No truer words were ever spoken. Is money the most important thing in the world? No. But it does make that same world go round.
My mom shared quite a few valuable lessons with me. One of those lessons was: don’t ever become financially dependent on a man.
There’s plenty of horror stories out there of course of people being taken advantage of or downright being abused because they became financially dependent and really had no means to take control of the situation.
Now, will having money make you happy? No. But having enough money of your own to make your own way in life will. Imagine, God forbid, you end up in a relationship where your SO starts misbehaving towards you in an unacceptable way. I won’t fill in the details of this, because it’s different for every person. You want to be able to take yourself out of that situation and cover your expenses, at least for a little while until you decide how you want to fill in your life.
The same goes when you want to (or need to) switch jobs. If the company you work for goes through a round of layoffs and you happen to be one of the unlucky ones, wouldn’t you want to be able to have a couple months’ worth of rent (or mortgage payments) in your savings so you can find a job you like to get back on your feet?
So how do you do this? Everybody’s path in life is different, but the endgoal should be the same. Become self-sufficient. Make sure you can pay your own way in life. It won’t always be easy and you might have to give up certain things to gain others. But think of it this way: while your friends flaunt their luxury brand handbags with $12 in them, you can rest easy knowing you have $12.000 in the bank.