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The Long View
Jean Chatzky: What Women Need to Do Differently With Their Money
00:50:13
The Hermoney.com founder discusses how caregiving and longevity affect women’s investing plans, the role of guaranteed income, and the importance of a long-term-care plan.
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- [00:00]
Schwab Trading
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- [00:32]
Morningstar Disclosure
Important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode.
- [00:37]
Christine Benz
Hi and welcome to the Longview. I'm Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning for Morningstar.
- [00:43]
Amy Arnott
And I'm Amy Arnott, Portfolio Strategist with Morningstar.
- [00:47]
Christine Benz
Today on the podcast we welcome back Jean Chatky. Jean is the CEO of HerMoney.com and host of the podcast Her Money with Jeanne Chatky. She has served as the Financial Editor of NBC today for 25 years and is the financial ambassador for AARP. She appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC and was a recurring guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She has written several New York Times bestselling books. Her latest is Women with the Judgment Free Guide to creating the Joyful, less Stressed, purposeful, and yes, rich life you deserve. Jean also appears in my book how to Retire where she talks about retirement planning considerations for women. Jean Chatky, welcome back to the Long.
- [01:32]
Jean Chatzky
Thank you so much for having me.
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Christine Benz
Well, thanks for being here. So we wanted to start by talking about your job today. You're juggling a lot of different activities all the time, it seems. So what are the main initiatives that you're involved in today and how do you allocate your time?
- [01:51]
Jean Chatzky
Well, let me just start by saying I have a wonderful team. Sometimes I think when people talk to people like you and me who have a lot of different things on our plates, they think, oh God, these people must be not sleeping at all. But most of us, many of us, have incredible teams backing us up. My main initiative these days is my company Her Money, where we produce the HerMoney podcast and we also have a couple of coaching programs. Finance Fix is our budgeting cash management program. We just rolled out a pre retirement version of Finance Fix, which is geared for people about 10 years out to help them figure out if they're really on track for the retirement that they want. And we've got our Investing Fix program where Karen Feinerman from CNBC and I are teaching investing to 500 and growing women every other Monday night on Zoom. So I've got that. I am on a PBS television show called Opportunity Knocks. I do some work with a number of corporate clients, and I'm starting to write a new book that I'm not quite ready to talk about yet, but I will be delighted to tell you about it. What it takes More shape so you've.
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Amy Arnott
Got a lot of different irons in the fire, but helping women do better with their money is sort of a through line in a lot of the things that you're doing. But earlier in your career, you started out as a journalist and also spent a couple years working as an equity research analyst. Was there a main catalyst or light bulb moment when you decided to make women and money a key focus of your work?
- [03:50]
Jean Chatzky
The year I turned 40 was not a particularly good year for me. I got divorced, I lost my dad, I got fired and I turned 40, which was not a high point in my life. And it was that year when I really took a step back in terms of my own finances and realized that I needed to not only do it by myself, for myself, but that there were an awful lot of women who didn't have the knowledge base that I did, who needed to do the exact same thing. So I think that was the catalyst where I started to think more about the needs of women and how women are really different. And it's not just the facts and figures, right? We talk a lot about how women still earn frustratingly less money than men do, how we spend fewer years in the workforce because we are the caregivers for kids and older parents, how that results in having less money for retirement when we get to the end of our working lives, and how we have to make that money last longer because we outlive the men in our lives. It's also the fact that we learn best when we are in an environment that makes it comfortable for us to learn. And I had seen that anecdotally as I went out and gave a lot of speeches. When I would speak to a group of women, they couldn't wait to ask questions and tell stories and share what was going on in their lives. When I would speak to a group of men and women, that just didn't happen happen. And so when I launched her money, my goal was to create a safe space where women felt comfortable learning about money. And I have to say, I taught my Investing Fix class last night with Karen. And it's just amazing how these women have they're listening to earnings calls. We're picking stocks, we're asking questions. It's an incredible, incredibly supportive environment, and it's exactly what I was hoping for.
- [06:28]
Christine Benz
So you've probably had more conversations with women about money than anyone on the planet. Can you talk about what is your favorite way to break the ice? It sounds like when you get women in a group together, you don't really need to break the ice, but maybe how do you warm people up so that they feel comfortable talking about their own financial situations?
