Michelle Singletary is a nationally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. Her column, "The Color of Money" is an award-winning column, which is now carried in more than 100 newspapers.
She is the author of three books, “Spend Well, Live Rich: How to Live Well With the Money You Have (Random House);” “Your Money and Your Man: How You and Prince Charming Can Spend Well and Live Rich” (Random House), and the recently published “The Power to Prosper: 21 Days to Financial Freedom,” published by Zondervan, a HarperCollins company. “Your Money and Your Man" was a finalist in 2006 for “Books for a Better Life," which honors the best self-improvement books. This highly regarded award promotes the importance of one of the largest and fastest-growing segments in the book publishing business.
In 2011, “Spend Well, Live Rich with Michelle Singletary” premiered on WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto. The one-hour special began airing on other PBS stations in 2012. “When Michelle Singletary was featured in the WNED production ‘Your Life, Your Money’ (2009), we knew her sage financial guidance warranted its own distinct vehicle for presentation,” said WNED President and CEO Donald K. Boswell. “WNED is pleased to have worked with Michelle to create this national special for public television. Her sound advice is both engaging and empowering.”
In January 2012, Singletary began providing regular financial segments for “The Revolution,” a new daytime program on ABC. For two years Singletary was host of her own national television program “Singletary Says” on TV One, owned Radio One and Comcast. Following her second season, she hosted a personal finance special for TV One, “Real Estate Realties: When the Boom Goes Bust.” The special, which aired in 2008, focused on how the real estate crisis impacted the African-American community.
Singletary was a regular personal finance contributor for National Public Radio’s afternoon program “Day To Day.” She is currently a contributor to NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” She is frequently asked to appear on local and national radio programs including the “Diane Rehm Show” and “The Yolanda Adams Morning Show.” She has appeared on all three major networks, NBC, ABC and CBS. She has prepared personal finance segments for local and national news programs, and for a number of network and nationally syndicated programs, including "Oprah,” “NBC’s Today Show,” “The Early Show on CBS,” "Nightline," CNN, "The View,” and “Tavis Smiley” on PBS. She has appeared on “Meet The Press” and other national news programs, including CNN. In 2000, she was recruited as a regular contributor to do live financial segments for MSNBC.
Singletary has written for the flagship “O, The Oprah Magazine.” For a brief stint she was the personal finance columnist for “O at Home” magazine replacing Suze Orman. The quarterly magazine was a spinoff of the monthly “O, The Oprah Magazine.” Due to the recession, the Hearst Company shut down the magazine in late 2008.
In her spare time, Singletary is the director of “Prosperity Partners Ministry,” a program she founded at her church, First Baptist Church of Glenarden, in which women and men, who handle their money well, volunteer to mentor others who are having financial challenges. This is a 10-month program with a typical participation of about 150 people. Once a month, Singletary conducts a three-hour workshop for the ministry group on topics that range from tithing, to developing a budget to getting out of debt. Singletary also started a prison outreach program in Maryland to teach soon-to-be released male and female male inmates how to be better money managers. She and a group of volunteers regularly hold workshops in the correctional facilities. In 2010, Singletary was named Ministry Leader of the Year at First Baptist Church of Glenarden for your direction of Prosperity Partners and for her prison volunteer work.
Just a year after starting her column, The Washington Post nominated it for a Pulitzer Prize. Her column won a prestigious award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. She won Best in Business for a series of columns that ran in 2007. The judges wrote: “Michelle Singletary's work illustrates a range of writing that's both approachable and explanatory. In 2009, she was selected to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award from The Johns Hopkins University. She also received the 2009 Matrix Award for Professional Achievements from The Association for Women in Communications. In 1994, she was awarded a fellowship by NABJ to write about small women-owned businesses in West Africa. While in Africa, she helped cover the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela, and shared the lead story on Election Day with the Post's foreign correspondent, writing about a Soweto family's day at the polls.
She is a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park, and The Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a master's degree in business and management. Singletary and her husband reside in Maryland with their three children.
