I’ve been reading about the big financial gurus for a long time now and I’ve come to some conclusions about their plans. I just read an article on MSN Money about Suze Orman’s personal finances, and it reminded me that I’d been meaning to write a post on this topic.

The question raised in the article was whether Suze Orman is out of touch with the financial needs of her followers. This is a good question. Although the article focuses primarily on her own investments and the fact that they seem to be far too conservative for most investors, I think what’s more interesting is the advice she gives about budgeting and paying off debts.

Let me first say that I like the motivational part of her approach to getting out of debt. I’m also a fan of Dave Ramsey’s exuberance for achieving financial freedom. Getting out from under the tremendous burden of debt is a great financial goal. They offer some good basic advice, but there are some things I take issue with from a practical standpoint.

It’s great that these charismatic people are able to make lots of money from dispensing advice, but sometimes their advice is a little out of touch with the average person. Most people weren’t making six figure salaries or more before they got into financial trouble and will have a much more difficult time working their way out of debt than the gurus did. That’s not to say that this advice can’t be followed by the average person, but for most of us, it’s not going to be nearly as easy and it will take far longer to achieve.

If you’re not making a big salary, it’s generally going to take much longer to get out of financial trouble than it took to get into it. The very most basic essentials of life cost a certain amount which differs according to where you live. Say this amount is $25,000 per year for a family of four in the place where you live.

If you’re making $26,000 and have $10,000 worth of debt, even with getting a second job delivering pizzas like Dave Ramsey suggests, it’s going to take you years to get your debts paid down. This will be years of living a very difficult and stressful life if you’re working many extra hours a week. A lot of times it’s not as simple as working a second job for a few months or trimming 10% off of your budget.

And don’t think you’re going to have a lot of time and money for going to school to get a degree or training for a new job that pays more. Come on, when are you going to have time for that? Also, even if you have financial aid to pay for school or reimbursement from your employer, what about books and supplies? It’s not so simple as the gurus sometimes make this out to be.

One more thing that I have a problem with is that the financial gurus often suggest budgeting your expenditures by writing down every penny that you spend. While this would be the ideal way of getting control of your spending, it’s very difficult to do in practice, especially with the hectic lifestyle dictated by working two or more jobs and taking care of a family.

I know the tone of this post is pretty dismal. I don’t want to come off as being negative about financial freedom, but I do want to take a good hard look at what it really takes to get control of your finances. This is a huge problem for many people and when presented with the options of tedious budgeting and working extreme hours as the primary solutions, many people will just give up the same way many dieters give up after a few weeks of torturous self-denial with the latest fad diet.

This post is getting pretty long so I’m going to continue in another post.