November 2nd, 2025.

Welcome to the Women and Money podcast, as well as everyone smart enough to listen.

Hi everybody.

I am Robert, the producer.

Suze and KT have returned safely from their Italian eating and painting adventure, but you know how it is when you come back from a long trip, sometimes you need a couple extra days to re-acclimate.

And that's what's happening now.

We are going to keep, however, the promise that Suze made on the last episode, where you get a Suz e School podcast today.

However, it's got a little twist to it.

You're going to hear the main part of an episode that we did about a year ago, but we think it's very important for you to hear again right now at the top of your feed.

Today is November 2nd, as I just said, that means there are two more months left in the year, and it's really time.

To start preparing for next year.

And part of that preparation is making a date with your money.

Here's Suze to explain everything.

Make a date with your money.

I really want you to take this time before the new year starts to sit down, make a date, get out your calendars, everybody, and make a date when you or your spouse or your life partner or your children, I don't care who, your parents.

You sit down and you make a date.

And that date is the entire day is devoted to dealing with every aspect of your money.

Not so much what you're invested in.

But is everything in place?

Are you protected in case something happens?

Check all your home or rental insurance policies as to what they cover and what they don't cover, and also have you increased the coverage, really everybody, since you bought the home, given that maybe it's worth a whole lot more than it was 10 years ago when you originally got that insurance.

And the fact of the matter is, it costs a lot more to replace that home today because of inflation, as it did a long time ago.

Next, what's really important about what I just said is this when you have as many homes that have been destroyed by hurricanes, tornadoes, by all the things that are happening in this area, and around the United States.

That makes lumber, materials, the cost of building because all the workers, what do they do?

They go to those areas because they know they're going to get jobs, which leaves these workers who are in your area possibly charging more, so it's gonna cost more to replace your home than it did 10 years ago than it did five years ago, and I want you on this date with your money.

To make sure as you're looking at your insurance policy, what are you covered for?

Are they going to allow you to rebuild your house and pay for all of it, so is it replacement costs, or do you just get the insurance value?

Does it pay for trees and does it pay for your garage and the tools in your garage and all of those things you need to check that out.

Are you insured for hurricane, for flood, for any of that.

Now your normal insurance policy is not going to cover you for flood.

And unless you've added hurricane insurance on, or earthquake insurance on, it's not gonna be there either, but you have to know.

So you have to look at your insurance policies.

And answer all of those questions.

Am I insured for X, Y, and Z?

Is everything in my house insured and how much is it insured for?

Are my structures on my property insured?

My garage, is everything in my garage insured?

Are my trees insured?

You have to ask every possible question.

And what is the answer to that question, only you will know.

So that's the first thing you're going to do when you have a date with your money.

Also, what I want you to do is I really want you to look at every retirement plan and insurance policy, life insurance policy that you have.

I also want you to look at the beneficiaries of your health savings accounts.

Because you have got to make sure, that all the beneficiaries are the beneficiaries that you want to get the money.

You don't want to have had a retirement account where you left an ex-spouse or whoever it may be that money.

And now you're not even talking to that person.

And doesn't even matter if you're not remarried, but you don't want that person to get it, and so you have to look at the beneficiaries and make sure that they are absolutely up to date.

If you happen to be married, I want you to double check that a trust is not the primary beneficiary of any of your retirement accounts or your HSA account.

I want you to make sure that your spouse's name is the primary beneficiary of those retirement accounts.

If it's not your spouse because you're not married, I don't care then.

Whatever you want to do, but it is not to be anything other than your spouse as the primary beneficiary if in fact you are married.

Next, I want you to check all the interest rates that you are paying on the unpaid balances on your credit cards, yeah.

A lot of you have credit card debt.

You just do.

It's been very difficult possibly because of inflation.

Maybe you've been ill, maybe you lost a job, who knows what, but you've been putting your everyday living or vacations or gifts on your credit cards.

You've been paying the minimum payment due.

And maybe if you look at the interest rates on there you'll find that they're at 13%, 20%, 28%, and you're only paying the minimum payment due.

