{"id":1706,"date":"2008-03-26T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/26\/suze-ormans-ultimate-protection-portfolio-and-a-do-it-yourself-alternative\/"},"modified":"2019-08-13T20:37:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T03:37:42","slug":"suze-ormans-ultimate-protection-portfolio-and-a-do-it-yourself-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/suze-ormans-ultimate-protection-portfolio-and-a-do-it-yourself-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"Suze Orman&#8217;s ultimate protection portfolio (and a do-it-yourself alternative)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the past few months, I&#8217;ve been pursuing a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/in-pursuit-of-paperless-personal-finance\/\">paperless personal finance<\/a> system. I&#8217;ve scheduled electronic transactions with my bank, and I scan important documents when I receive them. My method is still very much in &#8220;beta&#8221;, but I hope to write about it later this year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ormanprotection.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"210\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\"\/>My sister-in-law, Tiffany, isn&#8217;t a computer geek, but she&#8217;s been trying to get her financial documents organized, too. So when she saw an advertisement for Suze Orman&#8217;s Ultimate Protection Portfolio, she figured it was worth $66.24 to make her life a little easier. She ordered the kit, and has spent the past week putting it to use. When I dropped by her house today, she showed me the system.<\/p>\n<h2>The Ultimate Protection Portfolio<\/h2>\n<p>The Suze Orman Ultimate Protection Portfolio comes in a big blue plastic case, which is ostensibly water-resistant. (I didn&#8217;t actually put this to the test.) Inside the case are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A custom accordion-file system with ten pockets designated for specific areas of your personal finances. The outside of each pocket contains &#8220;Suze&#8217;s Advice and Checklist&#8221; for that particular topic. For example, the Credit\/Debt pouch advises, &#8220;Review your credit report at least once a year to make sure all information is accurate.&#8221; The pockets are wide and cozy and will contain a lot of information.<\/li>\n<li>Ten short booklets with topics corresponding to the the pockets in the accordion file. Each booklet is 48 pages long (except Estate Planning, which has 80 pages) and contains a brief overview of the topic. The Investment Records booklet, for example, covers financial advisers, mutual funds, and risk tolerance (or &#8220;fear factor&#8221; as Orman calls it). The information in these booklets is from 2005.<\/li>\n<li>A Protection Portfolio CD-ROM containing financial forms, record-keeping software, and a tool to help draft a will. You <i>must<\/i> have an active internet connection to use this software.<\/li>\n<li>A special integrated organizer with pockets for passports, social security cards, and more.<\/li>\n<li>A variety of forms and checklists, including an emergency contact list.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a lot of stuff,&#8221; I told Tiffany. &#8220;I can see how it would be nice to have everything in one place. What do you think of it?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do like the fact that everything&#8217;s in one place,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But this is an expensive way to do it. I don&#8217;t regret buying it, but I do feel like I could have made something similar myself for less money. It might be worth it if the books were any good, but I think they&#8217;re lame.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can see that,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I looked through a few of them. They information is solid, but it seems pretty basic. And they tend to skip over a lot. I think they&#8217;re just designed to get people started.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>A Do-It-Yourself Alternative<\/h2>\n<p>Tiffany was probably right when she said she could make something similar for less money. The Ultimate Protection Portfolio is worth the $66.24 if it motivated her to get things organized, but in retrospect there were cheaper options available:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At its heart, the Suze Orman Ultimate Protection Portfolio is simply a good old-fashioned expanding file. We probably have one in the garage. Maybe you do, too. Even if I had to buy one new, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0006VNTD8\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon has a variety for around $10<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The ten booklets seem excessive. With a quick trip to the public library, you can pick up many great <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/building-a-personal-finance-library-25-of-the-best-books-about-money\/\">personal finance books<\/a> for free. (They probably even have a couple Suze Orman books, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1594482241\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous &amp; Broke<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/030734584X\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nine Steps to Financial Freedom<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li>You can buy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1401918999\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Suze Orman&#8217;s Will &amp; Trust Kit<\/a> for $13.57 from Amazon. It&#8217;s even sub-branded &#8220;The Ultimate Protection Portfolio&#8221;, so I&#8217;m willing to bet it&#8217;s the same software.<\/li>\n<li>Instead of an integrated organizer with pockets for your passport and other important items, you can simply stick these all in a large zip-loc freezer bag and place them in one of the slots of your expanding file.<\/li>\n<li>You can find many free, printable emergency forms on the web, including these at Organized Home. If you own a copy of Quicken, it may actually contain an Emergency Records Organizer utility. Often it&#8217;s most convenient simply create your own.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For about $25, you can build your own custom emergency records portfolio. I admit that this system won&#8217;t be water-resistant, and it won&#8217;t have Suze Orman&#8217;s advice, but I&#8217;m willing to bet that you won&#8217;t notice the difference. You&#8217;ll still have peace of mind knowing all your important household and financial documents are in one easy-to-reach central location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the past few months, I&#8217;ve been pursuing a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/in-pursuit-of-paperless-personal-finance\/\">paperless personal finance<\/a> system. I&#8217;ve scheduled electronic transactions with my bank, and I scan important documents when I receive them. My method is still very much in &#8220;beta&#8221;, but I hope to write about it later this year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ormanprotection.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"210\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\"\/>My sister-in-law, Tiffany, isn&#8217;t a computer geek, but she&#8217;s been trying to get her financial documents organized, too. So when she saw an advertisement for Suze Orman&#8217;s Ultimate Protection Portfolio, she figured it was worth $66.24 to make her life a little easier. She ordered the kit, and has spent the past week putting it to use. When I dropped by her house today, she showed me the system.<\/p>\n<h2>The Ultimate Protection Portfolio<\/h2>\n<p>The Suze Orman Ultimate Protection Portfolio comes in a big blue plastic case, which is ostensibly water-resistant. (I didn&#8217;t actually put this to the test.) Inside the case are:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[484,496],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}