When Suze Orman was 13 she watched her father dive into the flames of his burning take-out chicken shack in order to rescue his cash register. In that moment Orman learned that money was more important than life itself. And so it became her quest to be rich. But years later, when Orman became a wealthy broker with a huge investment firm, she was profoundly unhappy. What went wrong? She had not yet achieved financial freedom. In her nine-step program, Orman covers the ingredients to financial success--confronting our beliefs and fears, learning the nuts and bolts (and insiders secrets!) of savvy management, and finding the spiritual trust that leads to abundance.


Amazon.com Audio Review
Suze Orman's reading of the audio version of her bestselling book The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is nothing if not intense. Coming at you with the force of a summer hurricane heading for Cape Fear, Orman recounts one horror story after another to help us avoid financial disaster. But, if her insistent, somewhat graceless voice takes some getting used to, it's well worth the adjustment. After awhile, you'll be glad she's doing the talking, blending years of experience as a certified financial planner with credible authority and, more important, a passionate belief in our individual abilities to handle our own finances. There's no question that Suze Orman cares about how we manage our money.

To show her commitment to our financial well-being, Orman packs this abridgment with an unusual combination of practical advice and psychological exercises. During our three hours with her, we receive arguably the best education available on mutual funds, estate planning, income taxes--even life insurance. But we also learn how to "face our fear" of money by exploring our past for the source of the fear. Later, she tells us that giving money to charity actually helps us release this fear. And, in perhaps her most startling step ("trust yourselves more than others"), Orman suggests we follow our inner voice while making investment decisions, a voice she believes comes from God.

Whatever you may thing of that revelation, it's impossible to be put off by Orman's candid, idiosyncratic approach to money management. This is one self-help tape that lives up to the genre. Listeners who stick with Orman till the end will be truly inspired to take money matters into their own hands--and they'll likely get started immediately. (Running time: 10 hours and 43 minutes, two cassettes) --Ann Senechal


From Library Journal
Orman is the head of her own financial-planning firm, a certified retirement specialist, and a best-selling author (You've Earned It, Don't Lose It, LJ 1/95). In her latest work, she analyzes the psychological and spiritual factors involved in how we perceive money. Her definition of financial freedom is "when you have power over your fears and anxieties instead of the other way around." Through case studies, Orman illustrates the psychological importance of money and its effect on our lives. She offers practical guidelines for investing, preparing a budget, purchasing a home, getting out of debt, and writing a will. A helpful financial worksheet is included. Orman's insightful guide is highly recommended to public libraries.?Lucy T. Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, N.Y.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Get a handle on your personal money hang-ups and then reconnect with your money in a positive way by making active decisions every day about how to use it. First keep track of everything and make realistic spending rules, then follow the rules and watch your sense of freedom grow. The program has practical investment advice and excellent information about important family finance issues like mortgages, taxation, estate planning, and insurance. It's a comprehensible overview of home-based money management, and a pleasant invitation to develop a better relationship with money by getting over whatever has held you back up to now. T.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
Suze Orman has transformed the concept of personal finance for millions by teaching us how to gain control of our money -- so that money does not control us. She goes beyond the nuts and bolts of managing money to explore the psychological, even spiritual power money has in our lives. The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is the first personal finance book that gives you not only the knowledge of how to handle money, but also the will to break through all the barriers that hold you back.

Combining real-life recommendations with the motivation to overcome financial anxieties, Suze Orman offers the keys to providing for yourself and your family, including:

* seeing how your past holds the key to your financial future
* facing your fears and creating new truths
* trusting yourself more than you trust others
* being open to receiving all that you are meant to have
* understanding the lessons of the money cycle

The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is useful advice and inspiration from the leading voice in personal finance. As Orman shows, managing money is far more than a matter of balancing your checkbook or picking the right investments. It's about redefining financial freedom -- and realizing that you are worth far more than your money.


Download Description
Her down-to-earth personality and accessible message has connected Orman with TV viewers on CNN, CNBC, and Fox After Breakfast. Now she makes her unique approach to controlling money available to readers with this non-traditional financial planning guide.


Book Info
A personal finance guide going beyond the nuts and bolts of managing money, to the heart of how sometimes money manages its spender. A glimpse at the psychological side of money matters and a ticket to personal freedom from financial fetters. Shows how managing money is far more than balancing a checkbook or making investments. Softcover. DLC: Finance, Personal.


From the Inside Flap
Suze Orman has transformed the concept of personal finance for millions by teaching us how to gain control of our money -- so that money does not control us. She goes beyond the nuts and bolts of managing money to explore the psychological, even spiritual power money has in our lives. The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is the first personal finance book that gives you not only the knowledge of how to handle money, but also the will to break through all the barriers that hold you back.

