(audience applauding) - Thank you all for joining us for our last session of the day. I think it's a really good capstone for this conference. I am so thrilled to introduce Michelle Singletary to all of you. I know many of you know Michelle from her long career. She is the personal finance columnist for the Washington Post.

She writes a regular column. In fact, she texted me yesterday and said, I've got this last minute thing I'm working on. I'm on deadline. She's always on deadline, always writing really wonderful pieces of guidance for regular folks in the Washington Post. She has written four books, the latest of which is called "What to Do with Your Money When Crisis Hits, "A Survival Guide." Very well timed to coincide with the pandemic and all of the turmoil related to that.

I remember Jeff and I talked to Michelle for the Longview podcast during that time. I think it was like April, May, 2020, and Michelle was such a calming presence. And I know that her readers really benefit for that. She has won numerous awards for her work over her long career.

The most recent was a biggie, the 2022 Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is considered the highest honor in business journalism in the U.S. I'm choking up just talking about it. (audience applauding) It's a well-deserved award. I wanted Michelle here, she has a wealth of wisdom to offer on all things financial, but one thing that she writes about that I think is really differentiated is that she talks about kind of spreading financial wellness in her community and her world.

And of course she does that through her work at the Post, but she does it in other ways within her community, within her family. And I'll just say that that's one thing that really excites me about Bogleheads, that you're all so well-versed in your own financial lives. And of course, picking up more and more acumen is always important, but I love the idea of deploying whoever's willing within this group out into the world to help make things better for people who need your help and who might benefit from your wisdom.

So that's why I was thrilled that Michelle was willing to join us for this conversation. So Michelle, I'm hoping you can just start with your personal story and how you evolved into journalism and business journalism specifically. - Yeah, great. Well, first of all, thank you for being here. I know a lot of people had to leave to catch a plane, so I don't feel any kind of way about that.

- Still a full house though. - I know, still a full house. And I, can I tell y'all, I didn't know I was in y'all club. I just, I mean, I'm ashamed to say that I didn't really embrace you all. And I came to this wonderful conference because I, you know, my husband and I have been indexing and very simple and forget it, and has created great wealth because of Vanguard.

And that's very significant because our family doesn't have a lot of wealth. And because of Vanguard and the principles, we've been able to help family members go to college, buy their first home, you know, help them with cars. And so I'm right here with you and I didn't even know I was in the club.

(audience laughing) So. (audience applauding) And normally in my normal day job, you know, I don't recommend different companies for the obvious reasons. But how do I get started in this? So really it goes back to my grandmother raised me and my siblings, there were five of us. And my parents, lots of issues abandoned us.

We went to go, my grandmother saved us from foster care. And she was, if she believed in investing, she would be one of you guys. But my grandmother was so conservative. She didn't even buy bonds. The only bond she had was the bond adhesive for her dentures. (audience laughing) So, but she was a masterful money manager.

Can you imagine five grandchildren? Her husband was an alcoholic, so he didn't always bring his money home. And yet she paid all her bills on time. She was an unbelievable saver. And she was never apologetic for what she couldn't give up. She never had any guilt that we were low income.

And that's what she, that's the legacy left for me. And so I never realized that that would be my career because even as a child, I challenged my grandmother. I was the banker in my family. And I, my siblings would come to me 'cause they knew I always had money.

I would do odd jobs or I'd find money on the, I'd pick up every penny on the ground. You know that rule that you're not supposed to pick it up if it's on the opposite side? I think that's just crazy. (audience laughing) It's a penny, pick it up. So, so, you know, and those pennies add up.

So I always had money. And my siblings would ask to borrow money and I would sit them down like they were at a bank. Well, what do you need the money for? (audience laughing) And when do you expect to pay me back? And I would determine whether I'd give them the money based on what they wanted for.

So you couldn't use my money to buy ice cream, but if you needed an extra pencil, I'm gonna give you the money. And you better give it back when you said you were gonna give it back, or I'm gonna run after you to hope, where's my money, where's my money?

And you can imagine I was not the popular sibling. (audience laughing) And so when I got into journalism, I always love talking to people and finding out something. I'm very nosy, and that's really why I'm in journalism. And then I won a minority journalism scholarship to go to college, went to work for the Evening Sun in Baltimore, my hometown paper.

And the business editor approached me because I've been covering religion. And because I'm a money person, I decided as a part of my religion beat to talk about economic development. And she noticed that. So she came over and she said, I want you for the business section. And I started to cry because at that time, I hope you're all not offended, the only people in the business section were old white guys who love this stuff.

And then the old white guys who were ready to retire, and they didn't have to work after the markets closed or weekends. And so when she asked me, I thought it was a demotion. And so I was like, why y'all putting me back there? (audience laughing) And she said, no, I want to diversify the staff.

