Suze Orman spoke with Larry King about the AIG bailout.  I very much enjoy Suze’s show and her books, so I’m always interested to hear what she has to say.  For those of you not interested in the article itself, she basically says that she thinks the bailout was a good idea, but this particular section caught my eye:

“King: Is this a good time to get into the market?”

“Orman: No. It’s not a good time to get in with brand-new money. I would let these markets kind of wash themselves out. On the other hand, if you’re investing in a 401k every month with small amounts of money, that’s OK as long as you don’t need the money for 10, 15, 20 years. If you just got an inheritance and you have $50,000, should you be putting it in the stock market now? Are you kidding? These are the markets that you just sit on the sidelines and wait on the sidelines and stay away from them until everything works out.”

I thought this was a very interesting point, since I feel like the lesson is often “Buy low!  Sell high!”  Of course, we can’t guarantee that we’re actually at the low point of the market right now. 

This weekend, while watching Suze’s show, she said another thing that surprised me.  She was talking with a couple who put money into a Roth IRA and the fund they chose ultimately tanked.  Their problem was letting their advisor put all of their money into one fund rather than diversifying, but she also told them that they should have pulled their money from that fund much earlier (before it lost 70%).  I was quite surprised to hear that about a retirement account, to be honest.

Based on a lot of this information, I made what I hope is not a rash decision earlier this week.  In my TSP (government version of a 401(k)), I had been investing in a target retirement date fund.  Which has now lost 15% over the past year.  Not the world’s best return.  So I pulled all my money from that fund and divided it between the two TSP fund options that actually had positive returns over the past year.  The returns are not great, and I would be getting better returns just putting my money into an ING Direct Savings Account.  Of course, that’s not exactly an option for a TSP or 401(k) (plus I wouldn’t be getting the match). 

I’m not sure if this was the smartest decision or not.  i don’t need my retirement funds for a long time.  But it has been so disheartening to watch the money disappearing.  As soon as it looks like the market is going to swing back upward and start to recover, I plan to move the funds from the “safe” funds again.  But it will be nice to not see that number plummeting every month.

My Roth IRA is another story.  I’m just letting that ride for now. 

I’m easily 30 years from retirement, so I’m not sure that I needed to move my TSP funds.  But along the same lines, I’m easily 30 years from retirement, so will moving the funds now make that big of a difference later?  Thinking along those lines, if I feel better about moving the money and seeing it grow a tiny bit rather than plummet like crazy, then perhaps it’s the best decision for the moment after all.

I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m quickly realizing just how much this book applies to me. While I feel that I am responsible with my money, I shy away from taking the initiative to actually better my financial situation in many instances.

For example, one of the things Suze mentioned is that many women won’t push their bosses for a raise. Even if they find out that they are paid less money than some of their counterparts, they won’t fight for what they deserve. Sure, some of us will go to our supervisor and ask, but when the supervisor says “Well, we just can’t afford that right now,” or “We’ll talk about it at your review,” we just take that answer at face value and don’t do any thing else about it. I do the same thing. When I was hired at my current job, I was promised a specific raise after I’ve been here a year. There were five of us hired with the same deal. Now, we’re hearing that may not be the case. It frustrates me, but at the same time, what am I doing about it? Not a whole lot. I also discovered that I am one of the lowest paid members of my team. I’m also one of the newest, so that’s not entirely unexpected, but in terms of education and skills, I do stand out a bit. This should be something else to include in my argument for the promised raise. But again, I just don’t bring it up. I’ve mentioned it once, and then sort of let it get swept under the rug.

Therefore, a goal for the coming weeks is to talk with my supervisor about this situation and find out exactly what is going on and what I can do to prove that I deserve this raise.

I also realize that I am entirely too generous with my money, even when I don’t want to be. Right now, I have a friend (who is really more of an acquaintance) staying with me while she job hunts. She doesn’t have a timeline for how long she will be staying with me, but I think it could be up to a month (or even more). I don’t mind that she’s staying in my home. I have an extra bedroom and I am happy to share my space. I don’t expect her to pay rent at all.

It is starting to bother me, however, that she isn’t really pitching in for groceries. Admittedly, this may be bothering me because this month, I decided to really tighten my budget now that I’m using the YNAB system, and because I do have some larger expenses coming up that I am saving for. After she had been here a few days and hadn’t purchased any groceries (and even went with me to the store, watched me buy the groceries to make dinner, and didn’t pitch in), I casually asked her how she wanted to deal with groceries, and she said she was going to pick up some things. That’s all fine and good, except that she still expects me to provide her dinner, which for me, tends to be the most expensive meal of the day. And even though it grates on me that she expects me to provide for her, I still don’t say anything.

Not only is this not great for my financial health, it also isn’t good for our relationship. Because of this, I am letting her other habits grate on me as well. Maybe I would be more willing to put up with the fact that she doesn’t do dishes or use coasters and gets food on the floor if she were paying her own way.

Or maybe she’s just a bad houseguest. Either way, I should say something about the fact that right now, my budget doesn’t allow for me to be feeding two people instead of just one. I shouldn’t let my emotions play into it. I owe it to myself to be honest about my finances. I think I feel some sort of responsibility to take care of her, as she is a guest in my house, which is something women are all too quick to do, and then we just get taken advantage of. I need to learn to stand up for myself and for my bank account

Also, there’s a new article by Suze on Yahoo Finance.