P.s. wow, this turned into a wall of text quickly. Ignore me if you want, I don't mind.

Agreed, the situation in the USA is dire. It seems like very few people here have large savings accounts and many are in debt. This seems to be what I'm recommended to do each time I enter a bank. They want me to pull out loans, for general living expenses, and pay substantially more back, where as I'm great with saving before buying oddities.

I had a roommate who paid rent using cash advances, bought a new $20,000 car(old one was a 2014 model, not broken or high milage), moved 2 times in a year, went out to bars every night and never cooked food, always ordered out. She worked as a server and didn't have a huge cash influx. She only acted this way as this is how everyone she knew except me and my fiance spent cash.

I see this mentality in a surprising amount of people. I recognize the terribleness of it as there's no cash to put away or invest. My best friend growing up was Jewish, only stereotypical with money, and he helped me see how to actually save money or buy things that reduce cost of living.

My three, non return on investment hobbies are computers, sound systems(people just keep giving me equipment) and snowboarding/splitboarding, all of them don't require frequent updates. Where as I have returned all cash back to me, through avoiding future expenses, with other hobbies such as growing my own herb(I don't sell it, but I do trade for concert/festival tickets), making my own kefir/yogurt, making my own beer, cooking all my own food, fixing/maintaining our cars myself, and several other small ones. I got to the point $1000 is my monthly expenses (bills, rent and food), in that I try to throw at least $20 a week into savings. The extra I have is exactly that, it either goes into savings, is used for taking my fiance out for a fun night or to buy things we want. She also saves and has an income so we're pretty well off for millennials in the US, though you won't catch me buying a 1080ti or titan any time soon(my dick waving is in sound systems and snowboards).