Friday Reads Special Edition – Suze Orman gets burnt!

One of the most talk about and highly debatable topics over the week is definitely Suze Orman’s interview with Paula Pant. In case you are wondering what the whole saga is about, basically, Suze has become the common enemy for many FIRE believers by saying that she hates the movement and that people in this movement have no idea what they are what to.

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

However, I thought that for this week’s Friday reads, I will provide a curated list of some of my personal favourite responses to the interview.

Go get burnt!

Why Suze Orman is Clueless about the FIRE Movement (Millennial Revolution) 

“Throughout all of human history, any idea or invention of any significance, whether it’s airplanes, the Internet, or, as her rather brilliant smack-down suggests, fire (actual fire, not the acronym), can have some serious downsides if used improperly. If you light a fire and don’t know how to control it, then yes. I agree with her. You could get burnt very, very badly. But fire is a great example, because nobody can disagree that discovering fire has impacted humanity tremendously positively. How was this possible? Because we learned how to control it.”

Financial Independence – What’s the Point? (Vicki Robbins) 

“I am not retired in that I love to work, to use my intuition, instincts and intelligence to continually know myself and the world better and to do projects that feel like my calling. I believe work is our birthright. Work is applying ourselves to tasks that have meaning and matter to others – and it’s our joy to do this. Of course many of us have utterly lost any connection to this definition of work. Work for far too many of us is a job… is a paycheck… is a sacrifice the hours of our lives to activities that may harm us body and soul.”

What Everybody Is Getting Wrong About FIRE (Mr Money Mustasche) 

“It’s a system of living your best life in all ways rather than just the financial, based on our best understanding of human nature, with a bit of math and science behind it. Like science itself, it’s not a dogma or a religion, but more of a self-aware system that invites questions and experiments. It’s always open for modification or improvement, but like science itself, there’s nothing for a rational person to hate. Who hates learning?”

The Relationship Between Compound Interest and Time (Four Pillar Finance) 

“The answer to Suze’s question: “If you stop working early, how do you take advantage of your compounding years?” is that you don’t take advantage of your compounding years because you don’t need to. With a high enough savings rate, you don’t need to rely on compound interest to fuel your net worth growth.”

Suze Orman Hates What I am Doing (43 Blue Doors) 

“We don’t plan to have to go back to work. If opportunities come up and it is something that either of us wants to do because it is meaningful to us, we won’t be averse to taking them – some might even pay us for doing it. The pay, however, won’t be our deciding factor. We know that anything can happen and we are ready to roll with whatever is required. Part of what gives me confidence in the face of disaster is that I’ve faced it before and have found a way out. I know my personal worth is not based on my net financial worth.”

And just to commemorate the Suze Orman episode, here’s a quote from her, which I think is pretty good.