- [06:49]
Jean Chatzky
So when I get women in a group together, I party game it. I actually developed a deck of cards that has leading questions on it. And we go around, we pick a card, we answer questions, and we talk about things like what's your biggest money fear? And whether or not it's okay to hide money from your significant other in your underwear drawer. I mean, we really get down and dirty. But when I'm talking with a woman, or any person, really, one on one, I use the skills that I learned as a reporter. And that means you give a little to get a little. I share. I do this on my podcast, too. I just talk about my life. Right. I was an English major. I did not grow up knowing a lot about money or being particularly good with my money. In fact, I've had enough conversations with therapists over the years that I'm pretty convinced that I do this for a living because I was trying to fix this part of my own life. And so there's no shame in not knowing what you don't know. Right. I think if we are all willing to admit, yeah, I did that. I made that mistake. I came back from it. Here's what I did to come back from it. Then other people are gonna be more willing to open up about their own lives. It's no different than the year after my mom died. I cooked the Thanksgiving turkey upside down. I just didn't realize what was the breast and what was the not breast. And so it turned out all right. I flipped it eventually when my cousin came over and said, oh, my God, the turkey's upside down. But I tell that story because who hasn't really messed up Thanksgiving?
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Amy Arnott
Yeah. And this is kind of unrelated, but I've heard that there's actually a technique where you can do that on purpose, and you do flip it over toward the end.
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Jean Chatzky
Ah, okay. Good for me.
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Amy Arnott
Anyway.
- [09:04]
Christine Benz
Yeah.
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Amy Arnott
So I'm guessing that a lot of listeners are male financial advisors who would like to do a better job connecting with their women clients. Do you have any tips to share there?
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Jean Chatzky
Oh, boy. I mean, how much time do we have? Yeah. Tip number one, and I say this kindly, is shut up. And the barometer of a good financial advisor, male or female, is that you need to be more interested in the life of your client than you are in showing that client how brilliantly you could handle their financial life. And so ask more questions than you answer. Be empathetic, really care, or at least try to show that you care about the details about what's going on in their lives. It's their money, so it's their goals, it's their dreams, it's their responsibilities, it's their wishes. It's your job to elicit all of those things so that you can help put together a plan to get from wherever they are today to wherever they're going tomorrow. But it starts. It has to start with being curious enough to gather the information. So that's number one. Number two is the world of money has a language all its own. And if you're not comfortable speaking that language, then it becomes very difficult to hear and parse what's being said. So leave a lot of time for questions. Try to get rid of the lingo as much as you possibly can. You know, take breaks and just ask, you know, is that clear? Would you like, you know, do we need to go over that again? How are you understanding what I just said? Ask for things to be repeated back to you so you can tell that people are actually getting them. And then three, if you're dealing with a couple, make sure that you are paying as much attention to both members of that couple as you possibly can. You want it to be even. You want both people to be in the meetings. You want both people to be buying in to whatever vision or plan you're laying out. Otherwise, you're going to put yourself in the situation that research has pointed to where 70% of women leave the financial advisor after the husband dies. And I think that is. I know that that is a huge fear of legacy financial advisors.
- [12:21]
Christine Benz
That's helpful, Jean. I remember, I think it was Michael Kitces had some research that pointed to advisors who were monitored while they were talking to clients. They thought that they were listening much more than they actually were. That when they reviewed the tape, it was like, oh, the advisor's talking way more than he or she thought. So your first point about kind of stepping back and listening, I think is borne out by some of the data. In terms of women's main financial worries you mentioned, that's one of the items in your party deck to get women warmed up. So what are the things that you hear women coming back to in terms of things that they're worried about and how might those differ from how men might be approaching their financial lives?
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Jean Chatzky
The biggest fear that we hear from women over and over again is the fear of running out of money before we run out of time, that we are just going to exhaust our resources before we die. And there are, I think, a lot of long term care fears and paying for long term care fears wrapped up in that. I don't hear the long term care fears as much from men. I certainly don't hear them as much from married men. I think the assumption is that their spouse will take care of them and it's borne out by the data. Right. I mean that if you are pricing out long term care insurance and you can really only afford a policy for one spouse, you should definitely buy it for the woman. There are other fears that are tied into specific family dynamics. I think that many people these days are very afraid for the financial fortunes of their kids, men and women, that our kids are not going to be able to have the lives that we had, not be able to buy homes, not be able to afford retirement, those sorts of things. But if I had to come back to one, it's this overwhelming fear of running out of money.
