Michelle Singletary Quotations

You are NOT a financial failure if you rent. You are getting something for your money. A roof over your head.

The schools can't cover all the values that go along with how you handle your money. For example, a financial literacy class might not teach me to hate debt the way my grandmother, Big Mama did.

Having kids doesn't mean they would have taken care o you.

Kids can and are a blessing. But plenty of people without kids live and die just as happy.

You still need to save but being debt-free in retirement is and should be a goal.

I'm driving my old car until I'm on a first name basis with the low tow truck drivers!

You don't need to waste money on a fancy program or app to do a basic budget. I've been using a simple Excel spreadsheet since 2005 to track my monthly budget.

To get started, track your expenses for a couple of months. Then you should be able to start filling in your estimated debits and deposits for the next few months. Once you get it rolling for a while, you will be able to see your budget for the upcoming months reflected in the estimated totals. You can even notice year-to-year trends, like bonuses, tax bills, etc. that come up routinely and it will help you budget accordingly.

I'm not a fan of debt consolidation. In my experience, many people "clear" credit cards and other debt to get the one payment and never change what they need to change to prevent getting into debt again.

We have to protect ourselves by doing our own homework.