I want to have younger business reporters. We want to write about more than just the markets of what businesses are growing. And so she put me on the bankruptcy beat. Who does that? (audience laughing) I mean, and the great thing about the bankruptcy beat is 'cause who covers bankruptcy?

So the bankruptcy judges, normally judges and their clerks don't ever talk to reporters, right? But the bankruptcy judges were so excited that someone was interested in their work, they would invite me into their chambers. (audience laughing) I mean, to talk about chapter seven and 13, they were so excited that I was excited about it.

And so I had like, you know, I scoped the Baltimore Sun and The Post on stories 'cause they would talk to me, and that's how I got into it. And little did I know that it really was the little Michelle Banker that was coming out. And then I got a master's degree at Hopkins, and then The Post came to calling, and you know, as they say, the rest is history.

I've been working for The Post for more than 30 years. I know I look 29. (audience laughing) And it is where I live, what I dream, and the column is about doing all that you do, trying to get people to understand this money stuff that is very complicated and very scary and very confusing.

But we all have to handle it. And that's been my mission and passion for the last, since I, the column is 25 years, since 25 years. And my first column was about my grandmother, how she taught me about money. And this little woman who didn't, she wouldn't know, she don't know beta, alpha, you know, ESG, she don't know none of that stuff.

But, and I had to learn that part. I had to incorporate that in my life, but she put me on the road. And I love what the last panel talked about with, it's a lot about income and saving. And I'm telling you, I hate those columns where, if you just don't buy Starbucks coffee, you could be rich.

Y'all all know that's not true. (audience laughing) I encourage people to get that expensive coffee 'cause if it's gonna keep you from slapping your coworker when you get to work, buy Starbucks coffee. Because it's gonna get you to keep your job so you have the money to invest. (audience laughing) - I went too long.

- No, that was awesome. (audience laughing) - I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you're in touch with a lot of people about how they're feeling about their investments. Can you talk about the current environment where for the first time in quite a long while, we're seeing stocks and bonds sink at the same time.

So people who thought they were doing all the right things and diversifying have seen their portfolios and incur some significant losses. So what kind of feedback are you getting from your readers in this environment? - Yeah, lots of people are scared. I mean, after the Great Recession and things were bad and then we had years and years of growth and you really didn't have to do much to make in the market, right?

You could consider yourself brilliant and just be invested in whatever. And so we have a population of people who sort of believe that that's what always happens. And so you got to have 20% return at 30% return. And this whole conference, people talk about how boring index investing is, but let me tell you, I think boring is sexy.

(audience laughing) My husband is boring and he is sexy. (audience laughing) He's cheap and he's sexy. (audience laughing) So that's what we are overcoming right now, where we had all this growth, where people didn't really have to do anything, that portfolio could be out of whack, whatever. And so the conversations I'm having with people is, listen, this is just a blip in history.

Even the Great Depression ended, the Great Recession, it will end and many of us are going to live decades. And so they are so worried because we have hyped them up on stuff, crypto and everything has to be exciting. And game stock, and so now when we hit that bump, they're not prepared for that bump.

We are, 'cause we've been through some bumps, we've been through some stuff. And so all I'm, they're worried about inflation, they're worried about the market, I get that. And so one thing I try to do is I don't say don't panic, 'cause that just doesn't help nobody. Go ahead and panic.

(screams) (audience laughing) I panic, and I'm one of you all, I panic. You know, and I wasn't looking at my portfolio at all, 'cause I'd just be like, "Oh, Lord." But I know my husband, who's very calm, and I'm like panicking and, you know, "Oh, we're gonna go broke." We're not gonna go broke.

And he says, "Wait a minute, don't you do this for a living?" (audience laughing) So I say, go ahead and scream, go ahead and feel what you need to feel, just don't make a decision based on that. And the lesson is that you gotta have everything else in your life in order.

So you gotta not have debt. You gotta pay off that house before you retire. You gotta not take on all the student loan debt, 'cause if you didn't have all of that stuff, during the times that the markets are down, you can weather that storm. But if you got debt, and you got a mortgage, you're just stretching for, and you're not, all that stuff going on, and the market is crazy, that's why that mixing bowl of stuff makes people make bad decisions.

But I scream, but we don't have any debt except for our mortgage, which I hope to pay off this year. We sent all three of our kids to college debt-free. You know, we use credit, but we pay it off. We do all things, so even if I lose 50%, we're gonna be okay, right?

We're gonna be okay, we will adjust our life, right? And that's the message I think we have to tell people, that this is a long game, and this is just a blip in history. - So you mentioned your family, Michelle, your kids, three children, and it sounds like you and your husband have spent a lot of time inculcating them in the concepts of good financial management.

