Suze Orman – 9 Steps to Financial Freedom Review

In this article we are going to learn about Suze Orman’s 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. I’ll explain each step in detail and then give you my thoughts on how the step is or isn’t applicable to personal finance and how it benefits you. 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is a book that Suze Orman wrote in 1997. She is over 10 years old now, but she has stood the test of time and is still liked by many today.

Suze Orman’s 9 Steps to Financial Freedom:

Step 1: See how your past is the key to your financial future

In the first step of his book, Orman talks about how most people have some memory from the past that affects the way they perceive money and finances. In this chapter, she helps him realize that past memory and get over it so he can start over with his personal finances.

These steps might be a bit out of the question and useless for most people. There are some people who have a bad memory when it comes to money, but in general most people are lazy and undisciplined. For most people it is a matter of motivation and not a bad experience. This step might be useful for some people to get started, but it’s not broad enough to be applicable to many people.

2 – Face your fears and create new truths

Here Orman makes a connection to the first passage of the book. Orman has his readers look at their past memories and see how they make them act around money in their current lives. Orman suggests writing a list of his money-related fears and then figuring out how to overcome them.

Again, I find this step to be more of a mental exercise for those who need it, but not applicable to everyone. The first two steps in his book seem more like a traditional self-help book than a personal finance or financial planning book.

Step 3 – Be honest with yourself

In the third step of Suze’s book, she goes into detail about the budget. Suze suggests getting all the past records on him and realizing where his money has gone in the last 2 years. The plan is to use past records to determine your budget plan for the future.

This step is extremely cool and something we should all consider. Establishing a budget to keep track of our income is the most basic and important step to begin the search for financial freedom. The only problem here is having 2 years of old records. If you don’t have 2 years old, go with what you have to make estimates for the future.

Step 4 – Be responsible with those you love

In Step 4, Suze talks about setting up your money so it can help your loved ones if you pass away. The basic setup of this step gives you information on insurance, estate planning, trusts, and wills.

This step seems very important to me but it seems to be out of place. I believe that before you can start planning for others after you’re gone, you need to get your own personal finances in order. If you don’t put your own finances in order, you will have nothing to leave to your heirs and it will be useless. Steps 4 and 5 should be changed.

Step 5 – Be respectful of yourself and your money

Here Orman focuses on helping his readers sort and organize their own finances. This chapter includes information on setting aside money for retirement, eliminating debt, and much more. Orman writes how taking control of your finances can make you feel so much better about yourself.

This is another of Orman’s best steps in the entire book. This is the most important step to achieve financial freedom. Without proper savings, debt elimination, and future financial planning, people can’t even begin to think about financial peace.

Step 6 – Trust yourself more than you trust others

This step talks about how people should trust themselves over others when making financial and investment decisions. He says that people should always follow their instincts too.

I consider this step to be completely inaccurate. People should always seek the right advice on financial planning from experts and have all the moves planned out instead of going with their gut feeling at any given moment. I believe that everyone should have a personal financial advisor to help them with their financial and investment decisions. It is important to note that a financial advisor is only an advisor and all final decisions must come from you.

Step 7 – Be open to receive all that you are meant to have

In this passage, Orman goes into detail about how money doesn’t bring happiness, quite the opposite. He also goes into detail about the joys of donating to charity.

Here Orman contradicts many earlier claims in his book. In earlier parts of the book he continually talks about happiness and feeling better about yourself, but then he says the opposite here. She says that first you become happy and then you achieve financial freedom. And what does that mean? The two are completely independent of each other in both ways.

Step 8 – Understand the ebb and flow of the money cycle

Here, Orman writes about how sometimes all the hard and bad times in our lives teach us really good lessons for our future. He talks about how to make the most of our past failures to see success in the future.

I think Orman hits the nail on the head with the accuracy of his statements, but then again, what does this have to do with the nuts and bolts of financial planning?

Step 9 – Recognize true wealth

In the last passage of Orman’s book, she writes about how the real value in life doesn’t come from money and wealth.

Again, I feel like this section contradicts some of what Suze says throughout the book, but I also think it’s very true.

Overall, Suze’s 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is an excellent book for people who want to learn about the psychology of money and want to change the way they think about it. It is more of a self help book for these people.

His books give very little real financial advice blueprints and don’t have much mechanical substance. I would not recommend this book for people who are looking for the nuts and bolts of personal financial advice. For these people, I would suggest something from a different financial advice expert.

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