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Amy Arnott
So we wanted to follow up a little bit about long term care and as you said, that is a big worry for a lot of women. Do you have any general advice for how people should approach long term care or finding long term care insurance which is, you know, difficult to find a policy that's affordable?
- [15:04]
Jean Chatzky
So I think there are two decisions that you have to make. The first is are you going to try to buy some sort of long term care insurance? And I think long term care insurance makes sense for a pretty specific group of people. If you've got more than a handful of millions, couple 3ish million, you can invest your own money, you can pay for your own care. Right. You'll have the resources to be able to do that. In most cases, if you have less than that, significantly less than that, like well under a million, you're probably not going to be able to afford a long term care policy. And at the same time, if you were to need care over a significant period of time, you would exhaust your resources and likely qualified for Medicaid. It's in the middle as well as people with more resources who want to make sure that they leave those resources for the next generation where a long term care policy makes sense. We've seen a Huge reduction in the number of carriers that are writing traditional long term care policies in recent years, as well as really big policy price hikes. People who've had legacy policies have started to get notices from their carriers that their premiums are going up by 10, 20%, sometimes even more than that. And it happens year after year, which makes this market really, really difficult. Where I think we're going with long term care and where it seems to be making sense for most people who want it is with these newer hybrid policies that combine a long term care insurance policy with a life insurance policy or a long term care insurance policy with an annuity. And what that does for people is it sort of gets rid of the argument that, oh, I'm going to pay these premiums for years and what happens if I never need to use it because there's something else there where there would be additional value. This is actually what I bought. I bought a long term care life insurance policy where if I do need to use the benefits, then I'll be able to use the benefits. And if I don't need to use the benefits, then they will be available as life insurance to my kids when I die. So I think that's where if you're looking for insurance, you kind of want to focus your search. And the other thing to realize is you don't have to cover your full need. This is a policy where if you buy some coverage that can get you through a couple of years of at home care or care in a facility, generally, if you play the averages, about three years will be enough.
- [18:31]
Christine Benz
Jean, I wanted to follow up with a related question about long term care, which is that adult daughters are often the caregivers for their elderly parents. You referenced that earlier. That's one of the things that drags on lifetime income. You've examined the impact, financial and otherwise for these adult daughters. I'm sure you've had plenty of conversations with women about this issue. Can you summarize the key impacts?
- [18:57]
Jean Chatzky
MetLife did a study a number of years ago and I think they put that caregiving cost at about $340,000 in lost income. For those who were taking on caregiving, it's a huge impact. And it's not just lost income. It's lost seniority at work, it's lost Social Security credits. It can be very difficult if you take a step out to get back in. And so I think, look, I was not a long term caregiver for either of my parents, but I've seen a number of people go through this and often the question they asked themselves on the other side was, is there an alternative? Would there have been an alternative? And sometimes, even if the cost of care is equal to what you're earning, it can make sense to try to stay in the workforce and find some other way to pay for care out of your salary, out of your resources, rather than take yourself completely off track. You know, when we think about the sandwich generation, there are so many challenges that are going on at the exact same time where we're trying to save for our own retirements, we're trying to save for and then pay for college for our kids, and we're trying, trying to help our older parents. And when it's our own retirement, we can delay it, right? We can just push it back a bit. When it's college for our kids, we don't like to borrow, but we often do, and those resources are certainly available. When it's our parents, sometimes we don't think that there are choices, but I think that there are more than we sometimes take the time to explore.
- [21:16]
Amy Arnott
So you made the point that women whose parents need care should try to stay in the workforce if they possibly can. A related idea, you know, even apart from long term care, is that working longer can often be beneficial, not just financially, but in terms of having more social interaction, having a goal and purpose in life, staying active, et cetera. So if people are able to continue working longer and also maybe not save as much for retirement, but spend a bit more while they're working so that they can travel and spend on things they enjoy, is that something that you encourage people to do?
