True wealth sustains life: strong social ties, housing, food and the means of production.
We've been convinced to trade true wealth away for non-essentials. Fancy vacations in far away places and 2-3 cruises a year-people used to do that maybe once in their lives, 50inch flat panels in every second room in the house, huge houses with fewer kids in them, 64 bit cellphones, fancy kitchens with wolf stoves and granite counter tops all these things are non-essential.
My parents used to save for years to buy a new car or to buy a new stereo. It was easy, just write "New car" on an envelope and put cash in it every month, then 4-5 years later you bought the car cash, no loan. This went even moreso with luxury items like new TVs and stereos.
The quality of cars and electronics has increased, but the quality of our food and our social lives has decreased.
Cooking of real food at home must be on the decline. Every time I go to the grocery store every other person's order consists entirely of boxed processed food.
Instead of cooking and having dinner with the kids, in our industry, we now get texts[1] on our fancy cellphones at 7:00 pm to fight a fire in production because no software company wants to properly plan anything anymore[2] and then we feel awesome about solving the problem we created by being disorganized scatterbrains.
My suggestion, buy as many of the essentials of life in cash. The rest that you have to borrow for; pay it off quickly. Invest in long term investments and start early. Be frugal and forget about the fancy new doodad, or if you insist save up for it an pay for it cash. Cook at home and spend time with you kids and your friends.
[1] A text, god forbid not a human voice! People are addicted to texting because it allows them to have conversations with multiple people at once. We communicate more than ever but those conversations are shallower.
[2] Fail fast + short term methodologies.