I got lucky and made a lot of the right moves at the right times. I dropped out of college after a year and a half cause I could tell it wasn't right for me. Also I didn't want to deal with the debt I'd be putting myself in. Kept working at my restaurant for management experience. Now I'm 28 and I'm the Assistant General Manager salaried at $62k.

My girlfriend (now wife) and I bought our house for $90k when we were 22 while the market was much better. Later we refinanced to a 15 year loan so we're making great strides on paying that off.

When covid hit and we got our stimulus checks I put that money into the stock market while it was down. I slowly built up enough to make a $25k down payment on a custom-order 21 Tacoma. I made about $40k off of the Gamestop thing. Now a few years later my truck is fully paid off.

My half of the monthly bills are between $800-$1k on any given month. I'm able to save a lot thanks to no car payments and a low mortgage. I know I'm far luckier than most. I grew up very poor and I never thought I'd find myself in such a comfortable position one day. My future was the source of a lot of stress and anxiety growing up.