Profile: Jane Bryant Quinn, Age 77

Family: Married. Husband Carll Tucker. Two children, six stepchildren, nine grandchildren

Education: Middlebury College, B.A., magna cum laude

Occupations: Personal finance journalist; author; Digital news entrepreneur/co-founder (with husband) of DailyVoice.com. AARP columnist.

Residence: New York City

Accomplishment Highlights: (partial list)

2016 Publication of How to Make Your Money Last: The Indispensable Retirement Guide
Syndicated column “Staying Ahead” for 27 years by The Washington Post Writers Group to more than 250 newspapers
Bi-weekly column for Newsweek magazine for 30 years
Bi-weekly column for Bloomberg.com
Served on Board of Middlebury College and Harvard School of Public Health
Director of Bloomberg News, L.P.
Columns for Woman’s Day and Good Housekeeping magazines
Television: PBS, Created and hosted “Take Charge!” personal-finance PBS series, co-hosted “Beyond Wall Street.” CBS: 10 years with CBS News, including ‘CBS Morning News’ and ‘Evening News with Dan Rather.’ Regular guest appearances on broadcasts such as ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “Nightline”
Helped develop software program ‘Quicken Financial Planner’
Monthly columns for AARP Monthly Bulletin and AARP.com

Awards & Honors (partial list)

1981, 1982, 1984, National Press Club’s Consumer Journalism Award
1983 Matrix Award in Magazines
1984 New York State Award for Women of Distinction in the Field of Journalism
1985 Emmy Award and Janus Award for Outstanding Coverage of News on Television
1986 National Headliner Award for Consistently Outstanding Magazine Feature Column
1987 Consumer Federation of America’s Outstanding Consumer Media Service Award
1992, 1995 John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism
1995 Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism
1995 ICI Education Foundation American University Journalism Award for Excellence in Personal Finance Reporting
1997 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism
1997, 1998 “100 Most Influential Business Journalists” - The Journalist and Financial Reporter newsletter
2005 National Consumers League Trumpeter Award for Consumer Journalism
World Almanac: One of the 25 most influential and powerful women in America
Numerous Honorary Degrees: Pace University, Middlebury College, College of William and Mary, St. Mary’s College (Notre Dame), Niagara University, Colgate University, Stetson University, McDaniel College, Bryant College

Books

1978 Everyone’s Money Book
1991 Making the Most of Your Money
1994 A Hole in the Market
1997 Making the Most of Your Money
2006 Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People
2009 Making the Most of Your Money NOW (Revised 3rd edition)
2016 How to Make Your Money Last: The Indispensable Retirement Guide

Getting to Know Jane Bryant Quinn

By Marsha B. Felton

I had the privilege to interview Jane Bryant Quinn, a remarkable woman and leading commentator on personal finance. Her latest book Making Your Money Last: The Indispensable Retirement Guide offers substantial, highly respected financial advice as well as uplifting wisdom! In this Cover Profile, you will get to know more about Jane, who continues to make a positive difference in the lives of millions of people.

“The biggest thing I learned, after digging into this subject for a couple of years, is the significance of our sense of self as we approach or enter this change of life. We need to find a new way of being—a fresh identity, different passions and pastimes, and a deeper involvement with family, community, and friends. We’re not on the shelf (yet!). We have lots to contribute and the time to find our place. What gives us this freedom of mind and action is having an income that we’re sure will last for life. This book was written to help you build it. After that, adventure calls.”

—Jane Bryant Quinn

MBF: How did you get your start in journalism?
JBQ: The only thing I ever wanted to be when I was growing up was a journalist. In college, I got the summer job of my dreams, reporting stories for my hometown newspaper, Niagara Falls Gazette. After college I came to New York City and got my first job at Newsweek magazine. They hired young men for the writer’s training program and young women for the mailroom. Women could get promoted to researcher and there your promotion stopped. I soon realized I would never be a writer at Newsweek so I started looking around for another job.

MBF: What was the “female discount” in the “bad old days” and what happened when you were working as a young mom?
JBQ: Young journalists didn’t earn much, especially if you were of the female persuasion. In those “bad old days,” there was something called the “female discount.” If a man and a woman held the same type of job in a company, the woman was paid 30 percent less - and it was legal. During my second job interview, the female editor in charge of the women’s section figured out the discount on an adding machine right in front of me. It was disappointing but no surprise. I took the job gratefully because there was no other option. As there was no masthead on the newsletter, I could work as a woman reporter.

MBF: How did you get into financial journalism?
JBQ: Luckily! The newsletter I joined covered the developing consumer movement. I was told I should do consumer money stories. I started immersing myself in financial books, publications, newspapers, finding stories and developing sources. I found it to be a very exciting field. Clearly, if I hadn’t liked it I would have gone into another form of journalism but I discovered myself doing these consumer financial stories. I have been in it all my life since then. It started serendipitously as I believe it does for so many people.

MBF: What were some unexpected benefits of the challenges you faced early in your career?
JBQ: The biggest unexpected benefit was that I fortuitously got a job covering the emerging consumer movement! Consumerism was very active in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. People such as Ralph Nader were writing for us before he wrote Unsafe At Any Speed. I just fell into this nest of people who were deeply concerned with consumer issues, consumer fairness, helping consumers in the marketplace. It was a wonderful place to be, entirely unexpected and helped me advance later in my career.

