07/23/2026
I’m trying 🥲
Living below your means may not impress strangers, but neither does begging your next paycheck to arrive early.
I’ve watched people earn great money and still feel broke because every dollar already had somewhere to go.
The car payment. The house payment. The credit cards. The subscriptions. The lifestyle they built to look successful.
And the numbers back that up.
Americans now carry about $18.8 TRILLION in household debt, including $1.25 trillion in credit card balances and nearly $1.7 trillion in auto loans.
About 7.1% of credit card debt and 3% of auto debt recently transitioned into serious delinquency.
The Federal Reserve also found that 45% of credit card holders carried a balance at some point last year, while 37% of adults couldn’t cover a $400 emergency using cash or its equivalent.
That’s not freedom.
I’d rather live a little cheaper, keep breathing room in the budget, and know one bad month won’t wreck everything.
There’s nothing luxurious about having nice stuff and no peace.
Real wealth is having options, cash flow, and the ability to sleep without doing math at 2 a.m.
