Second, to achieve resilience, it’s imperative to reduce or eliminate debt, avoid leverage, and beware of excessive expenses, all of which can make us dependent on the kindness of strangers.

My issue with debt is that it restricts your cash flow. It keeps money away from your priorities as you pay hundreds (sometimes thousands!) of dollars a month for something that’s already happened.

There are real ramifications of reading these articles for decades and decades. You start to believe it. You start to think the only way to manage money is to hoard it and create an increasingly long list of noes. Soon, the guilt isn’t just coming from money experts and the outside world. It’s coming from you.