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Summary: 9 Steps Illustrate Fundamental Financial Ideas
Review: The 9 steps are presented in an easy to grasp way, free of the heavy technical jargon typical of many books on the subject of personal finance. Specifically, Suze Orman manages to address the very real spiritual aspects of giving and receiving, the importance of caring for people before money and respect for one's money as a living, dynamic entity in terms that a layperson like me can understand. I found this book to be a wonderful blueprint upon which to construct a fully actualized vision of personal financial management and then take steps to put it in place. My main criticism of this book lies in the rather simplistic approach it takes regarding the establishment of retirement accounts and its bowing before the god of insurance. However, the basic premise resonates with me: Just get started. I recomment this book to anyone with the basic sensibility to appreciate the spiritual aspects of self-respect and financial freedom. It is a good tool to help one get out of debt, however, I think it is most valuable as a tool to set forth a financial philosophy and practicum after the serious problems one may be struggling with are relieved.
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Summary: Top 5 insights from 9 Steps to Financial Freedom
Review: 1. Understand your past history with money:
Suze writes that, "Most peoples' biggest problems in life - even those that appear on the surface not to be money related - are directly connected to their early, formative experiences with money." Think back to when you first started to understand money and its consequences: fights your parents had, presents you wanted, how much money your family had compared to your neighbors.2. Face your fears and create new truths:
Take a piece of paper, and write down your fears related to money. When you're done, compare what you've written to your past history. Keep thinking until you see the connections. Then, write down a new, positive truth that is expressed in the present tense and that you can remember precisely. For example, "I save $200 per month." 3. Be honest with yourself:
Without much thought, you probably waste too much money on items you barely use or enjoy, but try ripping up a dollar bill. Most people can't do it. You need to recognize how much of our society is calculated to create a distance between you and your money, so that you lose this healthy desire to protect it. Get back in touch with your money. 4. Be responsible to those you love:
Face the reality of your eventual death, and put in place a system to protect your loved ones when you are gone. This includes not just sufficient life insurance, but also well-written wills, trusts, and other key documents. 5. Be respectful of yourself and your money :
Suze's 2nd law of financial freedom is, "Respect attracts money - disrespect repels money." You need to be respectful of your money. Write down the ways you are respectful and disrespectful of your money.
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Summary: Great book Suze!
Review: Suze teaches people to become proactive in their financial lives. The fact is no one willw atch your money as well as you will. Charles Givens also beat that concept to death--you must become your own financial planner and not depend on the auto, health, life insurance salesmen. The car salesman. Your banker or loan officer etc. I like the fact that Suze brings the mental side to money. Much overlooked by far too many people. Great book Suze. Also recommend Suze's newest book, The Laws of Money which offers updated information and More Wealth Without Risk by Charles Givens.
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Summary: Financial Serenity
Review: While this author describes 9 steps towards "Financial Freedom," I kept asking myself, "But what about ...?" For those of who want a great primer into recreating your financial identity, this is an excellent beginning. Suze Orman started out with a degree in Sociology (And she was attacked in the financial world for having "too much psychobabble"). Two events that compelled her to learn about and to be an expert on money:
1. When her father's store caught on fire, he desperately ran
into the store to grab his cash register. This caused him to
be badly burned. And it taught Suze Orman to learn about
investments, savings and related topics.
2. After college, she was a stock broker for Merrill Lynch.
This is where she learned the difference between what was
being told to the public, and what the truth about money is. Through these events she discovered her life's work is telling people the truth about money. Within this book Orman talks a lot about uncovering your money memories, and seeing where those money memories have led you to have the relationship to money that you now have. She also covers many fundamental topics about retirement and investing in this book. But she does not take readers through the journey of earning a dollar, to growing that dollar into several millions - or to allowing that money to work for you. I'd suggest that you read these seven books, after reading "Nine Steps to Financial Freedom":
1. "More Wealth Without Risk," by Charles Givens
2. "Financial Self-Defense," by Charles Givens
3. "The Millionaire Next Door," by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., &
William D. Danko, Ph.D.
4. "Simple Abundance," by Sarah Ban Breathnach
5. "Creating Money," by Sanaya Roman & Duane Packer
6. "Girl, Get Your Money Straight!" by Glinda Bridgforth
7. "Open Your Mind to Prosperity," by Catherine Ponder Where most financial books assume that you have money, and that you are not only ready to allow that money to work harder than you work, they also assume that you will be at peace with this. Read "Nine Steps to Financial Freedom," to face your past, and to practice, for the sake of practicing to be a peace with your control over money.
