Truth and Honesty: 30 Minutes with Suze Orman

As the eighth anniversary of The Suze Orman Show approaches, we sat down with the personal finance guru to discuss the story behind her success — both personally and professionally — her approach to life and money, and what keeps her going when the alarm goes off at 5:15 each morning.

CNBC: When you started out at Merrill Lynch in 1980, did you ever think you'd be as successful as you are today?

Suze: No. If you remember the story correctly, I never thought I would continue with Merrill Lynch because the manager who hired me told me I would be out of there in six months because women, in his opinion, belonged barefoot and pregnant. And he hired me to fill his women's quota, so this is beyond my wildest dreams.

And in spite of him, you were successful — you even left and started your own business, but you had a little bit of a rough time financially. In fact, I was reading the story in your book "The Laws of Money" about you getting a $40 speeding ticket you couldn't afford to pay. I'm just curious, was that the point that you formulated the basis of the Suze money strategy we see today?

The money strategy you see today came from many things. It came from me sitting in a Denny's restaurant in Emeryville, Calif., with my fancy Cartier watch on, and my leased BMW outside and my Armani clothes, having $250,000 in credit card debt and knowing the waitress waiting on me had more money than I did because there was no way she had so much debt.
And that's when I realized I was living a financial lie, that everybody thought I was this wildly successful financial advisor, but here I was really penniless and powerless. Then as I started to turn my financial life around because I was honest with everybody and told them what I didn't have more than what I had, then I started to notice the same traits within my clients, that they weren't honest, they weren't doing the things that they should be doing either. So it all came about one client and one personal experience at a time.

So it really was those basics that got you where you are today.

Yes, absolutely.

And you still live by those basics today, even though you're significantly better off?

You know, money's a funny thing. When you don't have money there are all these things you want. When you have more money than you know what to do with, those things really don't matter. You can look at them and for a minute say you want them, but then all of a sudden, some intelligent gene takes charge in your head and you don't go along with it.

The key to my life has always been: When do you buy what you need versus what you can afford when you can afford more than what you need? And I've never needed a large home — now, I have five homes, but they're all relatively very small homes — so, I'm not somebody who went out to buy a $10 million home when a $1 million home would've done.

I do really live within my means. I have absolutely no debt. If I don't have the money to write a check, then I can't afford it. I never, ever, ever spend old money, so I'm only allowed by my own standards to buy something new with new money that comes in. So, if I sell a home, I can't take that money to buy a new home. That money I already had, that goes into the investment account. If I want to buy a new home, it has to be with new money that comes in.

About three years ago, you estimated your personal worth at roughly $30 million. That was before the crash, and you were pretty heavily invested in muni bonds, a lot of real estate — both of those took a pretty big hit. How are you financially today?

Actually, I didn't take a big hit. My municipal bond portfolio is up significantly, significantly — not just a little — significantly. Remember, as people were trying to figure out where else they should put money because interest rates were so low, they started to go into municipal bonds. It actually caused the prices of municipal bonds to go up. I was in good quality bonds, so my net worth has increased, not decreased.

Sounds like you're very glad you weren't heavily invested in the stock market.

Yes. Totally.

Looking back at the eight years you've been on CNBC, what's your favorite moment?

My favorite memory, and I have a lot, but my favorite memory has to be of one person who came on the show who had $35,000 of credit card debt because of Kentucky Fried Chicken wings.

That was a big one for me, because that's when I first started to connect health and wealth. It was a turning point, somehow. Usually there's one thing that I take from every single show that always sticks with me. It doesn't have to be the people's names or even their finances. It's usually an "ah-ha!" moment, whether it's someone looking into the screen and saying "I'm declaring bankruptcy" because they need to and being proud of it, or a wife finally standing up to her husband, or a daughter or a son realizing that they don't want to make the mistakes their parents made.

Almost every moment is my favorite moment, which is why we're still here after eight years. This isn't just a show to me. This really is a mission to help people, and we are.