quitting work forever at 28 with $250K is an absolutely fucking absurd characterization of the FI community, which is firmly entrenched in math and realism.

She has openly maligned FIRE and repeatedly attempts to mischaracterize us members of the community all as a bunch of irrational idiots with no concept of math or risk.

We don't malign her because her basic concepts about finance and risk are wrong, we malign her because she is hell bent on completely missing the entire fucking point of the FI movement, just for the sake of being inflammatory and getting clicks.

It's sloppy, it's lazy, and it's opportunistic.

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #26 on: June 28, 2019, 05:55:06 PM »
Meh to Suze Orman.

But..... it seems to me that you have a limited number of years in which to earn money. You can't change your mind and re-enter the workforce at 40, or at least not for anything over minimum wage. You may not be physically able to do the work at 60. Retiring at 28 sounds fabulous, yes, and if you've done the maths it should work. Is that a reason to remove yourself from earning ability though? My opinion is no. It's just a fabulous opportunity to do only what you want to do to earn money.

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #27 on: June 28, 2019, 09:15:43 PM »
And there was a blogger who gave early FIRE a shot, then went back to work when it didn't work out. Didn't seem like a big problem, though.
Which blog?  Does it go into enough detail to be used as a case study? I'm curious if this didn't work out because of financial resources, or wanting to work again (as is the case for most of the FIRE OG's). 

gooki

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #28 on: June 29, 2019, 03:35:44 AM »
Quote
You can't change your mind and re-enter the workforce at 40

Why not?

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #29 on: June 29, 2019, 06:02:15 PM »
Quote
You can't change your mind and re-enter the workforce at 40

Why not?

The rest of that comment mentioned minimum wage. You can't generally go from a career job at 28..... to jumping back in at 40 at even the same rate you got at 28. Technology and skills have moved on. And everyone else your age has a lot more experience. Talk to any stay at home mom and see how hard it was for them to re-enter the labour market after a gap of 10/12 years!

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #30 on: June 29, 2019, 06:17:21 PM »
Quote
You can't change your mind and re-enter the workforce at 40

Why not?

The rest of that comment mentioned minimum wage. You can't generally go from a career job at 28..... to jumping back in at 40 at even the same rate you got at 28. Technology and skills have moved on. And everyone else your age has a lot more experience. Talk to any stay at home mom and see how hard it was for them to re-enter the labour market after a gap of 10/12 years!

And if you’re over 50 add on age discrimination and loss of cognitive ability. Not very likely that you’ll be earning what you would if you’d stayed in the labor market.

I differ with the sensationalist quotes like you need $5 million to retire early.  I think that’s nuts.  I also think that you’d better have enough stashed to make damn sure you won’t need to re-enter the job market if you’re going to bail out of lucrative career. Hence I’m a fan of fat FI/RE, especially if you’re more than say 10 years from SS.

MonkeyJenga

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #31 on: June 29, 2019, 07:18:58 PM »
And there was a blogger who gave early FIRE a shot, then went back to work when it didn't work out. Didn't seem like a big problem, though.
Which blog?  Does it go into enough detail to be used as a case study? I'm curious if this didn't work out because of financial resources, or wanting to work again (as is the case for most of the FIRE OG's). 

Financial reasons, I believe. It was sort of a CoastFI mixed with a side hustle. I can pm you the blog link, I don't want the focus to be on her in this thread.

Metalcat

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #32 on: June 30, 2019, 04:39:40 AM »
I do agree that it can be hard to leave the workforce and then re-enter years later, but I patently disagree with the notion that it can't be done, and that later in life careers can't be tremendously successful.

First, most of my family members have started late in life careers that have flourished. Yes, ageism is a thing, but so is a lifetime of networking and skills.

It's very possible to make yourself *more* employable while not working, if that's your priority.

If someone is looking to leave their career young, with a small 'stache and only work part time, then they should absolutely spend that time cultivating skills and relationships that in the future would open doors for them professionally.

Oh wait! That's exactly what I did!
I'm trained to do one very specific job only, and I suddenly left my full time job, bailed on the path I was on completely, found a very part time job that mostly just covers my expenses, and spent my free time figuring out what I wanted from life.

Along the way, my hobbies, volunteering, independent learning, and having lunches with cool people, has opened so many career doors other than that one job I was trained for.

In fact, until I burned out and bailed on my career path, my options were incredibly limited. Highly, HIGHLY profitable, but limited.
Now that I've "coasted" for 3 years and put a lot of energy into personal development, I get job offers on a regular basis.

So yes, if someone wants to turn coasting into a career expanding experience, it's very very possible.

