If you listened to this week's episode with Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist at the Washington Post, you know just how smart she can be about saving and investing, for her goals and for her family's long-term goals. You probably also won't be all that surprised to learn that a few years ago, she achieved something many of us can only dream of. She woke up one morning and she found that she had the elusive perfect credit score of 850. Listen in to hear how she did it. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 06:00 Living below your means 09:00 Balancing college plans and retirement  14:00 The 21-day financial fast Takeaways: Achieving a perfect credit score means paying all your bills on time and maintaining a very low credit utilization. Prioritizing financial goals over lifestyle spending will allow you to save aggressively. A 21-day "financial fast" helps you avoid non-essential spending. Learn more about our Finance Fixx program here. Use code PODCAST for a $100 discount.  Thank you to Gainbridge® for supporting the HerMoney podcast. Gainbridge® created ParityFlex™, a multi-year guaranteed annuity, to offer women security and flexibility at a time when they need it the most—retirement. Learn more about ParityFlex™ here. The HerMoney with Jean Chatzky podcast is sponsored by Edelman Financial Engines. The podcast team and its host are neither employees nor clients of EFE, however, the show does receive fixed compensation and is a paid endorser and therefore has an incentive to endorse EFE and its planners. To learn more about the sponsorship, please visit PlanEFE.com/HerMoney. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to advertise on our podcast, and to learn more about Airwave, head to www.airwavemedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices