Unfortunately I came upon Ramsey late in life, around 50. Put my foot down at that point and said no mas. Paid everything off, house, car, CCs etc. Once debt free, I felt like I got a 10% raise because the money I was spending on interest, amounted to that at least.
20 years later I have all I could almost want as I have a chunk of money in the bank and investments rather than using CCs to quell any problem. I still use CCs but pay them off each month no matter the balance. We also decided to not support the car companies and drive older cars and plan to do it till the wheels fall off!
Yeah, that's part of it for sure. Just driving a new car off the curb drops its value hugely! We buy nice used cars with low mileage. Bought one with a defect. Couldn't update the console because of software licence with Microsoft. Was almost brand new. It doesn't do navigation but does use the smartphones phone calling and music. So we just do navigation with the smartphones. Was a bargain. We paid for it in Cash!
Living within your means makes you Smart!