Combining real-life recommendations with the motivation to overcome financial anxieties, Suze Orman offers the keys to providing for yourself and your family, including:

* seeing how your past holds the key to your financial future
* facing your fears and creating new truths
* trusting yourself more than you trust others
* being open to receiving all that you are meant to have
* understanding the lessons of the money cycle

The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom is useful advice and inspiration from the leading voice in personal finance. As Orman shows, managing money is far more than a matter of balancing your checkbook or picking the right investments. It's about redefining financial freedom -- and realizing that you are worth far more than your money.


About the Author
Suze Orman is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers, The Courage to Be Rich and The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, and the national bestseller You've Earned It, Don't Lose It. Currently a contributing editor to O: The Oprah Magazine, Suze wrote, co-produced, and hosted two PBS pledge shows. A Certified Financial Planner (r) professional, Suze has been featured in Newsweek, People, The New Yorker, and USA Today, and has appeared on Dateline, Larry King Live, CNN, CNBC, Good Morning America, and numerous times on NBC News' TODAY and The Oprah Winfrey Show.


From the Hardcover edition.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What do you want from your money? College tuition for your kids? A bigger house and a new car? Security when you retire? Wouldn't it be great simply to have enough money so you don't have to worry?

The "enough money" part of that equation is easy. By the time you finish this book you will understand everything you need to know about managing and protecting your money and making it grow. The "so you don't have to worry" part is much more complex. It actually has nothing to do with how much money you have or how little. You can balance your checkbook until you're blue in the face, you can move money every day between your mutual funds, you can double your life insurance, you can buy lottery tickets--and none of it will do you any good until you get beyond the worry and fear. The fear of money, the fear of not having enough, the fear of having enough, the fear of taking action, the fear of inaction.

There isn't a part of our lives that money doesn't touch--it affects our relationships, the way we go about our everyday activities, our ability to make dreams reality, everything. Most of us, I think, have a core of anxiety that we carry around with us, though we may not admit it to ourselves. That is part of money's power over us.

From years as a financial planner I have learned that true financial freedom doesn't depend on how much money you have. Financial freedom is when you have power over your fears and anxieties instead of the other way around. That's why, in this book, we'll address first the fears, then the finances.

Whatever their circumstances--in debt, working, downsized, afraid of becoming downsized, retired, having just inherited money, having just lost money--my clients invariably arrive with a handful of financial papers and a heart full of anxieties. Like most certified financial planners, I started my practice to help other people with their money, but as time went on, I realized that it was far more than their money (or lack of it) that needed attention. Today new clients arrive expecting me to ask to see their papers. Instead I ask them first to share their fears.

It's never too soon to begin, and it's never too late, no matter how the bottom-line numbers read today on your particular handful of financial papers. This book presents a nine-step process that will take you back into the past, when your attitudes about money were born and began to grow. It will help you face the present honestly and clear the way for you to create a future you will love.

I know it works. As you read this book you will meet others who have taken the steps toward financial freedom--and finally made possible the lives they dreamed about.

You will also see that if I could do it against all odds, so can you. When I was very young I had already learned that the reason my parents seemed so unhappy wasn't that they didn't love each other; it was that they never had quite enough money even to pay the bills. In our house money meant tension, worry, and sorrow. When I was about thirteen my dad owned his own business, a tiny chicken shack where he sold take-out chicken, ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries. One day the oil that the chicken was fried in caught fire. In a few minutes the whole place exploded in flames. My dad bolted from the store before the flames could engulf him. This was when my mom and I happened to arrive on the scene, and we all stood outside watching the fire burn away my dad's business.

All of a sudden my dad realized that he had left his money in the metal cash register inside the building, and I watched in disbelief as he ran back into the inferno, in the split second before anyone could stop him. He tried and tried to open the metal register, but the intense heat had already sealed the drawer shut. Knowing that every penny he had was locked in front of him, about to go up into flames, he literally picked up the scalding metal box and carried it outside. When he threw the register on the ground, the skin on his arms and chest came with it.

He had escaped the fire safely once, untouched. Then he voluntarily risked his life and was severely injured. The money was that important. That was when I learned that money is obviously more important than life itself.

From that point on, earning money, lots of money, not only became what drove me professionally, but also became my emotional priority. Money became, for me, not the means to a life rich in all kinds of ways; money became my singular goal.

