Plat Forms

Another reason many people were reluctant to think they couldn’t take advantage of a money-market account is that they thought they didn’t have enough money to open one or that they wouldn’t always have the minimum it takes to keep one open. Not necessarily the case. Many funds don’t require all that much to open them, don’t charge high fees if your balance drops, and don’t require a minimum balance. They’re smart. They know that just by opening the account, you’re on your way.
When I first became a broker, most of—in fact, all—my clients had far more money than I did. It felt funny to me sitting there, with my $2,000 of Macy’s credit card debt hanging over me, telling people what to do with their money. But I decided that since they had so much more than I did, I should listen to them as much as advise them. My dad always said, “Suze, when in doubt, do what someone who is successful does.” So when this CMA account came along, and I had never seen so many rich people jump on something so fast, I thought, Okay, I need to get myself one, too.
But who had $20,000? None of my friends did, but when
told them about the account, they all wanted one as much as
did. So we came up with a scheme. We needed $20,000 to open the account (today you can find other great ones for far less,
noted on page 180), so we decided to pool all our money
come up with about $1,000 more than the minimum needed. First one person would take all the money to open an account, then one week later withdraw all but maybe $100 (once opened, there’s no minimum balance, remember?). Then the next person would do the same thing, and so it went, all the way down the line. When the last person had her account,
the money was given back to its rightful owners and deposited into our correlating money-market accounts.
We were all so proud. Most of us had gone in with about $3,000, and we knew that the $100 fee was nothing
pay to get all the advantages and the 18 percent interest rate back in 1980. Most of us still came out $440 ahead that year, and that was a lot of money. (If I had known better back then I would have had everyone sign a promissory note or some documentation showing what belonged to whom, in case something happened to the one who had all the money.)