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Summary: How to make yourself financially free
Review: The book sets the premise that you never learn to deal with money successfully until you overcome your fear of money...of not having enough, and fear of taking action with your money. It's about how to make money work for you so you have more than enough because you learn to devote energy, time, and understanding, to money. The three ways of getting money in this world: (1) Work for it (2) inherit it (3) invest the money you save (the most powerful, respectful way to get money there is). Here are the 9 steps to financial freedom: 1. Step back in time to see how your feelings about money can be traced to your past. We all have "money messages" passed down from generation to generation. 2. Face your money fears and create new, positive truths. 3. Be honest with yourself. Ouit using plastic cards for money. They are addictive and destructive as drugs, giving you a quick fix by satisfying temporary desires. 4. Be responsible to those you love. Establish life insurance, wills, power of attorney, estate planning, etc. 5. Be respectful of yourself and your money. If you do what needs to be done with money, you will attract money to you. 6. You and your money must keep good company. Credit cards are never good company. Get out of debt. Respect yourself and your money by making every penny work for you. 7. Trust yourself more than you trust others. Find the "little voice" inside you; listen to what it has to say. 8. Be open to receive all you are meant to receive. When you are in control of your money and have enough to be generous, money flows to you. 9. Understand the ebb and flow of the money cycle. Money has natural cycles as it ebbs and flows through your life. If you choose to entrust your money to someone else, and you really don't know how money works, unscrupulous people can take advantage of you. Further, you discover the thrill that comes from wanting to deal with your money instead of just having to deal with it. Get in touch with your money; delight in spending it as you did as a child, but enjoy choosing not to spend it too; take pleasure in putting some away for later. Most of us need to spend our money differently. Not drastic action like getting by with one car. Unrealistic budget cuts, like diets, never work. Rather, decide to spend $25 to $30 less per month from fifteen or twenty of your spending categories; with each decision you make to spend less, you are gaining power over your money, and you will find creative ways to reduce your spending so you hardly notice. Rather than being dictated by a restriction, your actions are guided by the choices you make. This is the hardest step to financial freedom; you become honest with yourself about how you really stand. Spend less by putting your money away before you see it. Pay yourself. It's not what you make, but what you keep. Time plays an essential role in building future wealth because the longer you contribute, the more you'll have and with time, the contributions you have already made, do more work for you. The thing that makes time so powerful is compounding. Money flows through our lives like water...plentiful at times...a trickle other times. These transitions are exciting or scary, but are all part of the natural cycles of money. There are two important reactions to these cycles: (1) You must take the long view of your financial future (2) you must believe that what happens is positive and let it be. The important thing is to understand the nature of money and take the right steps to make it work for you. Recognize true wealth. People can not be measured by their net worth. Money does not make you financially free; only you can make yourself financially free.
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Summary: Useful bits
Review: I found this book to be sowewhat educational with a some good ideas here and there. With books like this, I try the philosophy "absorb what is useful". Some things are very helpful and some are just conceit in my opinion. I wouldn't pay too much for it, but every little bit of simple info helps.
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Summary: Outstanding book Suze
Review: The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is OUTSTANDING in presentation and content. Suze is indeed the Queen of personal finance and the most widely read financial author today. In addition to this great book, I also recommend More Wealth Without Risk and Financial Self Defense by Charles Givens. Two books that gives even more OUTSTANDING advice that you won't find anywhere else. Great books. Good luck!
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Summary: My favorite personal finance book
Review: Although Suze has written newer material, 9 Steps is still my favorite personal finance book. I believe it is the best personal finance book bar none. These fans of Quinn need to get a life. If Quinn is so great, how come her book doesn't sell and those that bought it [myself included] were vastly dissappointed with it. Besides, Quinn has her own place to write reviews. Why come over here unless it is a desperate attempt to drum up interest in her pathetic book.
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Summary: 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. Excellent Book!
Review: This is the first personal finance book that gives you not only the knowledge of how to handle money, but also the will to break through all the barriers that hold you back. This groundbreaking book goes beyond the nuts and bolts of managing money to explore the psychological, even spiritual power money has in our lives, along with useful advice and inspiration from the leading voice in personal finance. The pivotal insight in this book teaches you about redefining financial freedom -- and realizing that you are worth far more than your money. Highly Recommended!
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Summary: Too much feeling, not enough analysis!
Review: On the whole this how-to book will I think help many readers start taking control of their finances, but I deduct one star because in the end her guidance puts too much of a burden on the reader's feelings. On page 236 Suze writes that you will make money if you follow your "instinctual response" (she also calls it the little voice inside you and the voice of god). But how do we know that her "kiss-of-death" clients at Merrill Lynch who always lost money were not making their decisions instinctually? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that some people sometimes have an instinct for losing money? (perhaps they do not hear the voice of god properly). I think it is wrong for Ms. Orman to leave these "kiss-of-death" clients with their instincts and feelings. (I think it would be wrong for Ms. Orman to assume their decisions were based on nervousness etc. just because they lost money.) She could have helped by asking them to surpress their instincts and feelings about when to buy and sell and told them to follow the lead of her other clients who made money (I assume almost all the time, because she says it was not a matter of luck for them), because they had the right "spirit", "attitude", and "instinct" for investment. Or she should have at least told them to give up trying to time the market and put their money into indexed mutual funds. Ms. Orman could have turned losers into winners. I don't think that that would have been above and beyond the call of duty for a full service stock broker. This book would have been more valuable if she had told us more about her successful clients. How did they develop the right "attitude", "spirit", and "instinct"? Are they basing their buy and sell decisions on feelings, gut instincts, etc., or is there also a lot of analysis of data involved? Also, I think it is misleading for her to write that it is not a matter of luck to make money for those people that have the correct instinctual response. Most people would agree that Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet have good instincts for making money but both of them have lost money because at times they had bad luck or their good instincts failed them. Suze ignores the element of luck in her book at the peril of her readers. An investor with the best instincts who just bought before 9/11 would have made a big mistake, and a "kiss-of-death" investor who, by chance, for whatever reason, sold on that day would be by luck a winner. The element of chance (luck) makes the real world more uncertain in the end than the one Ms. Orman portrays. Just because you make a decision that reflects your instinctual response it will not always be the right answer for you because the element of luck has a much bigger role to play than Ms. Orman thinks. Feeling good about things won't make them necessarily so. Having good instincts is good, but you have to be lucky sometimes.
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