I am continually astonished at the lack of monetary discipline in the USA. For your average american, saving is a substantial amount of effort. Investing, diver

I am continually astonished at the lack of monetary discipline in the USA. For your average american, saving is a substantial amount of effort. Investing, diversifying, etc is 5D chess. It's easy to forget that a lot of us exist in a highly educated, highly compensated, 99th percentile of the population, and most people struggle to pay off their minimum credit card payment each month. Not to say that tech workers and HN denizens are better than other people -- in general, we're lacking a lot of skills and most of us would starve within days if we had to exist in any time period of human existence before 2000. But there is a VERY wide spectrum of financial competency out there, and folks commenting on this forum are likely very near the top of that ranking.