理财专栏作家 Michelle Singletary：债务会限制人生选择，应尽量少借

Michelle Singletary has written about personal finance for decades in her acclaimed Washington Post column, "The Color of Money," and in several books. On Oct. 13, she and the Post launched a new podcast, "Dollars & Sense," in which she reviews the budgets of everyday people, talks them through money problems and helps them achieve their financial goals.

"Personal finance [advice] has changed over the decades from just men talking down to people," Singletary tells CNBC Make It. She celebrates the progress women, people of color and younger folks have made in the space, but acknowledges that audiences shouldn't follow all the money advice they see and hear online.

"There's so much online, which is good and bad. There's a lot of information, but there's a lot of bad information, and so this [show] allows a different voice," she says.

Singletary has used her own life experiences including raising her kids, helping take care of her disabled brother and planning her estate to help her readers navigate their financial journeys. She aims to bring that same relatability to her podcast featuring everyday people and financial experts as guests.

"I just cover a lot of bases," she says. "Because I know the walk that they've been walking."

CNBC Make It spoke with Singletary about the new podcast and the money advice she's been giving throughout her career.

CNBC Make It: What is the one piece of financial advice you think everyone needs to hear?

Singletary: Those who follow my column know the one thing that I hate a lot is debt. And if there's one thing that I want to get across to people it's that debt limits your possibilities.

In this economy in the U.S. … so much of people's paycheck is servicing debt. I try to get people to understand that when times are hard, the more debt you carry, the harder it is for you to get out of those hard times. I'm a realist. I understand you have to borrow to buy your house, and you may have to borrow to buy a car, but all the other ways that we've been borrowing that eats up our paycheck really prevents people from moving forward, and that's the message that I'd like to get to people more and more. 

CNBC Make It: Do you think there's such a thing as "good debt?"

Singletary: If debt was a person, I would slap it. Like seriously, I call debt the devil. Here's the thing: Now some people say, "Use debt to get ahead. Blah blah blah blah blah." And it's just like, no, let's not make debt a friend. It may be a necessary evil in some places.

If you approach it that way, that it is to be shunned at all possibility, you'll take on less. Or when you sign that note, you'll be thinking: "Is this something that I can service and still do the other things that are important in my financial life, like saving for retirement?" If you have children, saving to send them to college, or have that little extra — not just for you, but for people in your family who might lose their job through no fault of their own and that you could help them during those times of crisis —that's what I'm talking about. Like look at your money holistically, and one way to do that is to see debt as not a companion, but a necessary evil, focusing on evil, so you don't get into too much debt.

When you pay your mortgage, I don't think you're sitting there going, "Oh, I'm so happy to have to be paying this money." People who took out loans to go to college are not sitting there going, "Yay, I love this debt." No, debt is just debt, and I think we need to stop applying those, you know, good versus bad, it's just debt.

CNBC Make It: What's the money advice you've received the most backlash about over the years?

Singletary: I get the most pushback from young adults, parents, people that don't even have any kids [asking] "Why do you keep telling people to stay home with their parents? They can't be responsible if they don't pay their own bills." Listen, they can be responsible living at home if you hold them accountable.

If you are coming out of college with a lot of student loan debt and you are able to live with your parents — not everybody can — I think that's the smartest financial move you can make: Live at home for a couple of years. In fact, if you've got debt, live at home until you get rid of all of that debt, and then save and then move out. Trust me, we want you to move out. My young adults came home, and they lived, and they didn't have any student loan debt because my husband and I sent them to college without debt, but they saved.

CNBC Make It: What is something about money in 2026 you did not foresee when you started writing about personal finance?

Singletary: I did not expect for us to be in an economy where so many people cannot afford to buy a home. Where we're now paying $4 to $5 a gallon, depending on where you live, for gas. The affordability issue is real. It's not a hoax. It's not funny. I did not expect to be in an economy where so few people have the bulk of the wealth, and there's so many people down at the bottom, and the middle class is just squeezed. I did not expect that. I did not expect it would take three incomes to buy a house in some areas.

I think the American Dream has slipped away from a lot of people, and that bothers me a great deal. And a lot of people are not trying to be millionaires. They don't feel like their life will be horrible if they don't become a millionaire. But they just want to be able to buy a decent home in a decent neighborhood and send their kids to college without decades of debt. They want to be able to go out every once in a while. And I didn't expect that we would be in a situation right now in 2026 that, for millions of Americans, just the necessities eat up so much of their paycheck that they've lost financial hope.

CNBC Make It: What's the first step individuals can take to address that affordability crunch?

Singletary: Know your numbers. That really is the first step. I talk to people and I go, "Do you know how much debt you have?" And they don't have a clear picture. Sometimes they have more than they think they do, and sometimes they have less than they think they do. So know your numbers. What percentage of your pay goes to your housing, for example? What percentage for other things in your life? Once you know those parameters, you can tweak it as best that you can.

Now, for a lot of individuals, personal responsibility is only going to get you so far, and so the other part of that picture is policy. What kind of policies can we have in place to help people buy a home, help send kids to college — work-study programs, internships. Maybe you're not meant for college, but whether there's some training programs, those kinds of things, and that's where you hold our policymakers' feet to the fire, if you will. We've got midterms coming up. Whatever your political affiliation, you should look for candidates that have policies or ideas for policies that will help the people at the bottom end of that K-shaped economy.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.