Today I had the chance along with several other bloggers to chat on the phone with the dynamic financial wizard and TV personality, Suze Orman.  Suze gave us some great advice about saving money and starting businesses in this economy.  Our call today was part of a partnership Suze has with AVON as the financial advisor to all of AVON’s consultants.

Here are three key things I learned from our call with Suze today:

1. Your emergency fund should contain enough money for you to live off of for eight months! I didn’t realize this, I was thinking more four to six months! Very eye-opening.
2. Going back to school? Don’t defer your previous student loans!  Just keep paying them off.  Student loans can almost never be discharged in a bankruptcy filing should you fall on hard times, so get them out of the way NOW.
3. You should never start saving for your kid’s college funds until you are out of credit card debt, have a fully-funded emergency fund, and are putting savings away for your own retirement.  Once you have those things in place, Suze recommends a 529 college savings plan.

For more great financial tips, you can visit Suze’s website – and Suze was kind enough to give all of us and our readers a FREE GIFT!  From now until Midnight on Saturday, April 25th, you can download Suze’s Will & Trust Kit – valued at $2,500 – for FREE!! Here’s how:

Just go to suzeorman.com and click the “Will & Trust Kit” link in the blue bar on the left-hand side of the home page. Click the orange “Gift Code” button and enter “Moms Rule” into the gift code field. Click the green “Submit” button and follow the instructions to redeem your free copy of the Will & Trust Kit.

I did this immediately and am already more than halfway done filling out my will & trust!  Thanks Suze, for the great call today and the great gift.