HerMoney with Jean Chatzky

Have you ever looked up and realized you've been living someone else's version of your life? Sari Botton, editor and writer behind Oldster Magazine and author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo, knows that feeling intimately. And she's turned it into a body of work that has resonated with hundreds of thousands of people.

In this episode:

The financial cost of people-pleasing and deferring to others on money

How women in the Oldster community have reinvented themselves professionally in their 50s, 60s, and beyond

Why we put off wills and end-of-life planning, and what it actually costs us

The "compare and despair" trap around money milestones

Pre-order Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck. It's the guide to building the retirement income you need, so you can stop lying awake wondering if you'll have enough and actually start living. 
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We all have a list… things we watched our parents do as they got older and swore we'd never do ourselves. We'd stay active. We'd embrace technology. We'd get the hearing aid. And then life happens. Washington Post columnist and author Steven Petrow has been thinking about this for nearly 20 years, and he joins Jean today to talk about the aging and money mistakes we make despite our very best intentions, and how to find your way back to joy even in the darkest chapters.

Steven is the author of Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old and his latest book, The Joy You Make, and he brings his signature honesty and humor to conversations about aging, money, loss, and starting over.

In this episode, we cover:

Why we all turn into our parents in the end, and why that's not entirely a bad thing

How Steven found joy after losing both parents, going through a divorce, and watching his sister Julie battle Stage 4 ovarian cancer, all in the same year

Why joy isn't the fireworks, and the small, everyday moments that actually sustain us

Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck, is your guide to building a secure, steady income stream so you can age on your own terms and actually enjoy the retirement you've worked so hard for.
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Nobody wants to think about the possibility of losing their spouse to Alzheimer's. But what if planning ahead meant considering something as unexpected as divorce? That's exactly the question Susan is grappling with today.

Susan is 62, still working, and earning around $100K a year. Her husband is 65 and already retired. Together they've built a solid financial foundation — over $778K in investments, $181K in savings, and more than $762K in assets, all with no debt. By most measures, they're in great shape. But the potential cost of memory care and assisted living has them worried that everything they've worked for could be wiped out.

In this episode, Jean and Susan cover:

What a "Medicaid divorce" actually is, and whether it's a legitimate financial strategy

How Medicaid spend-down rules work and what they mean for married couples

What asset protection strategies exist beyond divorce

How to think through the emotional and financial costs of planning for a spouse's cognitive decline

If today's conversation made you think about how to protect your retirement, Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck, is the perfect next step.
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What if the most important phase of retirement is the one nobody talks about? This week, Jean sits down with Dana Anspach, CFP, to walk through the four phases of retirement outlined in her new book, Living Off Your Acorns: Your Guide to the Four Phases of Retirement, including the phase she argues matters most of all: the Pre-Go years.

Dana breaks down what to expect at every stage — from building your foundation before you retire, to navigating the emotional and financial shifts that come after — and shares the real stories of clients who had to course-correct, pivot, and reimagine what retirement could look like for them.

In this episode, Jean and Dana cover:

What the Pre-Go phase is, why it matters, and when it typically begins

Why so many high achievers struggle to envision retirement

What a $1 million retirement savings goal actually buys you in 2026

How to course-correct if you're behind on savings in your 50s and 60s

If today's conversation made you think about saving enough for your retirement, Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck, is the perfect next step.
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The economy added 172,000 jobs in May, nearly double what economists expected. So why did consumer sentiment just hit a record low? Why does everything still feel so hard?

In this episode, Jean sits down with Sarah Foster, Personal Finance Reporter at Bloomberg, to break down what's really going on beneath the surface of those headline numbers, and what it means for your job, your home, and your retirement savings.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why keeping your money in a traditional savings account right now means you're slowly losing ground

What the lock-in effect really means for women who want to downsize before retirement

How to think about home equity as a retirement tool

The one financial move Sarah says everyone should make right now

Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck, is available for pre-order now. It's your guide to building a secure, steady income stream that actually lets you enjoy the retirement you've worked so hard for.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices