Washington Post Launches 'Dollars & Sense' Money Podcast With Michelle Singletary

Money advice is everywhere, and most of it is either too vague to use or too confident to trust. The Washington Post is betting that listeners want something steadier: a conversation with someone who has answered real readers' money questions for nearly three decades. On October 13, the Post launched Dollars & Sense, a new weekly podcast hosted by Michelle Singletary, its syndicated personal-finance columnist. The Washington Post announcement described a show built around one-on-one conversations, released every Tuesday, and PodSubs and citybiz, in their trade coverage of the launch, echoed the same core promise: practical money talk that starts with people's actual lives.

Singletary is not a newcomer being tested in a new medium. She is the author of The Color of Money column, which she has written for nearly three decades, and that longevity is the show's foundation. A columnist who has heard from readers through booms, crashes, layoffs, medical bills and college acceptances brings a memory that a new host simply cannot fake. According to The Washington Post announcement, Dollars & Sense will take on debt, spending and retirement, but also the psychology of money — the fear, guilt, pride and family pressure that sit underneath the arithmetic.

One conversation at a time

The one-on-one format is a deliberate choice, and a smart one. Personal finance is personal first. A spreadsheet can tell you what a payment will be; it cannot tell you why a parent feels unable to say no to an adult child, or why a saver who is doing everything right still feels behind. One-on-one conversations give those tensions room. The Washington Post announcement said episodes will run between 30 and 50 minutes, a length that suits the format: long enough for a real story and a real plan, short enough to finish on a walk or a commute. PodSubs, in its listing coverage, and citybiz, in its business reporting, both noted the weekly Tuesday cadence, which puts a money check-in at the start of the working week rather than burying it in weekend listening.

A trailer is already out, which matters more than it might seem. Trailers set tone, and tone is everything for a show asking listeners to bring it their financial anxieties. Singletary's column voice — direct, plain-spoken, allergic to jargon and to shaming — is well suited to audio, where warmth and clarity carry further than charts. Listeners who know The Color of Money will recognize the approach immediately; listeners who do not will hear quickly that this is advice from someone who has listened to a lot of people before offering any.

The first question is a hard one

The first episode takes on a question that lands in millions of kitchens: how much should parents sacrifice for their children's college education? It is a perfect opener because it refuses to separate math from love. Saving for college can mean delaying retirement, carrying debt longer, or working years a parent did not plan to work — and the cultural script says good parents do it anyway. A host with Singletary's experience can honor the love while interrogating the sacrifice, asking what a family can actually afford, what a student can reasonably borrow, and what happens to parents who arrive at retirement having funded everyone but themselves.

That balance — heart first, then numbers, then heart again — is what the psychology-of-money framing promises across the series. Debt episodes can explore shame as much as interest rates. Spending episodes can ask what a purchase is really buying. Retirement episodes can talk about identity, not just income. The Washington Post announcement positioned the show in exactly that territory, and the trade coverage in PodSubs and citybiz treated the launch as a notable expansion of the Post's audio slate, which it is: a trusted column becoming a weekly conversation is a different kind of relationship with an audience.

The show is also built to keep that conversation two-way. Listeners and prospective guests can write to the show at dollarsandsense@washpost.com, an invitation noted in the launch coverage. That detail suggests the Post wants real questions and real guests, not only experts with books to promote. A mailbox like that becomes a research engine: the questions readers send are the questions the next episodes answer, and a columnist who has read reader mail for nearly three decades knows how to spot the letter that speaks for thousands.

Why this launch matters

Newspapers launching podcasts is not news by itself. What makes Dollars & Sense worth noting is the fit between host, subject and moment. Money stress is not a niche interest; it is the background noise of most households, and a weekly show that treats listeners as adults — capable, sometimes overwhelmed, never stupid — has a real lane. Singletary's nearly three decades writing The Color of Money give the Post something money cannot buy quickly: trust accumulated one answered question at a time.

New episodes arrive Tuesdays, episodes run 30 to 50 minutes, and the trailer is available now for anyone who wants to hear the tone before committing. Start with the college episode if that question lives in your house; start with the trailer if you simply want a calmer voice in your ear about money. Previously covers new shows and the business behind them on our podcasts page, with broader culture coverage in news and artist stories on our music page. Dollars & Sense is a straightforward title for a straightforward promise — and in personal finance, straightforward is high praise.