- [22:04]
Jean Chatzky
Absolutely. And I mean the world of retirement. We need a new word, right? I mean, it's many, many people are working, many people are embarking on this idea of a phased retirement. Some people are dipping in and out, taking sabbaticals, taking adult gap years, whatever you want to call them, I think what we're realizing in a number of ways is that life is just really long, much longer than it was when retirement was originally defined. And that gives us so many choices about what we want to do in our third and fourth acts. Whether we want to earn money, whether we want to start businesses, whether we want to volunteer, whether we want to travel. The one really common thread I think that we're realizing is how important relationships are in all of this. And that staying engaged with other people is what really keeps us happier and healthier and sharp mentally and on track to continue to live this longer, more vital life.
- [23:27]
Christine Benz
Jean, I wanted to ask about that idea of dipping in and out of work. And for women who are thinking that they may want to pull back from work a little bit because they want to be really involved in raising young children, do you have any advice for women at that life stage to make sure that they are minimizing the financial impacts if their plan is to pull back from work during a period of time?
- [23:52]
Jean Chatzky
My strong bias, and I say this knowing that my feelings about this cannot be separated from the fact that I got divorced, is to try to maintain some sort of a foothold in the workforce. It can be part time, it can be very part time. But networks, skills, those sorts of things, once you let go of them, are really, really difficult to jump back into. And it's a lot easier to scale back up if you're even just working a little bit. Look, I know many women who took time off. It's not off. Actually. That is a terrible, terrible way to put it. I know many women because it's not. I mean, I have two kids and parenting is hard and important and a full time job. But I always felt so grateful that I had continued to work because it gave me the ability to write my own financial ship after a divorce. And I hear from women all the time who are in relationships that they want to get out of and they feel that they can't because they don't have earning power.
- [25:32]
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- [26:05]
Amy Arnott
That women should take to protect themselves?
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Jean Chatzky
Yes.
- [26:11]
Amy Arnott
You know, against the possibility of a divorce.
- [26:14]
Jean Chatzky
Well, there are other steps that women should take to protect themselves against the inevitability of at some point being alone. Right. Men, it's divorce, it's, it's death, it's. 90% of women will at some point be alone and be in the position of having to manage their money by themselves. You gotta know how to do this before you're thrust into the position where you have to do it in an emergency. And that means not delegating everything. And I'm not Saying that every person in a relationship needs to be doing every job with the finances. Right. If we don't divide and conquer, there are so many things that are going to fall through the cracks. I'm just saying you have to know what's up. You have to know what's going on with your investments. You have to know what's going on with your credit. You have to know what's going on with your bank accounts, with your financial advisor. You don't have to do it all the time, but you do have to pay enough attention so that if you had to pick it up. And this is true for men as well. Right. My mother managed the investments. My father knew what was happening. She was better at it, so she did it. She enjoyed it more than he did, so she did it. But if he had been put into the position of having to pick it up, he could have done it. It's these relationships where things are so separated, where one person could not would just be at a total loss that I worry about.
- [28:07]
Christine Benz
Is that getting any better? When you look at the data on this, on how men and women handle finances in the household, is there less of that, like, utter delegation going on than was the case with perhaps our parents?
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Jean Chatzky
I think so. And I haven't seen a study on the utter delegation of it all, although we should really look at that. But what I have seen, and I'm sure that you both have seen this as well, are the recent studies, particularly from Fidelity on women in investing, that have pointed to the fact that women are really leaning in and opening accounts outside of our retirement accounts. And I see it with my investing club as well, that we are starting to own the fact that we're investors. And that is a really positive sign.
- [29:03]
Amy Arnott
I think it can also be really helpful if there is one partner who's less involved in the financial side, to start going to meetings with a financial advisor together. And even if there's one spouse who's more involved in the finance to at least get the other person familiar with what's going on with the portfolio. What are the main financial issues? We need to be thinking about things like that so that if there is a divorce or a death, they're not sort of starting from square one.
- [29:42]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah. And I think, look, I've heard a lot from spouses, particularly male spouses, who have said, my wife doesn't want to go. Right. My wife doesn't want to go to the meeting with the financial advisor. I think the financial advisor should insist the financial advisor has the ability to Insist. I need you both at this meeting. And I think that that's a perfectly acceptable, really kind thing to do.