Another unexpected benefit, in a funny way, was from discrimination against women. I went from that newsletter to McGraw Hill to start their ‘Business Week Letter.’ It was an exciting, entrepreneurial opportunity. I started it and hired staff. It was a man’s job but they gave it to me because of the experience I had in newsletters. I was asked if I would go by my initials so the readers wouldn’t know they were taking financial advice from a woman. I said yes with one requirement: that everyone on my staff would go by their initials. Eventually I took over the role of Publisher; the first thing I did was use everyone’s names. I expected a higher salary and title of Publisher, the same as the man who previously ran this division. However, McGraw Hill gave me a small raise and told me from that point on only people who headed magazines would be Publishers but people who headed newsletters would be known as General Managers. That stopped me from becoming the first female Publisher at McGraw Hill. To me, it also sent a message I had no future there.

I had previously turned down The Washington Post’s request to start a personal finance column they planned to syndicate to other newspapers. I called back and said Yes. That was the most significant job decision I made--to freelance and create a column that, as it turned out, became successful.

Jane’s Washington Post syndicated column, “Staying Ahead” appeared for 27 years in more than 250 newspapers. She has also written personal finance columns for Bloomberg.com, Newsweek, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping and presently writes monthly columns for the AARP Monthly Bulletin.

MBF: What has been your trajectory to worldwide recognition?
JBQ: About the same time I was writing my early columns, I received my first book advance. At that point my name is starting to be made. When there was a newspaper strike in NYC, our local CBS station needed somebody to do the financial news and they asked me. It scared me stiff but I learned how to do it and worked at the local CBS station for about a year. In 1979, I was asked to be on the national “CBS Morning News,” later on the “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.” During these times, Newsweek magazine hired me to start a column on personal finance. In 1991, my book Making the Most of Your Money came out.

Jane appears as a commentator/advisor on network TV broadcasts, radio, and hosted a PBS series’ on personal finance. In 1985, Jane won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Coverage of News on Television.

MBF: What is the best advice you have ever received?
JBQ: Save more money! Also the first advice I give. I lived paycheck to paycheck when I was in my mid-20s. There was a company thrift plan I didn’t join because I thought I couldn’t afford it. A colleague encouraged me to “put in 5%, just try it.” I grudgingly did and surprise! I didn’t notice that I was spending 5% less in my daily life. I was astonished so I upped it to 10%. I learned that even when you’re not making a lot of money, you can save if it automatically comes out of your paycheck.

MBF: What has surprised you the most about your financial advising?
JBQ: How difficult it can be to help people see that they can do simple things with their personal finance. The entire financial industry tries to get people to buy complex instruments and depend on advisors who charge them commissions. I have always written that the simplest and lowest cost investments are the best. Look at index mutual funds where you may pay as little as 0.05 percent a year for the money management. These investments out-perform most of the rest of the actively-managed mutual funds in the world of 4,000 + mutual funds over the long term. I do index-investing myself. Target-date mutual funds are available for 401ks based on your age and retirement. These are the kinds of things I look for in the financial universe.

MBF: You have always been a supporter of index mutual funds. Can you explain?
JBQ: Index funds follow a particular market index. For example, take Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks, which represents the stock prices of America’s leading companies. If the S&P index goes up 5 percent, an S&P index mutual fund will also rise 5 percent, minus costs. Decades of research show that low-cost index funds make more money for you, over time, than mutual funds managed by hotshot money managers.

MBF: You started with financial planners, then you went onto just plain investing. Is there value to working with money managers and financial planners?
JBQ: Yes, financial planners for help with your overall financial situation – taxes, budgeting, investing, estate planning. I recommend fee-only financial planners. They sell no products and take no commissions; therefore, there is no conflict of interest. You pay fees, by the hour or by the job. For money management, they should charge less than 1 percent. If you go to the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, napfa.org and put in your zip code online, you will get a list of advisors in your area.

If you mainly want investment advice, you can get it at very low cost. For example, take the new robo advisers, such as Betterment.com, Wealthfront.com and several others I mention in my book. They manage you online and automatically, using ETFs - a form of index funds - for as little as 0.25 percent. You can get free advice from the old-line no-load mutual fund companies such as Vanguard and Fidelity. If your major money is in a 401k or 403b, you can pick from the funds yourself or use target-date funds that manage the money for you.

People who are retiring and who have savings basically have a target on their backs! Every commission-earning financial salesperson wants their money. They’ll probably sell you expensive investments such as deferred annuities.

Instead, when you leave a retirement plan and need advice, my first suggestion would be to roll your money into whatever mutual fund company you’ve been using for your 401k or 403b. This is a simple forward, without exposing yourself to the risks of bad advice.

