19. Loans

Never take out a loan for items you think you want but don’t need. No borrowing for cars or other toys you can live without. If you must have a car pay cash or wait until you can. Buy an older simple car that is easy to fix and learn to do it yourself. It’s all on YouTube or at a local community college. Stick with model years before they added useless touchscreens and hundreds of microprocessors. For example a 1990 Jeep Cherokee with a 4.0 Liter inline 6, manual 5-speed, no bs options beyond power steering and brakes. A crank window is a good sign. A blind chimp with a socket wrench can change the plugs every 100,000 miles. Cheap, indestructible and goes anywhere. Perfect for being mobile, taking the board to the beach or campground hopping.

If you live by the beach walk or ride a bike.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be is a famous piece of advice from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is more true today than ever. Focus on being not buying.