Why Playing It Safe With Your Money Might Be the Riskiest Thing You Can Do

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky Her Money

Investing, Business

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You've heard the rules. Subtract your age from 100. Go 60/40. Play it safer as you get older. But what if those long-held guidelines have been steering you wrong and costing you? Yale finance professor James Choi returns to HerMoney to share groundbreaking research that could change the way you think about your investments forever. His new asset allocation formula goes far beyond the traditional rules of thumb, factoring in your income, your savings, your risk tolerance, and something most investment guidelines completely ignore: the future paychecks you haven't earned yet. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the "100 minus your age" rule and the classic 60/40 portfolio have a critical blind spot The concept of "human capital" and why your future paychecks function like a bond in your overall wealth portfolio How the formula shifts dramatically for mid-career investors, and why the size of your nest egg matters more than you think What near-retirees and women already in retirement should really know about how much risk to take on Resources mentioned in this episode: James Choi's allocation spreadsheet calculator The Wall Street Journal piece on James's research Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck (coming Sept 2026) Subscribe to the free twice-weekly HerMoney newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.5	We're having a baby.
0:05.5	We're having a baby.
0:07.2	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.4	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.4	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.6	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.6	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.8	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby. Raising Chelsea, a Hulu
0:23.6	original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required teas and tea supply.
0:30.2	McGriddles, a new McDonald's breakfast. So it's maple syrup infused. It's sweet, then it's
0:35.8	savoury, because the sausage, you know, and the cheese
0:38.3	and the egg. Always got the golden archie stamped on it too. Make that make sense.
0:42.6	It's hard to put into words, but...
0:46.3	Until 11 a.m., subject to availability, fees apply to delivery orders while stocks last.
0:52.7	Let's say that some hacker stole 10% of your broker's
0:58.0	your brokerage account balance.
0:59.0	Now you'd be angry, you'd be sad, you'd be upset, which would be understandable, but
1:04.0	does the 10% disappearance of the balance in your brokerage account mean that you need to forever
1:10.0	more live at a standard of living that's 10% lower than what you thought you could afford? And the answer is no. And that's because you don't have to cut back 10% because you have all of this labor income coming your way in the future. Now contrast that with someone who's in retirement, who let's say has no Social Security benefit, and so they are living just on
1:28.2	this pot of money. If 10% have got stolen, then they would really have to reduce their standard
	...

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