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Amy Arnott
You mentioned that running out of assets later in life is a big fear for a lot of women. And you've also been a proponent of annuities and you've had a long relationship with the alliance for Lifetime Income. Can you talk a little bit more about how annuities can help?
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Jean Chatzky
Yes. And let's unpack that a little bit. So when we talk about lifetime income, when we talk about the idea of an annuity, what we're really talking about is replacing the pension that prior generations had as we've made the shift from defined benefit plans to define contribution plans from pensions to 401ks and IRAs. And I put myself in this category. Right. We, as journalists and as financial educators, we did a great job at just banging the drum about the fact that people needed to max out to pay themselves first to contribute, contribute, contribute to their retirement accounts. And we got a huge help from behavioral finance with auto escalation and auto enrollment and target date funds to make sure that money was going in and was being invested. What we did not do, what we're just starting to do, is to help people understand that they now have to reverse engineer the entire thing. They've got to take the money that they've accumulated and they've got to figure out how to turn it into a stream of income that's going to last as long as they do. And what we're learning is that there's a very, very big difference in how we perceive income versus assets. When we are receiving money, and I saw this with my mother. When we're receiving money in the form of income, we spend it because we know that there's another check coming. When we have a pool of assets, we often are reluctant to spend it because we've been told for years that we shouldn't dip into our principal or because we've been accumulating for such a long time that we just don't want to see our balances go down. So, yeah, I am a big believer in a paycheck. I'm a big believer in guaranteed lifetime income. I don't think that you should take all of your money and turn it into income using an annuity or another tool. And there are different things that you can use, right? You can use a bond ladder, you can use a TIPS ladder. They're not as guaranteed as an annuity because you've got market risk and because interest rates go up and down but you can do it. You can follow the guidelines that Morningstar puts out every year for what the new 4% rule is. All of those things work. They're just not as guaranteed as using some sort of an insurance product to buy yourself a paycheck that is contractually going to last as long as you do. And so I think that we have just started to hear about these solutions as they make their way into retirement plans. And as you know, this is happening in real time. We're going to hear more and more about them, and I think eventually everybody will start talking about income as a fourth asset class.
- [34:21]
Christine Benz
You mentioned, Gene, the 401k deficiency right now is the fact that you don't have kind of a turnkey solution to turn on your income for retirement. One of the secure acts included a provision that allowed or made it easier for 401 plans to embed an annuity within that 401 plan. It doesn't seem like we've seen much up uptake yet on that front. I'm wondering if you can talk about why that is and whether you expect to see more action there in the future.
- [34:51]
Jean Chatzky
Oh, why are we not seeing it so quickly? If you think back to how long, I'm not surprised that it's taking a while, because I was reporting on 401ks when they were just rolling out, and it just took a while. Right. It took people a While to understand ETFs and to then gravitate to them, and now everybody is using them. I think there's just a learning curve with these things, both from the development perspective and from uptake. And I think that employers who are really in the hot seat as far as making sure that they offer their workforce solutions that have a track record, are reluctant to jump on any new innovation too quickly. But they're coming, right? If you look at the work that BlackRock is doing, if you look at the work that the fidelities of the world are doing, they're on their way.
- [35:56]
Amy Arnott
One topic we really haven't touched on is the whole FIRE movement. Financial independence, retire early, which I think is something that we hear a lot about from younger investors, including younger women. Do you have a take on that?
- [36:14]
Jean Chatzky
Lately I'm hearing more about the FI and less about the RE look. I think particularly following 2008 and then following the pandemic, there's been this quest for financial autonomy, for financial independence, for the ability to really control your own financial life in this uncontrollable world. FIRE gives you that right. You have to Make a lot of compromises. The people who are going full fire are spending much less than they're earning because they are trying to save and invest on a really, really aggressive schedule so that they can get to the point where they don't have to work in jobs that they don't like in order to sustain their lifestyles. But what I'm hearing more lately is that they're not, not working, but they're, as we were talking about before, dipping in and out of the workforce. They're using, they're using the fire map to give them longer sabbaticals, the ability to travel the world, or the ability to step out of a high pressured career and into one that they feel truly passionate about, but perhaps doesn't pay as much. So I think what we've seen is that these fire proponents have just given us another way to look at running your financial life, if you choose to run it that way. Knowing that our careers are longer than we ever expected them to be, that our lives are longer than they ever expected them to be, and that we're gonna have a lot of seasons where maybe we wanna do different things. Yeah.
