I attended Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary's financial advice seminar on Saturday at a local library, and I was surprised by some of her advice.

Now, I know she likes to advice people on how to live on the cheap. I asked a friend if he knew who Michelle Singletary is. He responded, "You mean the cheap lady?" I said "yes".

Nevertheless, I was shocked at some of the things that came flying out of Michelle's mouth.

She's so cheap that she used to dress her youngest child, a boy, in his two older sisters' clothes. She said pink is the new blue. No, Michelle. Stop being cheap. Don't immasculate your son. Get him some boy clothes.

She said don't buy Christmas presents because your family and friends already have everything they want and need to de-clutter. OK, that's reasonable advice, but don't be surprised if you don't get invited for Christmas dinner.

But I certainly don't agree with what she said about paying cash for a car or a big-screen TV. First of all, carrying around that kind of money is unsafe. Secondly, who has the money to pay $15,000-$30,000 cash for a new car, as she suggested.

Some of Singletary's advice is just not sensible for a regular person. However, I do agree with what she said about your child avoiding student loan debt by staying in town to go to college. I also agree with her advice to max out your 401K on your job. And you certainly shouldn't try to keep up with your peers, who are likely in deep debt to buy the latest fashions, cars and gadgets to give the impression that they have lots of money.

Michelle showed a lot of creativity by using at least a half dozen video clips to make fun of how we use money foolishly. However, she failed to give a detailed plan for climbing out of debt and living on a budget.

Find out what she should have said about how to climb out of debt and building a rainy day fund on my blog, http://mytensense.com/2012/03/extreme-financial-advice-from-washington-post-columnist/.