Can you talk about, it sounds probably thrift and some of these other things, but what are the habits that you've tried to build in them and/or model out for them? - Yeah, so I'm very proud, all three of my kids are very frugal, very cheap, which we embrace that word, but my husband and I were very intentional about raising money-smart children, and so when they were growing up, we liked to make them suffer.

(audience laughing) Not suffer, suffer. So we did not give them a bunch of stuff. If you opened up their closet when they were little, there was very little clothes. They had three pairs of shoes. I was raised by a Depression-era person, so I'm really from the Depression era. So we tried to not give them anything because we wanted them to just be kids, and we didn't give them cell phones, we didn't buy all the games and things like that.

We just wanted them to live life with all the stuff, and so we had a lot of rules in our house. So one rule was, 'cause you know, kids watch television, so none of them ever had TVs in their rooms growing up at all, and we monitored that, not a lot of commercials.

So we had a rule that when they did watch television, all these commercials. So we said, "You can get anything "that you see on a commercial." (audience laughing) And we actually pretty did stick to that. So my youngest, she's the bane of my existence. So she was watching something on TV, I'm in the kitchen cooking, I see her watching it, I see the thing come up, some doll or something, she comes in the kitchen, "Mommy, can I have?" I said, "Where'd you see it?" Now the kid is pretty smart.

(audience laughing) Now she's my daughter. So she knows the rules. So she stood there, she closed her eyes, she tilted her head, and she said, "It came to me in a dream." (audience laughing) Parents are always telling me, "Well, how do I raise money smart kids?" There's one surefire way to raise money smart kids.

Y'all ready to write this down? I know you are. No taking root. The one thing is to say no. Say no. And so one time my kid was asking for something, I don't know what it was, I don't never listen to what they want. It's like Charlie Brown's teacher.

When they ask for something, all I hear is what? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It's easy to say no if you don't hear what they asking for, right? (audience laughing) "Mommy, can I have?" I said no. So it's no plus a reason for the no, that was the second part of it, the reason for the no.

So for our kids, it was to send them to college with no debt. So, "Mommy, can I have no?" And I have three words for you, college fund. Or two words for you, college fund. She said, "Mommy, can I have? "Mommy, can I have?" Two words for you, college fund.

Or all my friends have it, Mommy. Two words for you, college fund. I know you have, 'cause she know we got money. I know you have the money. Two words for you, college fund. This went on for about 15 minutes, y'all. She was hot mad. (audience laughing) So finally, you know, after college fund, college fund, she said, "Well, I have two words for you now." I'm an old-fashioned parent.

Now, I'm not gonna say what I was ready to do to her. She says, "I have two words for you, nursing home." (audience laughing) Right? Now, you boggle his understand, right? Like I said, that's why I'm saving for my retirement, right? So we denied, denied, denied. And I'm not saying that they were happy about it.

They didn't have what their friends had. They didn't have the clothes that their friends had. They had, you know, one girl asked my daughter, "How come you wear the same pairs of jeans?" And I love her answer. She said, "Well, why are you worried about what, "that I have one pair of the same jeans?" And so, and we did put a dead book on our bedroom door, 'cause we knew they were gonna snuff us out in our sleep.

(audience laughing) But when did I know that it worked? When my oldest, the first one, graduated from college. And we asked her to speak to a class. My husband and I do a marriage and money class at our church. We asked her to come in, 'cause everybody knew that our kids were all messed up, because of all the stories I told her.

(audience laughing) So we had to bring her in as proof that they weren't all crazy. So she came in. She'd never told us this. She said, "Mom." She was telling the class. She said, when she graduated, all her friends were saying, "I got six months. "I got six months before those lulls kick in." And I don't have that.

I don't have that. When I walked across the stage, I walked across in freedom. But she ain't never tell me this. (audience laughing) But that's how we rolled as parents. You know, I know, I tell a lot of stories, and y'all only have a short time, and all of us trying to catch a plane.

But we just, we were very intentional. So, you know, we didn't go to the malls. In fact, it was like a ban in our house. If they wanted to go to the movies, they had to go to a movie that wasn't connected to a mall. They couldn't hang out at the mall.

And so, the few times we went to the mall, my kid wanted one of those expensive pretzels. She had saved up for it, 'cause she knew I wasn't gonna buy it. She had a little purse and her little $5, and she went up to the counter, and she asked for the pretzel, and she gave the woman the $5.

Now, she was smarting money, and the woman gave her back, I don't know, like 10 cents. She started to fall out, "Oh, where's all my money?" And there were like a long line, 'cause, you know, our auntie's pretzels, there's always a long line. Long line of people, and she was kerking out, like, "Where's the rest of my money, mommy?

