Suze Orman Says These 6 Money Mistakes Can Ruin Your Future

0Picture Perfect · Shutterstock.comFinancial trouble rarely comes from one bad decision. Suze Orman described patterns wrecking fiscal futures, and showed these mistakes repeating country-wide.Financial trouble rarely comes from one bad decision.

Suze Orman broke down several patterns that quietly wreck people's futures in a recent episode of her show, and the same mistakes kept showing up across very different callers.

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Orman opened by addressing viewers who admit they get too avoidant to keep watching when a topic hits close to home. If a topic is relatable enough to be distressing, she said, it's important to examine what you're doing to make your own situation resemble someone else's problem.

Her point was that the stress itself is a signal worth sitting with rather than avoiding. Lean into your discomfort, because there's information there.

A caller named Walter related how his fiancée had agreed to pay off debt before their wedding, but instead took on even more debt without telling him. He asked whether he was wrong to consider postponing the wedding.

"Postpone it," Orman said. "In fact, maybe even postpone it for the rest of your life."

She said that in a community property state, marrying before resolving that dishonesty means everything he owns becomes legally shared the moment the marriage happens, regardless of what got hidden beforehand.

A caller named Sarah had $18,000 in a Roth IRA and $20,000 in credit card debt at 15% interest, but couldn't say what the Roth was actually invested in.

"What concerns me if it's invested with a financial person, that it's possible they put it into a variable annuity," Orman said, warning that hidden fees on the way out could erase the tax advantage of withdrawing the money penalty-free.

A caller named Heather had run up $40,000 in credit card debt, much of it from groceries, gas and home repairs charged because there wasn't enough in checking to cover the bills directly.

Orman's said to sell two of the household's four cars and redirect her savings toward the debt immediately. She added that relying on credit for routine expenses is usually a sign that spending and income were never actually aligned in the first place.

A caller named Beth had spent $350,000 supporting her husband's unsuccessful construction business over a decade (while working two jobs herself!) — and Orman put her foot down. She told Beth to accept responsibility for this sunk-cost; even if the husband had chased an unreasonable dream, Beth had continuously made the decision to continue underwriting it.

Orman's broader point was that you shouldn't fund someone else's choices at the expense of your own future.

Another caller asked about the right way to save for her children's education.

"You have to take care of your own needs first until you are maxing out your Roth IRAs, you have a full eight-month emergency fund, until you're totally out of credit card debt," Orman said.

She took the stance that gift money from relatives presently being put toward a child's 529 plan could be more useful covering the family's current needs, since a household without its own financial foundation isn't in a position to prioritize a child's future college fund yet.

This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.

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