suze orman Archives - Bankers Anonymous

I admire Suze Orman’s delivery of a financial fix-up book to an important group that needs help. The target audience – described succinctly in the title – clearly needs advice from somewhere.

In The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke she addresses the educated twenty-something who’s just started a working-career but has dug him or herself a financial hole early-on. As I am in the process of writing a personal finance book for a similar demographic, I paid particular attention to her techniques and knowledge.

I can’t fault the advice – pay off high-interest credit cards, try to find meaningful work you don’t hate, remember to ask for a raise, scrimp and save wherever you can, know your FICO score, and try to avoid bankruptcy if you possibly can because the consequences are long-lasting and serious.

All this seems basically correct. The advice is sound.

In addition, she fills at least half of every chapter with an accessible question-and-answer format – “I’m thinking of filing bankruptcy, here’s my balance sheet, etc, should I?” “I co-signed for my friend’s credit card account, now the collection agencies are calling, etc, what should I do?” All good and useful.

Here’s the problem: I would personally never pick up this book, and it’s mostly because of the tone. I find her ‘hipness’ robotic and forced. Not that I am hip personally and have a hip platform from which to judge others’ hipness, but I’d like to think I at least own my non-hipness.[1]

Suze Orman’s hipness seems to be a calculated, search-engine optimized, consultant-approved uber-casual hipness that sounds the opposite of casual. You know those fifty-somethings who use the lingo wrong? Or slightly too earnestly? That’s the tone of Young Fabulous & Broke.

I’m not even the youthful audience she’s addressing, and I found this to be nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying.

How can I explain this off-putting tone problem? Ah, I have found a way!

The applicable cliché: A picture is worth a thousand words.[2]

Check out the cover of this book.