My Story
My audience has been growing up... and so have I.
Beyond SO MONEY®, I write books, speak to audiences across the country, and collaborate with brands to make financial education accessible and relevant.
My latest book, A Healthy State of Panic, explores what our fears can teach us about money, ambition, and the lives we want to build.
Whatever brought you here, welcome. There’s still plenty to figure out—and plenty to look forward to.
Financial advice needed to meet us where we were.
As a young financial reporter, I wanted to make money advice useful, engaging, and accessible. I wanted people to feel comfortable asking questions, especially the ones they thought they should already know how to answer.
How do you pay down debt and still have a life? What do you do when your salary barely covers the basics? How do you negotiate when you’re just grateful someone hired you?
My first book, You’re So Money: Live Rich, Even When You’re Not, grew out of those conversations. Published in 2008, it was written for young adults who wanted to enjoy their lives while building financial independence—and needed practical guidance on how those goals could coexist.
The book opened doors I hadn’t imagined. I began appearing on the Today show and Good Morning America and writing for national magazines, including Glamour, Marie Claire, and O, The Oprah Magazine.
At the same time, I worked directly with people facing debt and other financial challenges on television programs including Bank of Mom and Dad and REAL SIMPLE. REAL LIFE. Later, through Financially Fit on Yahoo!, I brought financial guidance to millions of viewers.
I loved helping someone understand a complicated topic or take a step they had been avoiding. Those experiences also showed me how much more there was to learn.
My goal is to help you understand your options, make thoughtful decisions, and feel less alone in the process. With practical advice, honest conversations, and some laughter. Because we could use that, too.
As our lives changed, the conversation grew.
What began as a conversation about affording adulthood became a conversation about building a life.
My audience was moving forward. So was I. We were earning more, taking on bigger responsibilities, and making decisions that affected people beyond ourselves.
I fell in love, got married, and became a mother—twice. My questions expanded from managing my own finances to thinking about a household, children, and the kind of future I wanted to help create.
Along the way, I launched SO MONEY®, a podcast that gave me room to explore the stories behind our financial decisions. I wanted to understand how people built their careers, navigated setbacks, and figured out what success meant to them.
Over the years, guests including Queen Latifah, Margaret Cho, and Seth Godin have shared their experiences with money, ambition, and finding their way. The show has earned Webby Awards and connected me with an extraordinary community of listeners.
Your questions have shaped it just as much as the interviews.
You’ve trusted me with decisions about investing, debt, relationships, parenting, work, and retirement. You’ve asked for help when you felt stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure whom to believe.
That relationship has kept my work evolving. I want the conversations we have to reflect the lives we’re living now.
Money has always been about more than the numbers.
The more people I interviewed and worked with, the more I understood that information alone doesn’t always lead to action.
You can understand a budget and still avoid your bank account. You can know you deserve a raise and struggle to ask for it. You can earn more than ever and still feel financially unsafe.
I became fascinated by the beliefs we carry about money: what we learn growing up, what we absorb from the people around us, and what we decide our finances say about our worth.
My own relationship with money began in an Iranian American household where financial security mattered deeply. I watched my parents work to build a future in a new country. I learned to be resourceful, ambitious, and attentive to money. I also learned how closely it could be tied to worry and responsibility.
That curiosity led to my second book, Psych Yourself Rich, about the mindset and habits that help us build a stronger financial life.
Years later, it also helped inspire A Healthy State of Panic, my latest book, which explores what our fears can teach us about money, ambition, and the lives we want to build.
Through research and personal stories—including an adventure in stand-up comedy—I examined how fear can help us prepare, recognize what matters, and take thoughtful risks.
These experiences have made me a better listener. Before offering advice, I want to understand what makes a decision difficult. The answer often tells us where the most useful work needs to begin.
When women make more, the conversation changes.
In my early 30s, I became the breadwinner in my family. I was proud of what I had built, and I was navigating questions I hadn’t expected.
What happens when a woman earns more than her partner? How do you divide responsibilities fairly? How do you make sure both people feel valued when their financial contributions differ?
I knew other women were asking these questions, too, often quietly. Even as women’s earning power grew, expectations about marriage, caregiving, and who should provide remained stubbornly familiar.
That led to When She Makes More: The Truth About Love and Life for a New Generation of Women. Through personal interviews and research, I explored how couples could navigate earning differences, share responsibilities, and build partnerships that worked for their actual lives.
The book deepened my commitment to talking openly about the realities behind our financial choices.
A salary can give us independence and opportunity. It can also bring pressure, complicated expectations, and the feeling that we have to keep everything going.
As my family and career have grown, I’ve continued thinking about those tensions: how to pursue meaningful work, support the people I love, and leave room for my own needs.
They’re questions I bring to my work because I know so many of you are living them, too.
And now... midlife.
Today, I’m in my 40s, raising two children, running a business, and asking a new set of questions.
How much money is enough? How long do I want to work at this pace? When can I give myself permission to enjoy what I’ve built? What deserves more of my time—and what should I just pay someone to do?
I still care deeply about building wealth and financial security. I’m also thinking more carefully about what I want that security to make possible.
Midlife brings experience, but it also brings situations we may never have navigated before. Children need us in new ways. Parents may need more support. Relationships change. Our health asks for attention. A successful career can become exhausting, or a new opportunity can make us wonder whether we’re ready to begin again.
In early 2027, SO MONEY® begins a new chapter centered on these money, work, and life questions.
We’ll explore career pivots, caregiving, relationships, health, retirement, and starting over. We’ll talk about earning well and still feeling anxious, preparing for the future while enjoying the present, and deciding which tradeoffs we’re willing to make.
I’ll bring more than two decades of experience as a financial journalist, author, and interviewer. I’ll also bring my own questions and the perspective of someone living through this stage alongside you.
Beyond the podcast, I continue to write, speak to audiences across the country, and collaborate with brands and organizations to make financial education accessible and relevant.
My goal is to help you understand your options, make thoughtful decisions, and feel more capable of shaping what comes next. There will be practical guidance, honest conversations, and humor—because we could use some of that, too.
Thank you for being part of this story, whether you’ve been here since the beginning or have just found your way over.
I’m glad we get to keep growing together.
Official Bio
Farnoosh Torabi is one of America’s leading personal finance authorities — hooked on helping you live your richest, happiest life.
Farnoosh Torabi is a personal finance expert, journalist, bestselling author, and creator and host of the Webby Award-winning podcast SO MONEY®.
For more than two decades, she has helped people navigate the connections between money, work, relationships, and personal fulfillment. In early 2027, SO MONEY® begins a new chapter centered on midlife, exploring the financial choices, tradeoffs, and life changes facing people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond.
A former CNBC television host, Farnoosh is known for bringing practical advice, candor, and humor to conversations about money. Her books include You’re So Money, Psych Yourself Rich, When She Makes More, and her latest, A Healthy State of Panic, named a Newsweek Book of the Year.
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on the Today show. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and works with brands and organizations to bring financial education to their audiences.
Farnoosh lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband and two children.
