If you knew Suze…

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Robert Frick

But what makes 9 Steps appealing is the filling sandwiched between the slices of boilerplate advice. The first chapter chronicles Orman's own childhood hangups about money. The second plunks readers down in her 1967 Volvo in that Taco Bell parking lot and helps them create their own "new truth" mantra. True financial freedom, she concludes, lies in "defining ourselves by who and what we are, not by what we do or do not have."

It isn't new--and it ain't rocket science--but Orman has figured out a way to bring personal finance to people who used to have no interest in the subject. To critics who dismiss her books as hokum, she replies, "All I can say is, if it were that cut and dried, a million people would not have bought 9 Steps."

And Orman would not be worth millions. She has a warehouse full of letters from people seeking advice and talks about setting up a foundation to help people over financial bumps in the road. But she herself has few trappings of wealth. Maybe just one. When her book hit the bestseller list, she bought herself a Cartier Pasha watch, list price $21,500--but, frugal to the last, she bargained the price down to $14,500.

RELATED ARTICLE: A SUZE SAMPLER

WORDS TO MANAGE your money by, from The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom:

I HAVE COME TO THINK that money is very much like a person, and it will respond when you treat it as you would a cherished friend-never fearing it, pushing it away, pretending it doesn't exist, or turning away from its needs, never clutching it so hard that it hurts.

THE GOAL... is to make you as independent from financial advisers as possible.... I have learned that it is in my clients' best interest for them to take control over their money, not to relinquish it, even to me.

ONE WAY TO GET in touch with your money is to actually start touching it again, to handle cash, to feel and respect it, to delight in spending it the way you did as a child, to enjoy choosing not to spend it, to take pleasure in putting it away now for later.

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I ask new clients to do is write down on a piece of paper what they think they spend each month.... Most of us believe, or deceive ourselves into believing, that we need about $1,000 to $1,500 a month less than we actually do.... This figure seems to vary only a little bit regardless of income levels.

IT IS NOT OKAY when you get sick, or when you die, to leave financial chaos behind... for everyone else to clean up.

MERELY KNOWING that you have taken care of the people you love always, in my experience, frees up major blocks on this path to financial freedom.

BOTTOM-LINE GOAL: By the time you are 65 at the latest, your need for life insurance, and your need to pay the premiums on your life insurance, should be gone.

IF YOU'RE RESPECTFUL of your money, and do what needs to be done with it, you will become like a magnet, attracting more and more money to yourself.

PLEASE TAKE OUT your wallet. How are your bills organized? Are the ones mixed in with the tens? Are they all facing different ways? ... Keeping your bills neat... caring for them the way you care for other important things in your life will serve as a constant reminder of the respect that you and your money deserve.