Aaron Webber

Have more money than you know what to do with and want to get into some expensive hobbies? Want to show off how rich you are? Try buying a small-town business just for fun! Rich people are funny. They think that just because they are wealthy, they can get a working-class job as a hobby.

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The list of things one needs to do or not do while in the military can become overwhelming. At a time when young adults should be discovering themselves and learning to enjoy their new freedom, some find themselves forwarding American military interests overseas. Naturally, personal finances and banking might take a back seat.

It’s a curious trait of human behavior, we sell our time and our health for money, and once we have it, we do all we can to avoid spending that money, even beyond the time of our deaths. And numerous studies have shown that the more money we have, the less likely we are to spend, share, or use it. Greed can make us do silly things.

You cannot budget yourself into wealth. No matter how much you cut out of your life, how many of life’s joys you go without, how many times you don’t eat avocado toast or forgo the occasional coffee, you won’t be rich. It simply doesn’t add up. Mathematics doesn’t work that way.

You cannot budget yourself into wealth. No matter how much you cut out of your life, how many of life's joys you go without, how many times you

You need to have money to make money. Rich people know this and use tools available only to them to grow their wealth to unimaginable levels. If you have access to some of these tools, you might also fall into the trap of comparing your financial situation to those around you and feel like you’re failing, even if you have more than enough money.

One of the most violent and often-overlooked casualties of modern hustle culture and the relentless pursuit of money and profit has been our hobbies. No longer are we allowed to simply enjoy things, or pass the time with small pleasures, we have to find a way to commercialize everything we enjoy or turn it into a side hustle.

One of the most ingenious, insidious, and powerful inventions of modern capitalism has been the rewards system for credit cards. It is easy to convince ourselves that we are getting a good deal by buying certain things for extra points or cash back when we are really just spending more money and being given crumbs in return.

Rent or buy? That is the question Americans have been asking themselves for generations. The American Dream has typically included a home that you own outright, some kind of pet, a successful desk job, and a family. But as private equity snatches up more and more homes, sending the price into the stratosphere, more people are opting to rent instead of buy (even though rent is also higher than at any other point in history, proportionally), and it looks like a future wherein we own nothing and rent everything we need or want is increasingly likely.