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If you happen to turn on MSNBC every now and then or have gone down to your local bookstore, chances are you’ve seen her television show, her radio show, or on the cover of one of her books. She bills her self as an “internationally acclaimed personal finance expert,” which many people regard her as. She has certainly found quite a bit of fame in teaching people how to handle money, but what about the advice she offers, is it worth following? Let’s have a look.

Most of the advice that Suze Orman is rather basic, almost too basic in some cases. Forbes made an excellent criticism of one of her books, “Buy her book for $23 … and you get such tips as : ‘Use self-service gas pumps rather than full-serve.’ Or, ‘Use coins, not your calling card, in pay phones.’ On a recent Oprah, Orman advised viewers to search through their closets for misplaced money.” Let’s face it, most of what Orman teaches is extremely common knowledge, you’d have to be living under a rock to not know some of the advice that she offers. Perhaps she is just meeting the needs of her audience, which seems to be people who are very uninformed in the areas of finance, but let’s face it, finance is a very complex issue and there’s just more too it than the advice that Orman gives.

Another major criticism that I have of Suze Orman is that she answers bad questions. One evening she had a military couple on her show, and the wife wanted “more of an allowance” and the couple asked if it was okay to “allow” the wife to spend $180 a month instead of $100 a month on herself. This sounds like an extremely unhealthy marriage, couples should work together on their money and have a completely equal stake in the money that comes in, regardless of who’s paycheck it is. It’s not his money, or her money, it’s there money. It’s almost as if the wife in the question had to beg her husband for some extra money! That’s ridiculous! If you were to call into the Dave Ramsey show, he’d nail you for doing something like that and rightfully so. He actually treats the individual as a whole, and doesn’t just answer badly framed questions. It seems that Orman doesn’t understand that when a question is being asked, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good question or not.

If you’re just really bad with money and don’t understand the basic tenants of personal finance, and many people do not, listening to Orman’s shows and her advice might provide you with some decent financial insight, however the advice she offers is extremely basic and most of it’s common knowledge. If you’re looking for some real insight on more than just extremely basic topics, chances are you’re better off going somewhere else.



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