Enjoyed this! So many finance articles are so cringe-worthy cause they totally breeze past all the privilege/opportunity needed to really make a lot of money when you're young. I have many of the same advantages you did: supportive family, helped me a lot while in college even though I did still have some loans which I'm paying off, was taught about and provided computers when I was young when that wasn't a guarantee for everyone, dad got me interested in programming early on, etc.

Despite making nearly six figured at 26 years old and being objectively far ahead of most of my peers, I'm still struggling a lot to build wealth. I spend more than I probably have to on rent (though the quality and amount of my space also is good for my mental health/feeling of abundance too), but everything else I am very mindful of my spending, track every dollar, don't spend on things I truly don't need/won't make a big impact on me.

Now I'm in the stage where I'm working on taking the self-employed path as a software engineer (web and crypto), and I hope that this path will both bring more alignment and happiness in my career itself and higher income.

I followed you and your pub; looking forward to reading. I'm in the process of creating a publication too, and I'd love to have you as a reader.

Thanks! :)