"Where's the rest of my money?" I said, "Well, that's what the pretzel costs." And she's crying, and she said, "I want my $5 back." And I'm looking at the woman, and she's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and I'm saying, "Give her her $5 back." (audience laughing) And she did.

She took the pretzel back, and she gave her her $5 back. And I could hear people behind me saying, "Well, why she just didn't buy the girl the pretzel? "Why she?" And I said, "Because I'm teaching her a lesson. "She wanted that $5 more than she wanted that pretzel." And you know, she remembered that story when she told the college story.

She said, "I asked my mother for stuff. "We asked my dad for stuff, and they said no, "and it would tick me off. "But when I graduated, I was glad "'cause I didn't need that pretzel. "I didn't need that dress. "I didn't need that phone." But now she can be in a profession, she's a therapist.

Now I'm making a lot of money, but I can be in a profession that God gifted me for because my parents said no. - Beautiful. (audience applauding) So one thing I wanna talk to you about, Michelle, is sort of moving beyond your immediate family. I know that many of us, I would guess many people in this room have loved ones in our lives who are not financially well, who need our help, maybe need funds, whatever.

So I think a key challenge, if you're in that situation, and I've been in that situation, how do you help without over-helping and certainly without kind of imperiling your own financial life? Can you talk about kind of creating that balance and delivering financial assistance to others? - Yeah, it's really hard.

You know, I'm a Christian, so there's a thing in the Bible about you can't be a prophet in your own land. And that's so true with your family. They don't wanna hear nothing you have to say most of the time. And so I had a lot of survivor's guilt.

You know, I went to college, I got a good job, I'm making good money, and I felt guilty that I survived. And so initially, I would just hand out money, right? I wasn't discerning enough. And then I realized that people would be wasting my money. I'm frugal, I'm frugal, I breast all three of my kids, breastfed 'em 'cause the milk was free.

I mean, I just, still wearing my maternity underwear and my oldest kid is 27. Don't I manage it now? I packed the good stuff for you all. (audience laughing) So, but then I realized I'm frugal, I'm doing the right thing and they're wasting my money. So my husband and I, we're big on rules.

So we started to put in rules in place. We will help you for a down payment on a house. We will help your child go to college. So we offered everybody in our family, if your kid gets into college, we will pay for their books and, you know, incidentals for college.

So we decided that that's what we do. We're not gonna pay for your irresponsibility. Now, if you fall, that doesn't mean that we're not gonna help you, but we're not gonna enable you to have bad financial decisions. And that works so well that, and the other thing is, if you come to us, you gotta show us a budget.

You gotta show us how you're gonna get out of whatever his situation is. This is a whole thing. And so two things happen. People stop asking us for money 'cause they didn't wanna, like my niece would call up and I'd say, she'd ask for some money. I said, well, you know what, I'm showing you no budget.

She hang up the phone. Save me $20, I'm okay. And so we try to invite them to things. My husband and I have a ministry at our church, a financial ministry at our church. We try to give them books and things like that. But I decided that I'm not gonna kill myself trying to make grown people do well.

If you want my help, when you're ready, come and I'm there. And until you do, how do I get that passion out to help other people? I help other people that's not my family. And eventually, many of them have come along, but I can't beat myself up about it because they won't listen.

I'm their sister. I'm the person that was the banker. I was the one who told on them when they was little 'cause I'm not gonna get a beating. You broke the plate. My grandmother would beat all of us if one of us broke the plate and went to hell.

I tell, I'm a snitch, right? Don't break the law 'cause if they come to me, you know how they offer people the deal, I'm gonna take the deal. (audience laughing) So we help them when we can. And then when they're ready, when they fall, because that's when they really are gonna listen.

You have to let people fall. And I'm gonna tell you, I don't know who's in this room, but you all have done a great job. But statistically, your adult children are not good money managers because you don't want them to suffer. You don't want them, you want them to have it better than you had.

You say things like that. But because you struggle, because you were frugal, you are who you are. And so we have to not enable these adult kids. So I wait for them to fall because sometimes you're not gonna get up until you fall. And then they'll listen. And then to satisfy my need to help other people, I have a ministry.

I go into prisons to help people who are about to be released handle their money. That's how I satisfy that part of my goal. And I hope eventually that family members will learn. And if they don't, I can't rescue them if they don't wanna be rescued. - So you mentioned the ministry, Michelle, and I really wanna talk about that.

Can you talk about how you got involved in setting that up and also how it works? - Yeah, so the first lady at my church, we would have women's ministry meetings every month. And she wanted to have a five-minute financial minute. And that turned into 10 and 15 and 20.

