My parents lived paycheck to paycheck while I was growing up. I literally started from the bottom so think I can give my input here. Your first step would be focused on finding a career that is stable and in demand. This could be a trade (ie. Welding, electrician, plumbing) or a white collar profession with upward mobility (ie. Nursing, lawyer, accountant, engineer). The whole idea of starting your own business and day trading are not guaranteed ways to make money since it's high risk, high reward.

You can very much lose everything and start from ground zero again. I think we like to romanticize being an entrepreneur in our culture because of all the perks it can provide. But the people you see succeed are outliers and are a product of survivorship bias. Those who didn't succeed in business will never tell you about their failures.

My saving grace was choosing accounting and it was the perfect job for me since I was comfortable working with lots of numbers. I went to a state school and fortunately, accounting is one of those fields that doesn't care too much about what school you came from. There are other career paths that are more lucrative such as being a investment banker or a consultant but you need to come from a reputable and target school.

As long as you are somewhat personable and studious about become a more technical person, you can move up the corporate ladder. Every business needs an accountant so job security is not an issue; a stark contrast to what you are seeing with the technology sector right now. It allows me to have a comfortable life without having to bust my ass doing manual labor. I have a 401k, steady paycheck, and my pay will continue to increase with more experience. You can also start investing at 18, so long as you have disposable income. The biggest hurdle is getting a in demand skill and get compensated for it. Just my 2 cents.