In the culture where you live there are good chances you don't finish college with a couple hundred thousands dollars in debt, and getting a reasonable home nea

In the culture where you live there are good chances you don't finish college with a couple hundred thousands dollars in debt, and getting a reasonable home near the place where you want to work doesn't cost a million dollars. On top of that, bad luck in America can be very expensive. the wrong illness can make living a low stress life difficult Therefore an American that sees a pile of debt in their future, the kind of career that can pay for that kind of debt, and therefore lead to just being reasonably content and independent, is not all that far from one where you end up in the neighborhood of being rich. It's definitely what happened to me: The difference between not having a lot of economic stress and 'oops, I could retire tomorrow' was about 5 years.