Jean Chatzky personal finance journalist, columnist, editor, author, speaker, TV and radio personality is fluid in the rarified financial terminology that flies over most of our heads.
But for her, finance rightly belongs in the realm of the personal.
I find that working in personal finance is fascinating, says Chatzky, the headline speaker at the Allied Jewish Federations Choices event Thursday, Feb. 12.
I never wanted to write about 12b-1cs (annual expense fees deducted by mutual fund companies), she says. I wanted to learn about peoples lives.
And when money is the window through which you view those lives, its an endlessly fascinating story.
Chatzky is the financial editor of NBCs Today Show, a personal finance guru on CNBC and the Oprah & Friends Channel on Sirius XM Radio, and an award-winning writer whose columns adorn major publications.
Through decades of fluctuating bear and bull markets, she has focused on a specific affliction that has now reached epidemic proportions debt.
Chatzky gets her message across with gentle persuasion and professional fortitude.
We live in a country where for the past two decades its been OK to take on debt, Chatzky tells the IJN from her home in Westchester County, NY.
We had 401(k)s and portfolios, and homes whose prices were rising so quickly that it made sense to pull out money to increase purchasing power.
Now were living in a time when neither of those options is possible. Weve saddled ourselves with so much debt that were trying to rewind the process.
Individuals bit off more than they could chew, she says. We were lured by promises of cheap money and that we could have it whatever it was today. But whenever somethings too easy, we should ask ourselves whats really going on.
Her solution to debt is non-negotiable: pay it down.
Determine priorities. Refinance high interest credit cards. Save. Start over.
Theres good debt and bad debt, Chatzky says. Good debt is paying for education, which leads to a good job and salary; the roof over your head; the car you need to drive to work.
Bad debt is anything incurred in the pursuit of those unnecessary perks and pleasures.
Ask yourself what is truly necessary, Chatzky says.
First, get rid of the small things: eating out in restaurants three times a week; running to the coffee bar whenever you want; buying very expensive shoes whatever constitutes your Achilles heel.
Then there are the larger areas of life. Do you really need a huge house in this neighborhood? Can you really afford to send your kids to private schools?
Whittle it down until you have the resources to pay for the true necessities, like health care.
Were at the point where we must make these hard choices many of us.
Chatzky was born in 1964 in Detroit and raised in Wisconsin, Indiana and West Virginia areas that arent exactly famous for their bustling Jewish demographics.
We lived in what I call one temple towns, she says of her formative experience of Judaism. If the temple was Conservative or Reform, thats what we were at the time.
She had her Bat Mitzvah in a Conservative synagogue. Now she aligns herself with the Reform movement.
Chatzky never really thought about becoming a journalist until her freshman or sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania.
Then I knew.
I think of life as a continuing research paper, she laughs softly.
I still find that even though I do different things now, the days I spend on the phone reporting and diving into a new subject are the ones that just fly by.
In 1986, right after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Chatzky landed at Working Woman magazine.
I was always interested in the financial aspect of journalism, but I would have taken any job at a magazine when I got out of college, she concedes.
Still, the position of assistant to the business editor at Working Woman was a good fit, like the successful career that followed.
She says the economy was churning along nicely during her first year at the magazine.
Then, on Oct. 19, 1987 Black Friday stock markets crashed here and everywhere.
I was not incredibly flush, Chatzky says. I spent more than I made. Thats when I had my own experience with debt.
Perhaps thats why she left the less than lucrative journalism field to work in the equity department at Dean Witter Reynolds in 1989.
Two years later, Chatzky re-entered journalism at Forbes as a reporter-researcher.
In 1992, Smart Money magazine hired her as a staff writer. Before long, she rose to senior editor.
Chatzky joined Money Magazine, where she is now editor-at-large, in 1998.
Her appearances on high profile TV shows, combined with her role as a major coach on Oprah Winfreys Debt Diet segments, have elevated Chatzkys name to household-word status.
Her latest book, The Difference: Why Some People Are Rich, Some Are Not, And How You Can Be One of Them, attempts to answer a question shes constantly asked: Why do some people live in comfort between paychecks, while others get stuck between a rock and an even harder place?
A persistent advocate for women who want to learn how to manage their money, Chatzky says the issue remains a big ball of wax.
The earnings gap between men and women, which is improving, has not closed sufficiently, she says.
Thirty to 40% of women earn more than their spouses. By 2030, women will outearn men on average.
But managing and earning money are two very different things.
She says that women who are alone understand how to navigate financial waters better than those who have a partner. They pay the bills, the mortgage, manage the 401(k) negotiate for everything. Im not worried about them.
But all women have to be able to do this, if for no other reason than 95% of us will be alone at some point through divorce or the death of a spouse.
If we wait until a crisis, thats the worst possible time to learn.
Like the name of the first magazine she worked for, Chatzky epitomizes the working woman constantly in demand, always in motion, all while raising two children.
Shortly before this interview, Chatzky, who is divorced, finished her daily radio show on Sirius XM Radio.
She drove her kids, ages 11 and 14, to school in the morning (the schedule changes somewhat if she has an early TV spot).
In between TV and radio and driving, Im working on one writing project or another, she says. Sometimes I have to give a speech or be at an event.
The kids get off the bus at 3 p.m. and go to their various activities. I get home by dinner.
Dispensing advice to Amercians struggling to survive in a fearful economy in freefall demands her constant attention.
Since she started in this business, Chatzky has been flooded by readers, viewers and listeners living in what she calls unsustainable situations.
Today their voices are more frustrated and confused than ever.
I had a million people go through the Debt Diet on Oprah, she says. Fortunately, they took positive action before the world fell apart beneath them.
She says that if Bernard Madoff has taught the world anything, its that its not enough to diversify investments. You also have to diversify where those funds are held and managed.
A lot of people said about Madoff, How could we check him out if the SEC failed to do its job? And I agree.
If you do the best you can to check out potential investment advisors and companies, take the extra step and dont put all your money in one set of hands.
As for the CEOs who earned salaries in the tens of millions while their employees and investors suffered repeated recessionary blows, I cant even understand what was going on their minds, she says. That would take a person with a PhD several times over to understand.
When its suggested that her dedication to helping Americans understand their personal finances is almost like a public service, Chatzky seems mildly surprised.
Im glad you think so, she says, but I feel its about providing information that people need. Its work that I enjoy and care about passionately.
I just hope that 10 or 20 years from now, we will have learned enough where we dont need to ask the same questions over and over again.