You are never going to get ahead.

And how many times have I said debt is bondage, you will never have financial freedom if you're in bondage.

So therefore I want you to sit down on this date.

Make sure you have pencil and paper for all this.

Get out all your credit card receipts, and I want you to write down in order.

Your credit card, the interest rate that you are currently paying, the balance due, and the minimum payment due, and I want you to do that on every single one of your cards.

And then I want you to arrange them from the highest interest rate to the lowest.

Now if you in fact have a good FICO score, maybe 720 or above, sometimes even 680 or above, credit cards will take it, but you might want to consider if you have a really high interest rate on these cards.

To do a balance transfer.

To a credit card that will lock in a 0% interest rate for about 21 months.

A credit card that won't charge you an annual fee and a credit card that will not charge more than 3% of a balance transfer fee.

If you could do that, then pay as much as you possibly can during those 20 or 21 months at 0% interest.

Hopefully your card will be paid off, or many of your cards will be paid off, by the time that interest rate is up, beware, once the 21 months is up, your interest rate's gonna go back up probably to 28%.

So currently, if you look at your credit cards, you total up the minimum payments that you are paying right now, and whatever those minimum payments are, I want you to add 20% to that amount.

So let's say you have five credit cards and the minimum that you're paying every single month on all five is, let's just say $500 100 dollars on each.

If you're paying $500 a month, I want you to pay 20% more or another $100 and I want you to pay at least $600 or more on the ones with the 0% if you're able to do a balance transfer if you are not.

Then what you are to do is put those credit cards in the freezer.

Just get rid of them for now.

You are to continue to pay the minimum payment due that you are paying now.

You are not going to pay the minimum payment due that they're going to say is due next month or the month after that.

If you can afford to pay that this month, you can afford to pay it every month.

And you're going to pay the minimum payment due on every credit card and add that extra $100 that I was just saying to the one with the highest interest rate.

When that credit card is totally paid off.

You're going to take that amount plus that $100 that you were paying, roll it down to the next highest.

When that's paid off, you're going to take the $100 the first credit card payment, the second credit card payment, and roll it down to the third, and you're going to keep doing that till you are out of credit card debt.

Once you pay off a credit card, please do not close down your credit cards because if you do, you are closing down your credit limit, and that will affect your FICO score.

So talking about FICO scores and your date with money, I want you to check all of your credit reports and FICO scores to make sure all is as it should be.

And it's important because now with so many people being able to steal your identity to do all kinds of things, the only way that you're going to catch it before it becomes a really big problem is to be checking your FICO scores as well as your credit reports.

You can get your credit reports for free by going to annualcreditreport.com.

But just check and see what's on there.

If anything looks suspicious, contact the credit bureau, and by the way, while you're at it, if you really want to make sure that you stay safe and sound.

Than freeze your credit reports.

Last but not least, it's really important that you make sure that you have created and signed and notarized and funded, obviously what I talk about all the time, the must have documents: a living trust, a will, an advanced directive, and a durable power of attorney for health care and a financial power.

And funding, by the way, simply means changing the titles on your accounts and real estate from your individual name to the name of the trust.

When something goes wrong, when you are injured, when all of a sudden you have unexpectedly lost your life, think about all the people who have unexpectedly lost their lives.

And now what's happening, their beneficiaries, their people...

you know, they probably don't even have paperwork.

Who knows?

So it's really important that you have all of these things together.

You know about your insurance.

You know about your FICO score, you know about your beneficiaries.

You know about what your insurance covers, doesn't cover you know that you have the must have documents in order.

You know all of those things.

And when you know all of those things, and there's so many more, but I won't overwhelm you today.

Then really you start to own the power to control your own destiny versus lack of knowledge, lack of wanting to have a date with your money, and then something happens and then you lack that power to control your destiny.

And that's not what I want for you.

So if you can do all that and remember that there's only one thing that matters when it comes to your money, and it is this: people first, then money, then things now you stay safe bye bye.