Rating: 
Summary: My favorite personal finance book
Review: Although Suze has written newer material, 9 Steps is still my favorite personal finance book. I believe it is the best personal finance book bar none.These fans of Quinn need to get a life. If Quinn is so great, how come her book doesn't sell and those that bought it [myself included] were vastly dissappointed with it. Besides, Quinn has her own place to write reviews. Why come over here unless it is a desperate attempt to drum up interest in her pathetic book.
Rating: 
Summary: Please don't allow this woman to ruin your financial life!!
Review: I am a financial advisor and counselor and I have run across many so called "experts" in the financial world. Never in all my time have I found one more consistently at odds with reality than Suze Orman. Reader beware: there is just enough truth in Suze's advice to make it half-way believable but rest assured if you follow her advice consistently, you will end up in a much greater mess than you may already be in. Examples of TERRIBLE Suze Orman advice:
1.) buy your vehicle brand new and on credit. (many Americans do this but no financial advisor in his right mind would ADVISE you to do this. Your new vehicle will lose an average of 60% of its value in the first 2-3 years leaving you holding un upside down car note rendering you tied to this car for better or worse). Buy your car at least two years old and preferably with cash.
2.) Buy no-load mutual funds. Study after study has shown that more than 90% of your investment performance can be tied not to the specific investment you make, but to Asset Allocation. When you buy a no-load mutual fund what you are really buying is a no-help mutual fund. Unless you are well versed in the proper asset allocation based on your specific time horizon and risk parameters, this is a stupid piece of advice. P.S. studies have also shown that those who work with an advisor on their investments typically net more than twice that of their "do it yourselfer" counterparts.
The list could go on and on but what it boils down to is that Suze makes ridiculous amounts of money telling people how to ruin their finances. If you want strong financial advice, you aren't going to get it here. I hope you will heed my warning. If not, you will remember it looking back.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful bits
Review: I found this book to be sowewhat educational with a some good ideas here and there. With books like this, I try the philosophy "absorb what is useful". Some things are very helpful and some are just conceit in my opinion. I wouldn't pay too much for it, but every little bit of simple info helps.
Rating:
Summary: Useful bits
Review: I found this book to be sowewhat educational with a some good ideas here and there. With books like this, I try the philosophy "absorb what is useful". Some things are very helpful and some are just conceit in my opinion. I wouldn't pay too much for it, but every little bit of simple info helps.
Rating: 
Summary: More Dr. Phil Than "The Wealthy Barber"
Review: I really thought the 9 steps were going to be financial steps, but they aren't--most of them are psychological steps to being more "respectful" towards your money. That's fine and good, but some of us need to know more about the different kinds of IRAs than what childhood event formed out personal attitude towards money. This book is helpful for people who have issues with money, not really so for people who just want to know how to invest it better. Should be sold as Self-Help, not Finance.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, But Not Great
Review: If you've read one Suze Orman book, you've read them all. Those who are deeply in debt should certainly look elsewhere. Try also Surviving Financial Disasters, for those who are truly looking to get out debt. Also The richest man in Babylon.
Rating:
Summary: Practical, useful, multidimensional, immediate use
Review: Just finished reading this...and then immediately went into work and changed my 401(k) contribution to the maximum. Also am looking for a money market account and will begin managing my own IRA stuff...now that I feel more comfortable doing it. Plan to lend the book to friends, and called my parents to tell them to get a copy and start getting things in order...such as getting a trust instead of a will, getting LTC insurance, etc. I liked her straightforward writing style; she has a knack for explaining the "mysterious" world of investing and finance in a way you can quickly and easily understand. She makes you feel more confident...that you can indeed manage your money. In today's often confusing world, it was very helpful to hear that you can trust your intuition and you don't have to "fall prey" to financial advisors. Also, from personal experience, I know that her advice about "good brings good" and "respect of money will bring you more money" is true. My husband got in a serious accident a year ago and at the time we were in a bad bad financial position--no emergency funds, high credit card debt, prospects of little or no income. This "kick in the pants" helped me to take control of my money and now a year later our credit cards are paid off, we have 4 months of bills in the bank, and I am maxing out my 401(k). Suze Orman's book came to me just when I was ready for the next step, and I am putting it to good use. I highly recommend!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Too much feeling, not enough analysis!
Review: On the whole this how-to book will I think help many readers start taking control of their finances, but I deduct one star because in the end her guidance puts too much of a burden on the reader's feelings. On page 236 Suze writes that you will make money if you follow your "instinctual response" (she also calls it the little voice inside you and the voice of god). But how do we know that her "kiss-of-death" clients at Merrill Lynch who always lost money were not making their decisions instinctually? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that some people sometimes have an instinct for losing money? (perhaps they do not hear the voice of god properly). I think it is wrong for Ms. Orman to leave these "kiss-of-death" clients with their instincts and feelings. (I think it would be wrong for Ms. Orman to assume their decisions were based on nervousness etc. just because they lost money.) She could have helped by asking them to surpress their instincts and feelings about when to buy and sell and told them to follow the lead of her other clients who made money (I assume almost all the time, because she says it was not a matter of luck for them), because they had the right "spirit", "attitude", and "instinct" for investment. Or she should have at least told them to give up trying to time the market and put their money into indexed mutual funds. Ms. Orman could have turned losers into winners. I don't think that that would have been above and beyond the call of duty for a full service stock broker. This book would have been more valuable if she had told us more about her successful clients. How did they develop the right "attitude", "spirit", and "instinct"? Are they basing their buy and sell decisions on feelings, gut instincts, etc., or is there also a lot of analysis of data involved? Also, I think it is misleading for her to write that it is not a matter of luck to make money for those people that have the correct instinctual response. Most people would agree that Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet have good instincts for making money but both of them have lost money because at times they had bad luck or their good instincts failed them. Suze ignores the element of luck in her book at the peril of her readers. An investor with the best instincts who just bought before 9/11 would have made a big mistake, and a "kiss-of-death" investor who, by chance, for whatever reason, sold on that day would be by luck a winner. The element of chance (luck) makes the real world more uncertain in the end than the one Ms. Orman portrays. Just because you make a decision that reflects your instinctual response it will not always be the right answer for you because the element of luck has a much bigger role to play than Ms. Orman thinks. Feeling good about things won't make them necessarily so. Having good instincts is good, but you have to be lucky sometimes.
Rating:
Summary: Strange religion with financial planning
Review: Suzy should stick to just financial planning. She should not try to be a preacher nor a psychologist. Here's a sample of her junk, "Analyze the fears within you. Write down your earliest dealings with money and you will see why you are the way you are..." "To get money, you must first part with it, then money will find you" "Money has a power, if you don't respect it, it won't respect you" Come on!!! I give this book 4 stars for the solid financial planning. I learned about trusts, wills, insurance, index mutual funds and no loads, saving for the 401K. Unfortunately, I give it negative (-3) stars for the eastern religious themes and general bizare moral relativism.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book Suze
Review: The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is OUTSTANDING in presentation and content. Suze is indeed the Queen of personal finance and the most widely read financial author today. In addition to this great book, I also recommend More Wealth Without Risk and Financial Self Defense by Charles Givens. Two books that gives even more OUTSTANDING advice that you won't find anywhere else. Great books. Good luck!
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