- [38:20]
Christine Benz
Jean, I have noticed that the fire community was originally kind of dominated by men, but it does seem like more women are joining that movement with an eye toward some of the kind of lifestyle changes that you've talked about, where maybe they do want to focus on being a parent for a period of time and having really turbocharged their savings early on gives them that flexibility to make those choices.
- [38:47]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah. Especially with women who are having children later in life. Right. If you've turbocharged, if you got smart about saving in your 20s and you turbocharged your savings rate throughout your 30s, and then you want to have a, a baby in your 40s and you're so far ahead, I mean, that is a huge amount of freedom.
- [39:07]
Christine Benz
So we wanted to ask about your advice for women. You're a successful entrepreneur. Can you share one or two pieces of advice for women who are thinking about pursuing entrepreneurship in their own careers?
- [39:22]
Jean Chatzky
The first thing I would say is you don't have to quit your day job in order to pursue entrepreneurship. And I think it was Tina Brown, you know, who first said, we don't have jobs anymore. We all have gigs. Right. That entrepreneurship is, to me, a bit of an offshoot, or it can be a bit of an offshoot of the gig economy that you can try doing other things while you still have a job that provides you with a stream of income and by testing the waters and that way you give yourself a chance to see whether what you want to start actually has legs. I. God, I've thrown so much spaghetti against the wall over the years, and some things have stuck and some things haven't, and some things have taken us so much more time to germinate than I thought they would that I'm always glad that I've held onto, you know, a variety of streams of income. So I would say that's sort of my first piece of advice. The second is there are some things that are careers or businesses, and there are some things that are hobbies, and sometimes we have a really difficult time telling the difference. So going back to the numbers, going back to the, you know, what's coming in, what's going out, what's this truly costing me in terms of the amount of time and energy that I'm putting into it? Not just the financial resources. Those are important things to keep looking at as you go along your entrepreneurial path, because there are some things where you'll eventually figure out, I love this, but it is just, you know, it's a hobby that maybe pays me a little bit of money from time to time.
- [41:32]
Amy Arnott
You've also built up a wonderful brand. What kind of advice do you have for women looking to build their own brands in the workplace? What should they be thinking about?
- [41:45]
Jean Chatzky
The most important thing to understand is what your brand is. I took a while, actually, to realize what mine was, and the answers started to come to me from people that I would meet on the street or in the dressing room at Lowman's after years on the Today show where women would say to me, you know, I don't get money, but you make it something that I can understand. And I realized that my brand is really explaining complicated things in plain English with a touch of empathy, right? That's sort of when I get hired. That's why I get hired. And it really hasn't changed in three decades. And so I think the most important thing that you have to understand is what is your brand? And if you can't come to it yourself, you need to look to others who can tell you what you're good at and who can help you understand what your superpower actually is, because we all have one. I mean, these days with social media, with so many different channels, if you want to grow a brand, if you want to gain attention for your brand, I think it's a lot easier than it used to be just because. Because the barriers to entry are not as high as they were when the only time you could get attention was if you could get on national tv. But you have to start with knowing what you are.
- [43:31]
Christine Benz
One dimension of that, Jean, is what if the thing that you're really good at, maybe the thing that you get known for in your workplace is not something you love doing. I think that inevitably happens for some of us where, like, you get competent or even get really good at something, but inside you're like, ah, that is not my favorite thing. Any advice in those situations?