DH too could leave his career for years and as long as he maintained his volunteer role teaching high level feds how to navigate job competitions, he will always have the connections to get contracts and consulting work.

Like me, his career would probably really benefit from a break from full time employment, because for what he wants to do in retirement, he should really dedicate more time to self-directed learning so he can acquire the necessary skills.

I've always found high-level volunteering to be one of the best career tools out there. The stakeholders involved tend to be major industry players, and the work lets you learn and showcase a variety of skills.

And it's a lot easier to thrive and shine in those roles when you don't have a full time job dragging you down.

It all comes down to what your goals and priorities are.

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #33 on: June 30, 2019, 04:12:29 PM »
I've done the same as @Malkynn .  Had multiple careers in varying, apparently unrelated fields.  It doesn't take long to get income back up to high levels.  Each new thing I learn, there is carry over/cross over than makes excelling at the next thing even easier.  It also makes life much more interesting than super specializing in the production of a single widget.

@MonkeyJenga
Thanks for the link

Travis

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #34 on: June 30, 2019, 08:47:29 PM »
But Orman is also targeting her information for her audience. We are not her audience!



But we want her audience to be OUR audience.  She'd rather keep them in fear or scoffing at us than allow them to even consider the possibilities.

cloudsail

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #35 on: June 30, 2019, 09:43:33 PM »
Not being able to return to his career is exactly what my DH fears. And we're not talking like ten years, he's convinced that even after one year out of the workforce, his professional life will be over. He might be right, I don't know. Even though I was in the same field, we were on different career tracks so I don't know much about what he does. So basically if we RE we have to be absolutely certain that he never needs to work another day for the rest of his life.

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #36 on: July 01, 2019, 12:28:53 AM »
Not being able to return to his career is exactly what my DH fears.

I don't think this fear is uncommon.  Although generally I think it's exaggerated, he may be right in his specific case.  The whole thing ins't a problem though if his professional life brings him some joy.  It only becomes a problem if it doesn't, or worse, it's disliked.  It seems like many people end up here for specifically that reason.

In the later cases, I always wonder, what is someone protecting?  A career they dislike? Doesn't seem like it's worth much effort protecting something like that.  There are tons of interesting ways to make good money.  Unless someone absolutely needs more than six figures to survive, but then again, that's what this place is for.  To realize no one needs that kind of money. 

I think it's a form of impostor syndrome (I can never make this much again), coupled with too much time and energy placed in a single hyper-specialty to see beyond the four corners of their office, so to speak.

Metalcat

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #37 on: July 01, 2019, 04:30:08 AM »
Not being able to return to his career is exactly what my DH fears. And we're not talking like ten years, he's convinced that even after one year out of the workforce, his professional life will be over. He might be right, I don't know. Even though I was in the same field, we were on different career tracks so I don't know much about what he does. So basically if we RE we have to be absolutely certain that he never needs to work another day for the rest of his life.

Well, I can absolutely see many people not being able to return to their specific career, sometimes even after one year. But are his skills, connections, and interests really so limited that he would have absolutely no options, even if he learned a new set of skills while retired???

Would he really have zero options for any future work, even tangential to his particular career?

A 60-something friend left a viciously cutthroat, senior corporate job due to illness in her early 40s, where there was no way she could ever, ever go back. However, within a few years, she was being sought out by a number of her former clients to do small consulting jobs here and there, which snow balled into some major government contracts.

She was convinced her career was over, but her consulting ended up even more lucrative, and was even more interesting and challenging work.

She then gave up on the contracting due to continued illness and was recruited to teach management at the local college for a few years.

After she finished with that, she started a small hobby business that did so well and grew so rapidly that her husband quit his job to manage it with her. It really wasn't meant to be a business, but her executive management experience just couldn't help but make it thrive.

When she first got sick, she was certain her working days would be over and she accepted that she would have to medically retire, because she knew her career would never have her back, and she was right about that. It was a vicious and ageist industry that would never give a severely ill, middle aged woman a second look.
Still...she had A LOT of connections who continued to value her.

That was a few decades ago and ample work has pretty much found her, relentlessly along the way. This wasn't continuous work either, she took 3-5 years off between each of the above projects for her health. Inevitably, something new would always find her.

It's been 20 years since she left the corporate job, and to this day, she could still find consulting work if she wanted to because she stays in touch with her former staff, still mentors their every career move, and these people who were young staff back when she hired them are now VPs scattered across companies that she could provide value to.

If someone is talented and builds a solid network, there are usually endless opportunities to use and be paid for those skills and experience, even if their original career is dead.

