Suze Orman's Risky Financial Advice: What to Avoid

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Suze Orman is a popular financial guru and TV personality who is always ready with advice on how to manage your money. And while many of her suggestions for managing personal finances are good ones, she's given some advice that I absolutely would not follow.

Specifically, Orman advised her audience during CNBC's Power Lunch to, "Stop doing the things that’s wasting your money and makes your life easier." Orman said that doing things like dining out makes your life easier in the moment but eventually makes your life harder because the spending adds up.

While this may sound like good advice, here's why I wouldn't follow it.

Money is a tool, and making your life easier is sometimes smart

I wouldn't follow Orman's advice about not "wasting" money on things that make life easier, for a few different reasons.

First, you work hard for your money, and it's meant to be used as a tool to enjoy your life. Now, this doesn't mean that you should spend it frivolously or buy a bunch of things that you don't need. And you do need to save enough for:

• An emergency fund
• Retirement
• Big purchases

Doing these things are all part of using your money as a tool to enjoy life.

While you need to be responsible with your spending and avoid getting into credit card debt, you can and should be able to use your income for things that improve your overall happiness and well-being -- both in the short and long run. Otherwise, there's no real benefit to earning money. After all, if you aren't using it to improve your life and make it easier, what's the point of earning it?

Second, eliminating the things that "make your life easier" is likely going to be unsustainable in the long run. If dining out, lattes, and everything you previously enjoyed gets cut out of your budget, chances are very good that you aren't going to be able to stick to it for any length of time -- and that's when you end up in financial trouble due to unplanned splurges.

My opinion is, rather than avoiding "wasting" money on things that make your life easier, you should budget for those things. Make sure you're saving and investing enough to make your future life easier, rather than just living in the present. But you also need to think about what types of fun spending improve your life the most right now and make room for those things in your budget as well.

If that means you budget for dining out once in a while and sacrifice elsewhere because you are too tired to cook after a long day of work, there's nothing wrong with that -- as long as you've planned for the spending and it isn't putting you into debt. In fact, when you make your budget, you should think about what kinds of spending will do the most to simplify your life and make that a top priority in your budgeting. The things that make your life easier on a day-to-day basis are likely to give you the most value from your hard-earned dollars.

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