I am almost a cash n carry kind of guy now. I carry absolutely no debt other than a mortgage. I pay cash for cars, vacations, furniture, electronics, everything….
….Without worriying about paying a debt and having enough $$ in the bank to pay off all debt, and have enough left over to be jobless if I needed to be and still maintain my lifestyle. …
…I am the kind of guy who has always strived to be the dumbest person in the room, the poorest in the neighborhood, and the lowest paid in my job. As you get smarter, more successful and richer, you have to try harder to surround yourself with people smarter, more successful, and richer than you.
I find the comments in your last paragraph interesting. I agree with most of your philosophy whole-heartedly, and certainly hope someday to be in a position similar to the one you have created for yourself, but I disagree on surrounding oneself with richer folks and being the poorest person in the neighborhood. Work-wise, I agree to a large extent, but it seems to me (and some recent studies seem to bear this out) that people determine their “success” based on their environment (neighbors). I want a decent, safe hard-working type neighborhood where most folks don’t drive hummers or bmw’s and spend 100K renovating their backyard, since the extra expense is a luxury. And humans have a way or setting a baseline to what they see around them.
