When Michelle Singletary was in her early 20s, she was living with her grandmother to save some money for a year.

And while she loved her grandmother, living together was sometimes a little too close.

Because even though she was sweet, she was crazy.

She... I had to be to work at 10 in the morning and she'd get me up at like five or six afraid that I'd be late for work.

I worked like 15 minutes from our house.

And she just like she came in one morning and was like, you've got shoes underneath your bed.

That means the man is going to walk out of your life.

And I was like, grandma, big grandma, I don't have a man.

Michelle decided it was probably time to have her own space.

So she rented an apartment nearby and would often call her grandmother to check in.

The first thing on her math was you still rent and you still giving your money to the white man.

That's how... you know my grandmother was southern.

So that's how she presented it.

You still rent it. You still throw on your money away.

You still giving your money to the white man every single time you rent it.

Every conversation.

Every conversation for a year.

These days Michelle is a personal finance columnist for the Washington Post and a regular

here on LifeKit. And she knows that a lot of people feel pressure to buy a home.

Maybe not as much pressure as she got when she was only 22 years old.

But the significance of home ownership runs very deep.

In Michelle's case, her grandmother was so passionate about it.

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