And she said, "Well, you need to just have a whole ministry." And so that's how it developed. And I wanted to create something that was lasting because when you have workshops and people get so excited, and then what happens? They don't act on the information. And so I wanted to create a program that we would build relationships.

And I modeled it after Alcoholics Anonymous because they have sponsors, people who they can call when they're at their lowest. So we created a money program where there's money mentors. And so they help them budget. They actually even call people when they're in the store. Like someone's in the store, like Target, and they're like spending, and they will call their mentors like, "I don't know what to do." And we've actually had people talk, like, "Put the card away, go to your car." And it's a year-long program.

We start in January, we go to December, we take August off for a vacation. And every month for two hours, sometimes three, 'cause I hang around afterwards, we have topics, get out of debt, how to save, better decision-making, investing. And they stick around. And now with the pandemic, we went virtual.

Do you know, we have 200 people on average on Zoom for two hours listen to about money. Regular, not y'all brilliant people. I mean, just regular trifling people for two hours. And we build relationships over that year. So by halfway through, they trust us. We say, "Don't spend, don't give that to that kid." And they actually act on that.

In this program, people's credit scores go up on average 50 to 100 points. During 2021, so on average, on a year, we have anywhere from 150 to 200 people. We have a really large church. And you don't have to be a member of our church, it's free. But during 2021, during the rough time on the pandemic, people in this group, this one small group, got rid of $1.2 million in debt.

That's amazing. (audience applauding) And so as a part of that program, is the prison outreach part, where my husband and I go into state prisons in Maryland, men and women, and it's part of a re-entry program. So it's a five to six week program where we go inside the institution for two or three hours and teach workshop classes to people who are about to be released.

And so that's, it's a comprehensive, you know, and the money mentors stick with the program. So we have, you know, several dozen people who we train to help talk to people. And they're not accountants, they're not showing them how to do Vanguard or anything like that. They're just like, "Where's your budget?

"Where's your budget? "Why did you go shopping? "You don't need to buy nothing for Christmas. "That kid don't need no more shoes." That's all we do, to free up money so that they can save and invest for their future. - So I'd like to talk about what works in financial education.

So it seems like you feel like that sponsorship kind of buddy thing really works. But I'm wondering if you can just talk about it in your experience, what sorts of teaching resonates and helps improve outcomes? - Ah, that's such a good question. You know, obviously I like to tell a lot of stories.

I think the more personable you make it, the better. I love Pristina. I go to her all the time because of the way you talk to people. I think what we have to do is, it's not about dumbing down, but like this conference, I'm like so geeky and I'm laughing at the beta jokes and the alpha jokes and stuff.

But regular people, we not regular, y'all. (audience laughing) They won't get that. And it's very off-putting to them because A, it makes them feel like they're dumb. And secondly, it goes so over their head that they're not hearing the basic message, which is all y'all need to do is put money in a low-cost index fund and just let it go.

They don't hear that. They're so intimidated. And so I think it's very important that we meet them where they are to encourage them to do the things that they need to do to grow their money. And I wish there were so many more people here at this conference who would get that they can do this thing if they just be present.

And we make sure that we're talking to them in a way that they understand. - I wanted to, I just have one more question and then I want to open it up to the audience. So if you have a question for Michelle, you can queue up. We'll be bringing the microphone down there.

I wanted to ask you about the themes that you find yourself coming back to again and again in your work. I think Jason Zweig has said there are like, how many columns, Jason? Is he still here? (Jason mumbling) He feels six columns, six topics that he revisits with kind of a current events hook.

When you reflect on your work, are there any key themes that you find yourself coming back to again and again in your articles? - Most definitely. And by the way, like, first of all, Jason is so cute. But. (audience laughing) He's just so cute. (Jason mumbling) - Okay. (laughing) And I just love his work.

I'm such a big fan. So the key things, 'cause here's the thing. I love this conference and it's all about, you know, like, I don't do spreadsheets. I don't do any of that. But the thing that'll get some people to where you are is debt, number one. This is a country that loves debt.

So I revisit debt, spending choices, better decision-making, love and money. I heard someone talk about having this panel about couples and money. A lot of reasons why people don't have the money to invest is that they're on different pages with their spouses. Because we tend to marry on money.

Opposite, it's just how it works. I could not be married to another Michelle. So my husband is way different than me. Now, fortunately, we are on the same page money 'cause I very purposely wanted to marry a cheap man. (audience laughing) Which is very unusual. Even as a young child, I mean, a young adult dating, I knew the kind of man I wanted.

Like, I didn't want somebody who had fancy cars. I could tell y'all a story like that. But anyway. So love and money, kids and money, and estate planning. Those are the topics I try to revisit. And I hate debt so bad. I mean, if debt was a person, I'd slap it.

I just, I feel like this country could be in such a better place if we just had a healthy hatred for debt, even for our mortgage. Even for the things that we think are worth the debt. I'm not saying don't use it. Obviously, most of us cannot buy a house outright.

But you ought to hate signing that thing so bad that you want to get out of it so bad. And when I write columns about pay your mortgage after we retire, the hate mail I get, mostly from financial planners. (audience laughing) It's crazy because I can't stand that mortgage.

And if I don't have a mortgage in retirement and things happen like it is now, I can weather that storm a little bit better. If my kids can go, my youngest is a teacher. She can live on that teacher's salary a little bit better 'cause she don't have any student loan debt.

And so savings, so important. And I'm gonna throw in income building, making sure you get enough knowledge and get in the right career so that you can have the right income. Although, I don't ever say everybody has to be in STEM or something like that because I believe we all have a gifting for where we ought to be.

And I want to teach people how to live whatever they decide that that's where they want to do. My kid wants to be a teacher. I'm not gonna discourage her from doing that. I'm gonna teach her to be a really good money manager. And then estate planning. We had talked about this in the last panel.

And someone said that it's so depressing because it's about death. That's not how I teach it. Estate planning is about life. It's not about death, it's about the living. What hot mess are you gonna leave if you don't do your estate planning, right? I mean, it's about the relationships.

And then people do estate planning and they want to punish adult kids or people who weren't doing what they're supposed to do. But when you are gone and you leave something to one child and not the other, who are they gonna blame? You are dead. They're not gonna blame you.

They're gonna somehow feel something about their sister. My husband and I update our wills every once in a while. We're in the process of doing that now. And we sat down with our oldest who's gonna be our personal representative in Maryland. And we were talking about everything. We got to the house.

Now, we have a beautiful one acre property house and spent all these years trying to pay it off, love my house. And I wanna have a paid off house for somebody so they don't ever have a mortgage. And I don't care which kid get it, but somebody ought to have a paid off, keep that house, right?

She looked at me, she said, "We selling the house." (audience laughing) "You can't sell my house." And I'm like feeling all, I'm crying. Like, "Why you don't like my house?" You know, black people don't have no property. I just, I went there, I went there, you know? And she looked at me like I was crazy.

And my kids have great relationship with each other. She said, "Mom, if only one of us "was able to have the house, "that's gonna make the other two feel some kind of way. "Even if we aren't fighting, "you're gonna be really resentful. "And I don't think that's what you wanna leave." I was like, "Darn if that kid gonna sell my house." (audience laughing) But she was right.

It's just a house. We have taught them to be property owners. So she said, "We can sell it, split it three ways. "And we've taught them to handle money well enough "that they could take those proceeds, "buy a house of their own, "almost, if not outright, close to it.

"So they will be a mortgage-free loan "before my husband had been mortgage-free." And she's telling me all this, 27. And I'm a little proud and a little pissed off. (audience laughing) But she was absolutely right. Plan for the living. What kind of relationships? If you don't have a good relationship, you need to get some therapy.

Some family therapy so that you all can come together. I had a, I was speaking to some seniors at my church and she was saying her son is her representative, but she don't like his wife. And his wife has a lot of influence over her husband. Of course she does, she sleeps with him.

(audience laughing) So I said to her, I said, "You need to get in good graces with that wife "because let me tell you, it's not just about when you die. "If you can't take care of yourself "and he has to take care of yourself, "you're gonna want her to wanna take care of you.

"So you better build a good relationship with that wife "so that he will take good care of you "and she will take good care of you." And she was like, I said, "Plan a lunch." She's like, "I'mma plan a lunch." (audience laughing) - Beautiful, thank you, Michelle. I am loving this.

(audience applauding) We're gonna take some questions from the audience. I'll put the mic right here. - Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the club. - Thank you. - I've been reading your column. I live in Washington, D.C. I've been reading your column since I got out of school in the mid '90s.

I know who Big Mom is. And I'm grateful for you and for this whole community, neutral arbiters of exceptional information with no angle. And my question is, when you look around this room, there's not that many women and there's not that many people of color. And I wonder what do you think it's gonna take to bring more diversity into this group that's, as far as I could detect, not prejudiced, not mean, extremely generous with no angle.

It's been beneficial to me as a military widow when I was seeking out a half dozen advisors, each of whom told me something wrong, illegal, incorrect for my situation. And this is where I got my information. And I wonder, how can we do that for a bigger population? - Yeah, that's such a great question.