Years later this kid from the South Side of Chicago was a broker with a huge investment firm. I was rich, richer than I could have imagined. And I realized I was profoundly unhappy; the money hadn't bought or brought me happiness. So if money wasn't the key to happiness, what was? It was then that I began a quest, which has taken me deep into the meaning of life--and the meaning of money.

I don't know if I have discovered the meaning of life, but I have learned a great deal about what money can and cannot do. And it can do a lot. Your money will work for you, and you will always have enough--more than enough--when you give it energy, time, and understanding. 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. Sometimes it's fatter, sometimes it's skinnier, sometimes it doesn't feel so good and needs special nurturing. But if you tend it like the living entity it is, then it will flourish, grow, take care of you for as long as you need it, and look after the loved ones you leave behind.

Most of us already know at least some of the steps we could take to free ourselves from money anxieties--we could manage our debt better, arrange for our children's education, strategically plan now for later, protect what we've saved, save more. Yet most of us are paralyzed, too, when it comes to actually taking these steps, however wise they seem, however much we think we really want to take control.

What good will it do you to know what you should do, if you can't do it?

The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom: A Preview
The first steps of this book take you back to discover why you don't do the things you know you should do and bring you beyond that--to where you can take action. These steps will free you to open up a dialogue about money with your parents, your children, and, most important, yourself. The next three steps are the laws of managing money. These laws are must-do's. They cover everything from wills and trusts and what insurance you need (and don't need) to new ways to think about debt and your 401(k) or retirement plan to how to invest and what to invest in. They teach you why you must trust yourself more than you trust anyone else with your money.

The goal of these particular steps is to make you as independent from financial advisers as possible. Over the years, 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. If, later on, they choose to entrust their money to someone else, with these steps they would no longer be able to be taken advantage of by an unscrupulous adviser--or by their unwillingness to face up to the facts and figures of their own finances. Once you take these steps, you will discover the exhilaration that comes from wanting to deal with your money, not just having to deal with it.

The last three steps take you beyond the realm of finances, to the wealth that money can't buy.

When it comes to money, freedom starts to happen when what you do, think, and say are one. You'll never be free if you say that you have more than enough, then act as if and think you don't. You'll never be free if you think you don't have enough, then act as if and say you do. You will have enough when you believe you will and take the actions to express that belief. And you'll have more than enough when you realize that you can be rich at any income because you are more than your money, you are more than your job or title, than the car you drive or the clothing you wear. Your own power and worth are not judged by what money can sell and what money can buy; true freedom cannot be bought or sold at any price. True freedom, true wealth, is that which can never be lost.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The words that seem to come up most often when people describe Suze Orman are "intense" and "passionate." These two qualities come through clearly in her inspiring book The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. A financial adviser since the early '70s, Orman has come to believe that many of her clients know perfectly well what they ought to be doing to manage their money but still somehow neglect to do it. Taking readers back to their past to unearth their earliest memories of money and encouraging them to confront the fears that hold them back from taking action, Orman hopes to convince readers that they do have the power to control their money and their lives.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Financial expert Suze Orman is changing the way America thinks about money. She outlines a revolutionary approach to the way we save money, handle debt, and plan for our retirement. By examining and understanding our earliest attitudes toward money, we can honestly confront where we stand financially and take the necessary action toward financial freedom. Orman deals with managing money responsibly, handling credit card debt, planning for our retirement, trusts versus wills and more. You will understand why learning to trust yourself more than others is crucial.

SYNOPSIS

From planning for retirement to saving for a child's education to getting a better grasp on expenses, this breakthrough personal financial book is both a rich source of useful financial advice and a liberating program to end forever the money worries that stand in the way of a more fully satisfying and rewarding life. Her down-to-earth personality and accessible message has connected Suze Orman with TV viewers on CNN, CNBC, and Fox After Breakfast. Now she makes her unique approach to controlling money available to readers with this non-traditional financial planning guide.

FROM THE CRITICS

BUST Magazine

It's easy to make fun of all this spiritual accounting stuff, but in the end, the book is actually extremely useful, even vital....Perhaps none of us will ever stop worrying, as promised in the book's subtitle. But The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom goes a long way towards that, and towards reconfiguring women's attitude towards wealth and power. Charge it today!

Robert Barker - BusinessWeek Magazine

Nestled inside [Orman's] cocoon of human-potential bunk are fine chapters on estates, trusts, and insurance—the three deadliest topics on earth—which she handles deftly. The book's single-best section, How To Be a Stockbroker, is a must reading if you use or are tempted to use a full-service broker.

Library Journal - Lucy T. Heckman, St. John's University Library, Jamaica, NY