Quotes from Suze Orman

Invest in the known versus the unknown.

Take a spin through your monthly spending and challenge yourself to cut your nonessential costs by at least 20%—something I recommend whether you are 35 or 75.

am not suggesting you keep all your money in stocks. No way! My message is that you should keep some money in stocks. If you are in your 50s and 60s today, depending on your situation, you should already have a significant portion of your portfolio—maybe half—invested in bonds. But the other half of your investable assets most likely are in stocks.

Everything is possible if you believe in yourself. Before you start down the road of negative thoughts, slam on the brakes.

I realize your intentions are good, but you need to distinguish between helping and enabling. People who are standing in the truth and need financial assistance deserve your help, if you can in fact afford to give financial help. People who are looking for your money to solve (probably temporarily) a problem of their own creation are not standing in their truth.

Retirement saving must take precedence over paying for college.

The first and most important money lesson you need to teach your children is to put money in its place. Ask your children—even children as young as four or five—what they love most. Do not guide them, just listen to what they value.

Establish the work-pay-purchase connection. As far as I am concerned there is no age too young to start learning that money must be earned to buy the things your family needs.

First, establish nonpaying chores. These are the basic courtesies you all do for the benefit of the family.

Never pay for good behavior or good grades. You do not reward a child for meeting your expectations.

Make payment a weekly ritual. Bring some formality to the process by setting a date and time for when you will review the work from the past week and make the payment. Maybe it's Saturday morning when you are all around.

If you have been following my advice for years, you are well aware that I think a Roth IRA is the best retirement account you can have.

A Roth can also be a backup emergency fund. Because your contributions are made with after-tax dollars, you are free to withdraw them (though not the earnings on them) at any age without incurring taxes or penalties.

At a minimum I want you to figure out a way to set aside 15% of your pre-tax salary each and every year, starting as early as possible. If you wait until your 40s and 50s to get serious about saving, you will need to set aside 25% or more of your gross salary.

STEP 1. Save in a 401(k) plan if your employer offers a matching contribution. Contribute enough to qualify for the maximum company match.

STEP 2. Contribute to a Roth IRA.

STEP 3. Increase your 401(k) contributions.

But let me ask you this: Where does blame get you? Blame renders you powerless. You must get past blame to become who you are meant to be. And what does shame do to you? Shame only serves to hold you back... It is fine to understand how we got here, but the next breath must contain a resolve to move ahead into a future that looks entirely different, into a destiny that is all yours.

STEP 4. Save in a taxable account.

If you own dozens of stocks, you will minimize the chance that any single problem will sink your ship.

But that emotional reaction isn't you being dumb or irrational; you are being human. It is hard to stay committed to anything when you are feeling vulnerable and threatened.

After suffering the loss of a loved one, do nothing but keep your money safe and sound for at least one year. If you want to find the best financial advisor, look in the mirror—for no one will care about your money more than you do.

I'm going to use my good old suitcase metaphor one more time: A mutual fund is like a suitcase that holds dozens—and often hundreds—of individual stocks. If you like what is packed inside the suitcase, then you simply purchase shares of that mutual fund and, voilà, you are the proud owner of a small fraction of each one of the holdings in that suitcase. This gives you instant diversification, even though you bought just one mutual fund.

I have always said that if you undervalue what you do, the world undervalues who you are. And when you undervalue who you are, the world undervalues what you do.