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

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)

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Why Playing It Safe With Your Money Might Be the Riskiest Thing You Can Do is an episode from HerMoney with Jean Chatzky by Jean Chatzky Her Money.

This episode is 34:07 long.

This episode was published on Apr 3, 2026.

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