She's now saying that she's going to completely retire.
Yeah right. She has plans to take courses in dog training, because she wants to learn how to expertly train her own dogs and there's a dog training program right by her new house.

I'm betting that she has a thriving dog training business within 2 years and wealthy clients willing to pay her extremely well to train their dogs.
It's actually inevitable, IMO.

The beauty of FI, or even FU money, which Suze always fails to see, is that having the TIME to work on new things, to nurture your network, and to learn and research, try and fail, pivot and move forward. These are all incredible luxuries that people with full time careers don't have. 

The best way to find a new job is while you are employed, but the best way to re-engineer your career is while you have the free time and resources to do it.

There's a HUGE difference between being unemployed from your chosen career and desperate to re-enter it so that you can pay your bills VS being very comfortably unemployed with plenty of money and time to toy with ideas and options you never knew had.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2019, 04:36:49 AM by Malkynn »

cloudsail

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #38 on: July 01, 2019, 09:05:43 AM »
@Malkynn
You're preaching to the choir :) I've been trying to tell DH all this for a long time now, but he's unconvinced. And because he knows much more about his particular career track than I do, he won't listen the stuff I tell him. He also thinks that switching tracks basically means starting at zero, whereas you and I know that's absolutely not the case.

So I've compromised and we'll be accumulating a very large stash before RE. I've also decided that when we get to our number and he still doesn't want to budge, that doesn't prevent me from doing things I want to do in RE like slow travel without him. I have a feeling that if he sees me and the kids roaming the world having a grand old time he might change his mind about retiring. (DH has no deep and abiding love for his job. He doesn't hate it but is mostly there for the money. If he had a billion dollars he'd quit tomorrow.)

Just Joe

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #39 on: July 01, 2019, 09:45:37 PM »
I figure there is a chance that the real life Suze Orman has a more sophisticated understanding of FIRE than she is willing to discuss in her TV persona.

Probably safer to teach the average consumer the low grade financial guidance she repeats than being too specific or daring. 

slugline

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #40 on: July 02, 2019, 02:55:00 PM »
I figure there is a chance that the real life Suze Orman has a more sophisticated understanding of FIRE than she is willing to discuss in her TV persona.

Probably safer to teach the average consumer the low grade financial guidance she repeats than being too specific or daring.

Quite possibly. I remember when Orman went on Paula Pant's podcast to promote her book and the "I hate it. I hate it. I hate it." quote on FIRE went viral. At first I thought she was misguided, but then I remembered that she's looking to re-establish herself as a famous "guru" in this space and a little stirring-of-the-pot was exactly what she needed to do to get people talking about her again. She may very well be playing a character to get what she wants.

jinga nation

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #41 on: July 03, 2019, 08:35:57 AM »
I figure there is a chance that the real life Suze Orman has a more sophisticated understanding of FIRE than she is willing to discuss in her TV persona.

Probably safer to teach the average consumer the low grade financial guidance she repeats than being too specific or daring.

sophisticated.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/suze-orman-is-a-stock-picker-and-this-is-her-biggest-trading-regret-2019-07-02

Noticed lately that Marketwatch has been giving her a lot of coverage. Either the FIRE/Indexing movements are hurting financial advisors or she is the advisor-du-jour.

Just Joe

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #42 on: July 08, 2019, 02:12:33 PM »
Maybe her own retirement plans are underfunded...

Travis

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #43 on: July 08, 2019, 02:45:39 PM »
I figure there is a chance that the real life Suze Orman has a more sophisticated understanding of FIRE than she is willing to discuss in her TV persona.

Probably safer to teach the average consumer the low grade financial guidance she repeats than being too specific or daring.

sophisticated.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/suze-orman-is-a-stock-picker-and-this-is-her-biggest-trading-regret-2019-07-02

Noticed lately that Marketwatch has been giving her a lot of coverage. Either the FIRE/Indexing movements are hurting financial advisors or she is the advisor-du-jour.

Is she promoting another book?

dangersquid

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #44 on: July 09, 2019, 01:05:32 PM »
Is there an instance of someone asking her if they are ready for retirement when they actually have a million dollars, no mortgage, and live on less than 50k a year? I would like to hear what she says to that? I bet it would be slightly different (I believe it would still be conservative, like "I wouldn't do it, and are you thinking of long-term health care costs?" )- but I don't think it would be an eye roll.
She famously said that $3 million is NOT enough to retire on because you might need $350k/year worth of in-home medical care. Which I guess she imagines is something people could afford if they kept working?

As I said in my earlier post, the relevant question isn't "What are the odds of getting hit with an expense that you can't afford," it's "What are the odds of getting hit with an expense that you can't afford because you retired but could have afforded if you kept working?" I would argue that's actually a pretty narrow window of disaster.

