Michelle Singletary Quotes

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

When you give people who are being financially responsible money, you are enabling them to continue a bad habit. So you are actually helping by saying, "Love you but no."

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

My first piece of career advice is find your gifting. Find the thing that you are skilled at and figure out if you can make a living doing it.

I've decided to keep working until my last kid is thu college.

Remember life insurance is intended as income replacement to help dependents and or/spouse pay for things that your income would have covered. When you get to the point that you're dependents (Your kids mostly) aren't dependent on your income, you could reduce the amount of life insurance you are carrying.

I like the idea of having a paperless society.But to be paperless means you have to be so careful with your identity.

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

Money may not buy love, but fighting about it will bankrupt your relationship.

Don't let people scare you from a career that may not net you a six figure salary. If you want to be a teacher, teach. But knowing that your salary may only reach a certain level, do all that you can to become the best money manager you can be.

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

I love teaching people how to handle their money and I've built a brand on that skill.

Priorities lead to prosperity.

You are rich if you have enough to meet your most basic needs. You are rich if you have access to clean water, food, shelter, love, a roof over your head.You have to count your blessings to see that you are richer than you think.

We have to protect ourselves by doing our own homework.

You made a decision given your life circumstances and you have to be ok with that. Regrets that can't be change is just torturing yourself.

Save what you can toward the emergency and life happens fund. But don't worry yourself sick at the slow growth. The point is it's growing even it's just one dollar at at time.

My husband and I are pretty good at leaving money alone until we need it for what we've saved it for.

I usually find that my gut doesn't steer me wrong when it comes to my money!

If you'll have enough saved and nobody has to take on debt and you want to retire, shoot go for it.

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

The key to making sure your credit stays good is paying the bill on time. If you are paying the balance off even if there is something on the card in recent purchases, you are good.

There's nothing wrong with having a 9-to-5 job, but figure out a way to have another stream of income.

To sum it up: Discipline + Self-denial = Cents for the Kingdom!

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.

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.

If we aren't careful, our children will come down with 'affluenza,' a disease that causes them to confuse wants and needs. We need to teach our children what my grandmother taught me: Think twice about spending money you don't have on things you don't need to impress people you don't like anyway.

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.

I've found that when you can quickly knock out debt you get motivated because you see progress. Then you attack the other debt so fast that even if it's at a higher interest rate, you don't end up paying much more because you've gotten rid of it.