Consumer spending may be down, but desire apparently isn’t. They want $8,000 sewing machines and $2,800 custom closets and $5,000 minitractors, and sometimes they reach out to Suze Orman, the ubiquitous, telegenic personal-finance expert and beg her for permission to indulge.

　　Early in March, a woman called into “The Suze Orman Show,” one of CNBC’s top draws, and told Orman that she wanted to build an outdoor kitchen. The cost: $3,000 to $5,000. Orman, sitting in the CNBC studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., expressed some skepticism.