- [43:55]
Jean Chatzky
Yes. There's this movement afoot, and I've had long discussions with my stepdaughter and her partner about this idea of the good enough job. I think. I mean, I was raised in an era where I think we felt like we really did have to be passionate about our jobs, you know, that there was something wrong if we didn't get satisfaction out of the work that we were doing every day. I think that's changing. I think it's changed, actually. I think that there are a lot of people who look elsewhere for their life satisfaction and have sort of come to terms with the fact that they go to work for a paycheck, and that's okay. They're gonna do it from nine to five. They're gonna leave, and then they're gonna do the thing that they love and enjoy or the things that they love and enjoy, and they're not going to give their entire selves to work. It may be healthier. So I think either you embrace that concept and continue doing what you're doing, or you decide that's not how you want to live your life, and you start looking for a different kind of work where you do get the sort of satisfaction out of it that you're craving. I don't know. What do you think?
- [45:36]
Christine Benz
I'm stumped, actually, because it's something I've wrestled with, to be honest. There are things that I'm called upon to do that people are like, oh, you're great at it. And that I find really exhausting. So, yeah, it's a work in progress, I guess.
- [45:51]
Amy Arnott
I think the positive thing is once you get to a certain point in your career, I think you do have a lot more freedom to say no and to speak up about where you want to be spending your time.
- [46:05]
Jean Chatzky
Saying no is hard, right? I mean, saying no, I'm not particularly good at it. I try, and I get a lot of encouragement from my husband. But I do think that it's a skill that you have to master.
- [46:22]
Christine Benz
Yeah. I think, Jean, I would think in your position, sometimes in my position, I'm Sort of like, well, if I keep saying no, will they forget? Will they stop asking? Does that cross your mind, too?
- [46:35]
Jean Chatzky
100%. Yeah. That resonates very, very clearly. But I also think about, if I keep saying yes, what am I actually saying no to? My friend Michael Bass, who was one of my early senior producers on the Today show, once told me that you have to pick five things in your life that you say yes to and then say no to. Everything else is a beautiful piece of advice that I have never been able to follow.
- [47:08]
Amy Arnott
So you mentioned your kids and step kids, and we were just curious, you know, not just for your family members, but maybe more broadly, what did you want your legacy to be?
- [47:24]
Jean Chatzky
I want for my children, for my family. I want them to live a healthy, happy, financially comfortable life where they're not as stressed out as I think most people feel in the world today. Whether that's about finance or just about the world in general. I want for them an easier ride professionally. I don't believe that managing your money should be rocket science. I think there's a finite skill set that we all need to have, that we all should be taught from an early age and continually. And I hope that I have made this part of life easier for. For people who have decided that they're gonna pay attention to and listen to me.
- [48:27]
Christine Benz
Well, Jean, as always, we're listening. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. It's been a real treat to talk with you today.
- [48:35]
Jean Chatzky
Thanks for having me.
- [48:36]
Amy Arnott
Thanks, Jean. This has been great.
- [48:44]
Christine Benz
Thank you for joining us on the Lawn View. If you could please take a moment to subscribe to and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow me on social media, hristinebenz on X orristinebenz on LinkedIn and amyarnot on LinkedIn. George Cassidy is our engineer for the podcast and Carrie Grecick produces the show Notes each week. Finally, we'd love to get your feedback. If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us@thelongvieworningstar.com until next time. Thanks for joining us.
- [49:26]
Morningstar Disclosure
This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Opinions expressed are as of the date of recording and are subject to change without notice. The views and opinions of guests on this program are not necessarily those of Morningstar, Inc. And its affiliates, which together we refer to as Morningstar. Morningstar is not affiliated with guests or their business affiliates unless otherwise stated. Morningstar does not guarantee the accuracy or the completeness of the data presented herein. This recording is for informational purposes only and the information, data analysis or opinion it includes or their use should not not be considered investment or tax advice and therefore is not an offer to buy or sell a security. Morningstar shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from or related to the information, data analyses or opinions for their use. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. All investments are subject to investment risk, including possible losses. Principle Individuals should seriously consider if an investment is suitable for them by referencing their own financial position, investment objectives and risk profile before making any investment decision. Please consult a tax and or financial professional for advice specific to your individual circumstances. Advisors and Financial Experts this one's for you. Registration is now open for the Morningstar Investment Conference on June 25th and 26th.
- [51:23]
Jean Chatzky
Join thousands of your peers in Chicago.
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Morningstar Disclosure
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- [51:27]
Jean Chatzky
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Morningstar Disclosure
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- [51:35]
Jean Chatzky
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