The personal-finance expert, recently in Washington for the Financial Empowerment Summit, spoke to The Hill poolside from her home in Hillsboro Beach, Fla.

I’m coming to D.C. to talk to whoever shows up to talk about how to get your money right.

There is a whole generation out there that is young, fair and fabulous, ages 18 to 35. I don’t care what kind of music they listen to, when it comes to their money they all have the same problems. Someone has to teach this generation how to get their money right. The problem is they have no money. It is absolutely ludicrous to think this generation can do this the way their parents or grandparents did it.

I have visited Capitol Hill. It was Feb. 14, three years ago. We were in one of the buildings there doing a press conference on women and violence. I haven’t really met with any lawmakers. I did meet with John Snow, the secretary of the treasury, a couple of months ago for 45 minutes to talk about Social Security.

But my thing really is not so much going from the top down. It is going from the bottom up. I don’t have time for laws to change to take care of you. You are always going to have to take care of yourself, so what can you do within the structure to take care of yourself, to create what you deserve? The whole goal here is you have to make more out of less. What happens if you’re broke and all you have is credit-card debt? So you will hear me talk about FICO scores, consolidating student loan debts and how to buy real estate. I never plan a talk. It just depends who shows up.

How did I get into finance? It started back in 1980 when I had been a waitress for seven years at the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, Calif. I had this dream of wanting to open my own restaurant. My parents didn’t have any money, so there was no way they could give me money. Thankfully, people I had been waiting on took up a collection and gave me $50,000. I put that money in an account at Merrill Lynch, and a crooked broker screwed up all the money. It was lost in four months.

After that, I went to work for Merrill Lynch. In 1983, I became a VP at Prudential. In 1995, I wrote my first book. I’ve written seven books and I won an Emmy award. I have a column in O magazine, a show on CNBC, and I’m regularly on PBS.

Politics? I’m a registered independent. The whole goal of money is to be independent. Money crosses every political barrier, every racial barrier, every sexual barrier. It doesn’t matter your affiliation; you have to deal with money. I am not here to alienate or make an opinion on politics. I am here to tell you how to get your money right, period.

I like Hillary Clinton for president, but I would tell you I’d like Condoleezza Rice for president too. I would be out of my mind to see a woman president. It would be one of the most historic political moments. I care about people, I don’t care about parties.

As told to Betsy Rothstein