Born in Michigan and raised in Wisconsin, Indiana and West Virginia, Chatzky holds a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Starting her career in 1986 at Working Woman, Chatzky rose from editorial assistant to assistant editor. In 1989 she left journalism and joined the equity research department of Dean Witter Reynolds, returning to journalism two years later as a reporter/researcher at Forbes. She moved to the Dow Jones/Hearst start-up SmartMoney in 1992, rising from staff writer to senior editor. After a five-year run, Chatzky joined Money Magazine in 1998.

Chatzky has appeared on Oprah, Live With Regis and Kelly, The View and other programs. She has written for Parents, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, was a staff writer for SmartMoney and a fact checker for Forbes.

Chatzky is also the financial editor for NBC’s Today Show, a contributing editor for More Magazine, a columnist for the New York Daily News. Jean also maintains a daily blog on her website, www.jeanchatzky.com.

In addition to her professional work, Chatzky supports various service groups and is on the board of the Nora Magid Mentorship prize at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founded by her current husband, Eliot Kaplan, which helps journalism students get a head-start in the field. She is also on the Communications Committee for the University of Pennsylvania.

On May 3, 2009, she married Eliot Kaplan. They reside in Westchester County, New York with her two children from her first marriage.

Chatzky received the Clarion Award for magazine columns from the Association of Woman in Communications in 2002, and her radio show received a Gracie Award from the American Women in Radio and Television. She has also been nominated twice as part of a three-person writing team each time for National Magazine Awards in Personal Service and was named one of the country’s 30 best magazine columnists by the Chicago Tribune in 2003. In 2009, the Consumer Federation of America awarded Chatzky the Betty Furness Consumer Media Service Award for her nearly two decades of pioneering personal finance education.