And I spend a great deal of my time trying to get minorities and women involved in this. I think just, we can have big things like this, but within your community, just identify populations that you can go and talk to, community colleges, colleges, and have just simple forums and meet them where they are.

So you might start off how to pay off your student loan debt but then you throw in some investing stuff, right? You just have to go out there and be very intentional about trying to reach those groups. The program in my church, we've got young people, old people, white, black, so, and as you can see, I do, one year I was teaching off of the Matrix.

And so we all had dressed up like the Matrix. I had leather pants on, I can't fit them now, but I had them on then. One year, the whole thing was the Black Panther. So we got all the outfits and we just do really entertaining, interesting things. We do kids and money sessions.

And so that's, you just have to go in, find those pockets of communities, set up programs, but make it so that it's not a one-off thing. Is there a community college with young adults? Try to go there and see, maybe they've got a math class or algebra class or whatever, and just see if you can kind of incorporate some of this stuff within that system.

And I think that's how you bring them in. But you're absolutely right, we have to get, and I think Vanguard could probably do a better job of reaching out. It's a great product just for those kinds of folks. And the entry point maybe needs to be a little bit better, right?

In order to get the, you know, administrators, you gotta have some kind of money, right? Now, my daughter, she has an investment account with, she's got a retirement account and investment account with Vanguard. And it was a hard sell. Now, you see the house she grew up into. It was a hard sell for her.

And she has three funds, 3,000 each, 'cause she had $25,000 saved up, y'all, 25! I did not know that! So she has an account. And unfortunately, we set her up just as the market started to go down. And so when we're in the kitchen preparing something, she comes in, 'cause all my kids live with us, that's another story, which is great, we love it.

We love that they live with us. She comes in and she kind of looks at us and she just cast her eyes. And she's like, "You're making my money go down." But I said, we keep saying, "Be patient, be patient." So that's how you do it. You do it within your own life, you do it within your community, and you have to go to where they are.

- Thank you so much for being here. You mentioned helping folks with causes, or a purpose you value, like buying a home. And you also mentioned the importance of spending choices. How do you navigate or offset the fungibility aspect of money? So someone brings to you something you value, like buying a house, but you're aware of spending choices in their life elsewhere that you may not approve of.

So in one sense, arguably, you're possibly enabling something you don't support. - So when you, okay, wait, go back to the mic, 'cause I think I wanna make sure I answered your question right. So are you saying if someone comes to me and they wanna buy a house, but they're not a good spender, I mean, let's say, how do I, should I tell them to go ahead and get a house, or is that what you're asking me?

- Let's say if they told you they wanna buy a crazy SUV, you might say, I don't support that, I'm not gonna lend you this money. But they're borrowing from you to buy the house, while with their own separate funds, buying a crazy SUV, or whatever other choice that you may not support.

Because funds are fungible, one could argue they're using their own funds for the house, and using your money for the crazy SUV. - Okay, I see that. Well, yeah, that doesn't happen with us. So the times that we help people with like a down payment on a house, we have looked at their situation, and we see their spending pattern.

So if you were buying that kind of car, we're not gonna give you the money. So we are very discerning on who we choose to help that way. So we do look at your life challenges, and we do say to people, no, you got this over here, you need to wait.

So we are very discerning, and I'm very like, no, I'm not gonna give you that. You're spending it on this very expensive car. I have a 2006 Honda Odyssey, and duct tape is my friend. (audience laughing) So I'm not gonna lend you money for a down payment house if you got like a Lexus, that's just not gonna happen.

So I'm looking at your life choices as well, before I give you some money. And my husband, me more than my husband, he's the good cop, I'm the bad cop. I'm like, that's a dumb decision. I'm very candid. And when people, for example, whenever a form, not this form, but they come up and say, you know, should I buy a house?

And the first thing I ask them is, do you have debt? And if you have consultant loan debt, I said, absolutely not, absolutely not. You get rid of that debt first. And the whole audience, not you all, 'cause y'all are from, you know. They're like, oh, how could you have ownership?

You have to buy a house. I said, you already got a house, especially if the debt is like three, you know, six figures student loan debt. Absolutely not. And, you know, one woman came up and she wanted to upgrade to one. She had a townhouse and an upgrade to another house.

And between her and her husband, they had $200,000 in student loan debt. I said, are you insane? No, you're not gonna live in that house. Oh, the boys need more room. How much room do they need? Right, you know, there's not enough backyard space. Take them to the park.

(audience laughing) So I'm very opinionated. And I think that a lot of people just need to hear that. I mean, in our space, sometimes we're a lot like it depends. I'm not a depend kind of woman. I'm like, don't do that, that's dumb. And I'll help you show you another way.