Metalcat

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #45 on: July 09, 2019, 05:52:18 PM »
Is there an instance of someone asking her if they are ready for retirement when they actually have a million dollars, no mortgage, and live on less than 50k a year? I would like to hear what she says to that? I bet it would be slightly different (I believe it would still be conservative, like "I wouldn't do it, and are you thinking of long-term health care costs?" )- but I don't think it would be an eye roll.
She famously said that $3 million is NOT enough to retire on because you might need $350k/year worth of in-home medical care. Which I guess she imagines is something people could afford if they kept working?

As I said in my earlier post, the relevant question isn't "What are the odds of getting hit with an expense that you can't afford," it's "What are the odds of getting hit with an expense that you can't afford because you retired but could have afforded if you kept working?" I would argue that's actually a pretty narrow window of disaster.

This has always been my reaction.

It's not like continuing to work magically makes everyone invulnerable to expensive risks. That's not how it works.

Hunny156

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #46 on: July 10, 2019, 01:23:16 PM »
If Memory serves, there was a Marketwatch clickbait article on FIRE, which proceeded to detail 3 people who had FIRED, and it didn't work out.  Anyone who has done their research on FIRE would not look at any of those situations and think they were part of the FIRE movement; they were just people who had some money saved and possibly a side hustle, quit their jobs for a year or two, and when it didn't pan out, were back to the grind.  All of them had HUGE red flags that they would fail.

One of these stories was a young woman in her 20's who had a high paying job and had managed to save $250K and also had a small apartment, which she turned into an AirBnB when she decided to "FIRE", b/c of course, she had the cliche goal of wanting to travel full time.  I think it took less than 2 years for her to realize she couldn't make it work, and she also didn't like being a Landlord, so she was crashing at Mom's while she started over.  This is the poster child that Suze has chosen to illustrate the issues w/FIRE.

I agree, Suze picked this up just to draw attention to her and her books, and she is absolutely using her extensive experience to say that the FIRE folks just haven't been through really tough times, and we are simply just an over-reaction to a robust stock market.  Her target market is looking for reasons to feel that their way is the "right" way, and we are all crazy.  Not sure why anyone cares so much one way or another - do what works for you, and I'll do the same!

All that being said, Suze is a quack who has made a career out of fear.  To a certain extent, she believes it herself - she has gone on record in the past by admitting that she keeps most of her money out of the market.  I guess when you have $20 million or whatever she has, it's no big deal to collect bank interest and keep your money "safe", albeit eroding due to inflation.  And that $250K/year in nursing care was a figure she quoted that she incurred when one of her parents needed at home care.  I'm sure the care they received was amazingly good, but from personal experience, I was able to secure excellent care in a group home setting for about $35K/year.  Both are anecdotal, YMMV, and while you can certainly plan for it, and should plan for something, you can't plan for everything, and at some point you need to just take the plunge if that's your goal.

(I should take my own advice - I'm FI and am currently working on some stretch goals before I go RE.  Total overabundance of caution, but I'm in my early 40's and I figure I'd rather do OMY or 2 and get out by my mid 40's with more than I need, b/c if it turns out that I'm incredibly bad at math, I really don't want to refresh my resume and go back to work in my 50's.)

jinga nation

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #47 on: July 11, 2019, 06:44:14 AM »
@Hunny156 I agree. 3 data points is an insufficient sample size to make a conclusion.
Clickbait article writers go to bogleheads forums requesting people to interview.
I hope they don't find out MMMForums exists :-p

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Suze Orman again.......
« Reply #48 on: July 12, 2019, 12:28:11 AM »
You can make almost anyone's FIRE look like a failure if it didn't go as planned.  It all depends on the criterion used to measure.  My life looks no where near what I planned 10 years ago, rare is the person who has that type of foresight and self knowledge. 

I didn't read the referenced click-bait article, but just because someone decided being a landlord and full time travel isn't for them, doesn't mean that FIRE failed. It means she changed her mind about life priorities. Things weren't what she thought they would be, so she changed it up, and learned some things about herself.  Would have it been better if she worked 10 more years and saved a million more, only to discover the same thing?  Then 10 years of life is gone, all-the-while she would have been yearning for a lifestyle that wasn't even suited to her.  I say NO!  Better to try.  Besides, did she blow through her 250K in two years, now bankrupt forced to live with her parents?  Doubtful. I bet she's still sitting on a networth in the upper 10% for her age, now with a better idea of her personhood, and the future has endless other possibilities.  That is a FIRE success story.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!