Michelle Singletary, a longtime personal finance columnist at The Washington Post, has launched the podcast “Dollars & Sense,” in which she reviews everyday people's budgets and helps them tackle money problems. She says debt limits people's options and calls it a necessary evil to be avoided, not a tool for getting ahead. Singletary says she gets the most pushback when she advises young adults with student loans to live at home until the debt is paid off, noting that her own children did this and saved without student debt. She says she did not expect an economy where many people cannot afford to buy a home, gas costs $4 to $5 a gallon depending on location, and wealth is concentrated among very few people.
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- Some 'classic' money advice is actually pretty new—and not all of it is worthwhile, says historian
Historian Joseph Moore, author of 'How to Get Rich in American History' published in April, argues that many 'timeless' financial principles are recent, while some modern problems were common in history. He points out that housing shortages are not new: 1948 was worse, and in 1981 the median new mortgage consumed more than half of median household income. Historically, Americans moved far more often, with 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 moving each year compared with about 1 in 13 today, and renting out rooms was common in the 19th century. Compound interest and diversification were not the main path to wealth either, since for most of U.S. history fewer than 10% of Americans owned stocks, and people in the 1800s budgeted in broad categories rather than detailed spreadsheets.
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