I think you're right - our key difference is in risk tolerance. You can choose to minimize your risks to maximize your resources for dealing with unexpected ev

I think you're right - our key difference is in risk tolerance. You can choose to minimize your risks to maximize your resources for dealing with unexpected events. This is absolutely, completely, and in every possible way a valid life choice! Validity does not mean free of consequences, though. I have several friends who live this way. They do their best to minimize every risk in their lives and maximize their spare resources. One thing they all have in common is that they never have enough saved to feel secure - there's always a bigger and scarier scenario that they aren't prepared for. Some of them even struggle to tap their "unknown unknown" funds in the event of genuine emergencies, because there's more that could go wrong and they need to be prepared. Choosing to be maximally conservative is a perfectly reasonable and completely valid life choice. The catch, perhaps, is contextualizing it and accepting that you will pay a price for minimizing risk. Otherwise there's the real risk that a person winds up forever paralyzed by anxiety, sitting like the world's smallest dragon atop a horde of pennies in case you might need them. And I think it's fair to say that that's not a portrait of your average college student or the future they envision.