Jean Chatzky

Hi, I’m Jean.

Jean Chatzky recording the HerMoney podcast

It’s great to meet you.

I’m the founder and CEO of HerMoney and the host of “HerMoney with Jean Chatzky.” I’m also a columnist for AARP, a coach on the PBS TV show Opportunity Knocks and a research fellow with the LIMRA Retirement Income Institute.

Previously, I spent 25 years as the Financial Editor on NBC’s Today Show and was a contributor to Oprah. I’m an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and a fierce advocate for financial literacy.

My book is The Forever Paycheck: The New Retirement Strategy to Spend More, Worry Less and Never Run Out Of Money (Avery, September 2026). Find me at HerMoney.com or @JeanChatzky everywhere.

To invite me to speak at your event, discuss a partnership, or ask any other question, please fill out the form below and we’ll get back to you.



    Trusted by

    • AARP
    • Fidelity
    • TODAY
    • Charles Schwab
    • Corebridge Financial

    Let’s create the perfect speech for your community. My core topics include:

    1 The Forever Paycheck: The New Retirement Strategy to Spend More, Worry Less, and Never Run Out of Money

    There comes a time in our financial lives when we stop earning and have to ask ourselves: What now? What happens after we’ve shoved money into our retirement accounts for decades and have to deal with trying to make the money last as long as we do? The answer, it turns out, is really complicated. Spending is not just hard tactically (and the landscape of the markets combined with required minimum distributions, Medicare penalties, and the desire to take care of people and causes we love makes it so). It’s also a bit of a nightmare psychologically, particularly for people who were taught never to spend their principal, but even for those who weren’t. The result: 20 years into retirement, a recent survey showed people had only spent 12% of their balances on average. Jean Chatzky spent the last two years puzzling out a solution that I think makes sense — the answer is a Forever Paycheck. It’s not the same for everyone of course. It’s nuanced based on the personality and resources of the reader. But as an early reader of Jean’s new book by the same title said: “A Forever Paycheck… who doesn’t want one of those?” In this presentation, she’ll break it down in a way that is easy to understand, easy to follow and easy to incorporate into your financial life.

    2 Women And Money: Create The Joyful, Less-Stressed, Purposeful (And, Yes, Rich) Life You Deserve

    When it comes to money, women are different. Not just by the numbers — the pay gap combined with breaks from the workforce to care for kids and older parents results in lower retirement balances which have to last for women’s longer lifetimes — which are challenging enough. But when it comes to what we want to do with our money, and what we need it to do for us. In this candid, often funny speech, Jean talks through a three-part plan that involves understanding yourself in relationship to money, how the need for safety and security (while understandable) can hold women back, why investing for the long-term is non-negotiable, and how to use the rewards you reap to accomplish the other things women want most including establishing a legacy, being able to take care of the people we love, and feeling free to enjoy this life that we’ve built.

    3 AgeProof: Living Longer Without Running Out Of Money Or Breaking A Hip

    There’s no getting around this truth: Health and money are inextricably linked. If you don’t have good health, it will inevitably wreak havoc on your financial life. And if you haven’t built a solid financial foundation, staying healthy will eventually become a problem — particularly as you age. That’s why Jean teamed up with Dr. Michael Roizen, chief of wellness at the Cleveland Clinic, to create this multi-part plan to address both challenges at once. The best news: The same strategies work to improve both areas of your life. In this speech based on their New York Times Bestselling Book, Jean will talk through assessing your finances and your health (you can’t start until you know where you are), why automation is the magic bullet that makes your financial life much easier, a strategy for building a strong team to help you and the other steps to take today to start to become AgeProof.

    4 5 Steps To Lasting Financial Resilience

    If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that resilience — the ability to adjust to or recover quickly from difficult situations — is not just some nice-to-have skill. It’s a necessity. Fortunately, it’s also a skill you can learn and build over time by taking some very specific steps. In this speech custom crafted for coming out of the pandemic, Jean takes us through a seven-point plan to create a resilient financial life that will go the distance. She talks about the need for sufficient savings and how to build them (or rebuild them if you’ve used them during recent months), how to invest to meet your goals (so that you’re not worried about the whims of the markets), how to protect the people you love most with the appropriate insurance and an estate plan that checks all the boxes, and how and why giving back is a key to lasting happiness.

    5 How to Money: Your Ultimate Guide to the Basics of Finance

    There’s no getting around it. You need to know how to manage money to know how to manage life — but many of us don’t! In this upbeat talk, crafted with younger women in mind, Jean breaks down the basics of money — how to earn it, manage it, and use it — giving you all the tools you need to take charge and be fearless with personal finance. Specifically, How to Money will cover creating a budget (and sticking to it), negotiating for that next salary with aplomb, navigating student loan repayment, how to manage your credit for lifelong success, and investing for your short and long-term goals. All so you can earn more, save smart, invest wisely, borrow only when you have to, and enjoy everything you’ve got!

    My money philosophy

    I come to the world of money believing that if I have been able to learn to manage my money successfully – and I have – then anyone who is willing to put a little effort into it should be able to accomplish this too. That’s because I came to personal finance not as an economist or a financial planner but as a journalist who dug into the topic of money to get my own money in order as well as to earn a paycheck.

    I’ve come to understand that there are really only five things you need to do – consistently and habitually – in order to live comfortably:

    1. You need to earn a decent living. Decent, not outlandish. Earning more than you need to live comfortably is nice, but it doesn’t necessarily increase your happiness.
    2. You need to spend less than you make. Learning to do this is difficult – particularly during cycles when credit is free flowing. And retrenching if you’ve overdone it can take time. But it’s absolutely possible and I can help you get there.
    3. You need to save, then invest. All the money that you’re not spending needs to work as hard for you as you work yourself.
    4. You need to protect the financial world you’ve built for yourself. With both insurance and a basic estate plan, you can ensure that no disaster – large or small – can take it all away from you and the people who depend on you.
    5. And finally, you need to give back in a way that is meaningful to you. For some people this will mean giving money, for others money and time. It’s key. People who give back are happier, healthier and, in ways not limited to money, wealthier. They get a psychological boost that is difficult to achieve in any other way.

    Everything else is just icing on the cake.

    My story

    When I look back on my life as a whole, the work I do makes perfect sense. Take it piece by piece, though, and you might be surprised. Read more