Got Change for a Million?

NEW YORK - Financial guru and best-selling author Suze Orman says she wishes she could marry her partner Kathy Travis, partly because it would save them both a lot of money.

"Both of us have millions of dollars in our name," she told The New York Times Magazine in its Feb. 25 edition. "It's killing me that upon death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa."

In a wide-ranging interview, the host of CNBC's "The Suze Orman Show" talked about her seven-year relationship with Travis and her personal finances. With a liquid net worth of about $25 million and real estate holdings of $7 million, Orman said she enjoys spending money and playing the stock market. She said she has about a million dollars in the market, "because if I lose a million dollars, I don't personally care."

Cool. Allow us to harken back to Sunday's post for a little perspective.

Meanwhile, here's a woman who gives out financial advice on the TV and in book form. Can you really trust your finances to someone who is so out of touch that she doesn't care about a million dollars? Her attitude kind of goofs with the whole "fiscally responsible" deal, doesn't it? Do I really want someone with such a cavalier attitude about her own money in charge of mine?

And, while we're at it ... where does love fall in the balance sheet of Suze's issues? People all over the country have been fighting for the right to marry the person they love in some form of civil union or another, and this one wants to get married so she won't lose half of what she has in estate taxes. How lucky for them that they found someone to love - who also happens to be in their tax bracket. Oooh ... the goose pimples. Well, as long as you have your priorities straight ... so to speak.

Besides, if you're dead, you'll lose half your fortune to estate taxes and you won't personally care. Because you'll be dead.