So that's not a situation I find myself in. - Michelle, is there a curriculum or the teaching material that you're using that we could use to get this message out? - Wow, so we are working on that right now, as a matter of fact. It's been taking forever. My job has been all-consuming since the pandemic, but we are working on a curriculum that is both biblically-based and a secular version.

And my book before this last one called "The 21-Day Financial Fast" is biblically-based about a fast, the Daniel fast, where you don't eat fruits and vegetables and no meat. And so this fast is that you don't spend on anything that's not a necessity, and you have to use cash.

And so based on that book and my last book, we have created a curriculum. And it's a year-long curriculum. The prison curriculum is much shorter. So we are working on that. We hope to get it up by 2023, and it'll be accessible through our website. - Let me ask you a quick question, Michelle.

I want to ask about your charitable giving, because that's something we've talked about, your approach to charitable giving. And I specifically like your thoughts on a really big-picture question is figuring out how much is enough for you and your family and your needs versus how much you want to direct to charity.

You told me that giving and having a giving plan set out and having it be automatic makes you better about managing your household finances. So can you talk a little bit about that? - I would love to talk about that. So my husband and I are tithers, so we give 10% of our gross income, 'cause my pastor says, "Do you want a gross blessing or a net blessing?" (audience laughing) And we decided to make giving as important as paying our mortgage.

So it's not last, it's first. And because we give 10%, we got to really manage that 90%. And boy, do we manage that 90%. Now, I come from a low-income background. My grandmother didn't do tithing. She couldn't afford it. But my husband and I decided that we have been so blessed.

We both came from childhoods that didn't have a lot. His parents divorced and kind of left my husband on his own when he was like 14. Not on his own, but they kind of disengaged from his life. My father tried to kill us. My grandfather was an alcoholic. And here I am at the Washington Post and my husband's working in a great government job as a manager, and we make an income that we never, ever dreamed that we would have.

And we thought, what are we gonna do with this? Buy more cars? Buy a bigger house? That can't be all. Give it to our kids. I want them to work for their own self. We're gonna leave stuff to my kids, but we don't wanna leave them so wealthy. I love when Warren Buffett says you wanna give them enough that they can do something, but not so much that they do nothing.

And so we decided that a 10% plus another two to other charities that we believe in has to be a priority in our life. Give first, then you manage the rest of the 90%. And we belong to a church that has a Shabbat center where we give to the poor, we feed the hungry, so we make sure that our money is being used well.

We have a jobs program, we have the prison ministry, I do the financial, we have 100 ministries, so we are well aware that our money is in good use. And so I think for all of us, we have to make giving a priority. And not, I mean, we get a great tax break, but not just for the tax break.

And it's so interesting. Y'all talk about tax harvesting and all that kind of stuff. I don't wear none of that stuff. I just give. That's a huge tax break. And I don't have to worry about taxes. And I'm helping our community. And so I believe that who much is given, much is required.

It ought to be a key part of your financial life. Who are you helping besides, not just yourself or your immediate family, but outside of that sphere? Who are you impacting? What kind of financial legacy are you leaving for other people? It's gotta be key. The government can't do it all.

And we know they don't even wanna do it. So it's up to us to help and make sure that our money, the thing that you work so hard for, is helping people live a better life. And so that is key part of who we are. We give to our church.

We give to, you know, public radio. (audience applauding) - Michelle, your giving is close to my heart. I really appreciate it. But before I get into a point I was gonna make, I have a 2003 Honda Odyssey. (audience laughing) You know, in terms of making a difference, the topic that you just teed up is exactly what I came up to talk about.

I've been very blessed myself. Struggled through life. Had a very stressful career. Two-time cancer survivor. And I made it to retirement. And so I'm blessed as well. The thing that I decided to do when I retired was to set up a private foundation to help cancer patients and their families because when they're undergoing treatment, can't work, can't pay their rent, can't put food on the table, can't pay utilities, things like that.

And so I found that very rewarding. And I'm not encouraging anybody here to do the same thing because there's a lot to that. But, you know, bless you for the work that you do. What I did wanna suggest to this group, because it's available through Vanguard, through Fidelity, through Charles Schwab, the donor-advised funds, the DAFs, these are things that if any of you are fortunate enough to be in the position where you do have money and you do have the willingness and the heart to give, by all means, you can do this, and it's quite efficient, and it cleans things up from a tax perspective, so.

- That's great, I'm glad. And thank you for what you're doing for those families. (audience applauding) Michelle, I wanna thank you on behalf of Bogleheads for making the trip to speak with us. I have loved hearing from you. I think the audience has, too, based on the reaction that I've been hearing.

Thanks a million for doing this. (audience applauding) (audience cheering)