One thing I have noticed is how prevalent the hustle culture has become among Millennials. LinkedIn is a hotbed of narcissism, and Twitter has a ton of self-proclaimed business superstars who have made money by having companies entirely dependent on using foreign labor and providing shitty service for customers. It's quite appalling how often you hear fellow Millennials go on and on boasting about their own "successes" or try to sell themselves without an ounce of honesty.
The hustle of creating "passive income" means that we are going to see a lot of sociopaths becoming landlords and doing the bare-minimum for those who rent from them, and the quality of services will continue to decline across all companies as there is no value in providing a good service, merely making money. The decline of quality we have seen from the boomer generation onward (yes, that includes you, Generation X, you aren't exempt from being self-destructive narcissists like your parents and your children) is going to ramp up significantly.
Some people will say, "blame the system, not the person," but for god's sake, eventually someone has to stand up and refuse to operate as basically a scam artist. For as many supposed "leftists" there are among Millennials, they sure have no qualms about taking the worst aspects of human greed and using that as their core business model.
Am I over-exaggerating here?
I totally get it. But, I've explained like how ammunition works in Metro 2033.
In the game, they came up with the idea of ammunition was money.
You buy it to save it, and then use it all at once in a firefight you need to defeat bosses or large forces.
If you think of your budget like that, it makes a fuck-ton of sense on how to save money and why.
The only problem with savings is you have to keep an eye out for the myriad of special interest and government organisations who will try and steal it even before you've earned it. It's quite funny you mention debt and stuff, I got into arguments with my parents about even having a credit card and I simply refuse to since I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I don't need to manage my finances like that.
The last thing I'm going to do especially if I start doing well for myself is get put into any kind of position where I own anybody any money so they can take my shit away for arbitrary reasons. That's why you learn about how currencies work and make sure you put your savings in something that can't be inflated away.
Even though I own a house now as an example I'm still pondering the possibility of buying up land in places or maybe I'll get more real estate generally, all sorts of options to look at.
Unfortunately, keeping an eye out for someone stealing your money after you've earned it is the price you pay for having wealth at all. With power comes responsibility, with freedom comes vigilance.
As a guy who refused to get credit cards for a long time, I regret that decision now. First because cashback on spending gains me more "effective interest" than my savings and checking accounts do, particularly under inflation. Second, because I have a nearly perfect credit score now because I treat my credit cards like debit cards. I'm getting offers for personal loans with low interest rates and shit apropos of nothing. If I need a genuine infusion of capital, it's actually at my fingertips.
That doesn't mean I'm not stacking as you noted.
Gradually buy up the plots around your house and build a kingdom.
Hippity hoppity get off my property :D