As you figured out, owning things, particularly depreciating consumer goods, is not wealth. OWNING MONEY is wealth.

Borrowing money (debt) is even worse. And yet most people go heavily into debt to buy “things” (often trivial things) and spend the rest of their lives paying it off.

What the credit card companies are doing on campus is scandalous. They expect that young people will run up a huge debt having a good time, and that perhaps their parents will bail them out – or they will spend a decade paying it off. It really is like selling crack to schoolchildren.

As you are learning, financial education is not taught in schools these day – by design, not accident. And thus most of us get into trouble with credit cards and debt sometime in our lives.

You are lucky to spot this early on, and perhaps the fact that one of your listed possessions is NOT a television is the reason why.

I’ve owned a lot of “stuff” in 50 years, and none of it made me happy. The material is mortal error, only the spiritual endures.

Once you get out of debt, try to stay out. Build up savings – own MONEY, not things. Yes, your “friends” will laugh at you and call you a “monk” and they will all have shiny new cars and the latest cell phones. But they will also all be dead broke.

If I had done what you are doing now, I could have RETIRED at age 40. We all could. But few chose to do it. After all, that new car is only $199.99 a month (additional fees extra!). Right!

Kudos to you for figuring it out at an early age!

Also, something I didn’t mention in this post is that my parents were definitely “collectors” and have amassed sooo much stuff that I can’t imagine what they’ll do with it all when they decide to move from the home they’ve owned for 30+ years.

Seeing how stuff accumulates definitely makes me want to own as little as possible, too.