MBF: Do you recommend re-allocating in a stock portfolio to buy low cost index funds if it will result in losses or tax-impacts by selling stocks? What do you recommend when the market takes a downturn?
JBQ: Any kind of re-allocation needs to be assessed individual basis. If you are investing with a tax-deferred account, there are no tax consequences. If funds are not in a retirement account, you should consider the tax impacts. You should never all of a sudden say I want to sell because the market is suddenly down. When you are in your 50s or 60s, you are still a long-term investor who could easily live another 20-30 years. ‘Better to get out’ is not thinking sensibly. You should stay substantially invested in equities. When you look back at market fluctuations, you see stock prices reaching a peak, then falling back, then returning to that peak.

How long does it take to get your money back if you hold on? On average, just 29 months. Then the market will usually go higher. The longest period anyone had to wait to recover his or her money was a little over five years, 2000-2006, and the shortest period ran just 9 months in 1998. If you are in your 60s, presumably you have a cash reserve and some bond funds that can help pay your bills so you can wait for stocks to come back.

MBF: Why do you recommend three websites about social security in your book?
JBQ: The question for many people is when should I take my social security in order to maximize the amount I get. And if I am married and my spouse is taking social security too, how do we put these two things together? It may be very hard to answer this for yourself. You can take social security as early as 62, but there will be a 25% discount from the full retirement benefit you could claim at 66. Each year you wait the amount goes up, including any inflation adjustments. Between 66 and 70, your initial benefit rises by 8 percent a year, guaranteed. Social security is an incredible longevity insurance program. The websites I recommend in the book are all low-cost services that provide analyses for when is the optimum time to take your social security.

MBF: You have established a pre-eminent degree of trust where others in financial journalism have gotten caught up in conflict or interest or perceived conflict of interest…how have you done it?
JBQ: I simply won’t enter into conflict of interest. I have often been asked to endorse products including those that I like, become a spokesperson and go on the Boards of Directors of financial institutions, some of which I admire. I feel that any tinge of commercial connection with a company would raise a question. I don’t sell any products. I never have and I never will.

MBF: What are you most proud of in your professional life?
JBQ: I am very happy that I have been on the side of consumers all my life and have worked very, very hard to make it clear, to make it simple and to look into things such as insurance and investments. This is a sense of great satisfaction for me. I have always fought for consumers.

MBF: What financial magazines do you recommend for readers of our interview?
JBQ: Money and Kiplinger’s. They have lots of good, independent advice.

MBF: Does age & experience make you a better writer?
JBQ: From age 22 to 32, my writing improved a lot. Since then, I don’t know. Experience hasn’t necessarily improved my writing but it improves my research because I have more background, more understanding about what happened in the past, more about people’s lives and what they need to know. Now that I am older, I have more insights into what people worry about around retirement.

Jane’s motto: Get it right. I'm always hyper-aware that I'm helping readers, viewers and listeners make choices about their money. I spend my time checking and rechecking, to be sure that what I'm saying is right.

MBF: You write: “…part of your financial plan when you’re in your 60s is diet and exercise to keep your health.” What do you do for your diet and exercise?
JBQ:I am guilty of not being terrific on exercise. There is a gym in the basement of my apartment building but will I put on my sneakers and go down there by myself? No. I know my weaknesses so I have a personal trainer come to the apartment and force me to do it. I do pay attention to diet. Ten years ago when I gained weight, I simply started putting less on my plate and still felt satisfied. Still do. I also stopped eating desserts years ago and don’t miss them.

MBF: Any comments about the movie ‘The Big Short,’ based on Michael Lewis book?
JBQ: I think it’s terrific. I also read the book. I think the film’s imaginative way with explaining these complicated securities is absolutely brilliant and I highly recommend it!

MBF: What is the DailyVoice.com you and your husband Carll Tucker started?
JBQ: DailyVoice.com is online news for local communities. My husband’s career was in the local news business. One day, we arrived at our country home outside NYC, picked up the local newspaper and saw that it was their final issue. How can a community be a community if it has no local news? Carll said we have got to start local community digital newspapers. Daily Voice.com is expanding gradually. We are in 76 towns in 7 counties…4 in New York, 1 in Connecticut and 2 in New Jersey. 80% of the people in some of our communities are reading our news online! It's so exciting, delivering digital news, an incredible learning experience for us. My next job is to create a training handbook in digital news for our reporters and editors.

MBF: What are fun facts that a lot of people may not know about you?
JBQ: My favorite exercise is lying in my hammock and reading at our country home. I garden. I’m a bird watcher. My husband and I have the travel bug. We don’t go to cities like London or Paris, rather to difficult places such as Syria (before the uprising).
Another fun fact is that one of my stepdaughters is Martha Quinn, former MTV VJ, now on ‘80s on 8 music channel, SiriusXM Radio.

MBF: What are your proudest personal moments?
JBQ: I have a marvelous family! Our stepchildren all gradually blended together. Everybody feels connected. I have been blessed with two happy marriages. My dear late husband was 14 years older than I, and my wonderful dear husband now is 13 years younger than I. So, on average, I married the right age! This also means our stepchildren range in age from 63 to 33. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky!

“I’ve made mistakes in my time but in the end I got it right, and so will you. Every day, I’m cheering you along.” - Jane Bryant Quinn

MBF: Likewise, Jane…cheering you along!

marshafelton.tumblr.com
Email: marshabf@gmail.com