But you still need to get under the oppressive thumb of the debit card cartel if you ever want to buy anything online as of the present.
I realize that Paypal is supposed to be evil and so on but so far they have been good to me. I hesitate to use them for really major purchases, but then, I try to make really major purchases as close to me as possible for a variety of reasons which have been discussed by a variety of people ad nauseam but which mostly boil down in the end to being able to walk into a store and shake my fist at someone if I am dissatisfied. Now, I happen to have a bank account attached to my Paypal account (I don't keep much in that account... I don't have a lot to keep in there anyway) but I've wondered, what's stopping you from collecting money via Paypal, then spending it again? Often the cheapest source for a product takes Paypal, and I rarely pay much of a premium to use them.
I know I sound like a goddamn commercial, but so far I've found them to be convenient. Again, I wouldn't like to spend thousands or even hundreds of dollars on a purchase through them or run much of a balance, because of the scary stories I've heard.
never to go into debt on a car but instead to buy a beater car. The trouble with a beater is that it is likely to require so much costly repair that going into debt for a certified pre-owned car becomes worth it.
Does he really use the word "beater"? There's a lot of used cars out there there are vastly cheaper than new that are still great cars. I see fantastic candidates on my local bumfuck craigslist weekly or even more frequently, in every class and price range from pretty cheap to very very cheap. Yes, you need some guidance, but honestly, spending enough time with KBB and similar online looking up the cars which are cheap will give you an idea of what you even want to look at. The vast majority of vehicles out there were never worth owning IMO. Usually the difference is obvious to any vaguely trained eye but you can't blame people for not knowing about cars any more than you can blame them for not knowing about anything else, where do you draw the line?
if one never goes into debt, then how is one supposed to afford a place to live?
One's parents are supposed to help them out, and not have more kids than they can help get going in life, but that's apparently unrealistic to expect. Most of the most successful people I know had good parental support to get going. Not surprisingly, these are some of the people most concerned about taking care of their parents.