It is important to preface that I started university when I was 22 years old. The mentality I had growing up, at literally 12 years old, was to save and buy a rental. The rules changed for buying a home, and I needed to help out some family, so I spent my savings at the time I could have bought a cash-flow-positive home for rental income. So, I started from zero a year before university started. Starting from zero but having the knowledge of how to be frugal really helped. I

I want to start off by saying that what wholeheartedly paid for my schooling without debt (undergrad, that is) was having skills. This is a broad claim and may seem lame, but I have learned that skills are the same as assets—similar to having equity or some other form of an asset. This is because if you think about going to school at all, you're not just getting a piece of paper; you're gaining skills that put you in a position to do a job that others may not be able to do (s

As a student, you do not have a lot of time to spend at a job trading time for money. Jobs in retail, stocking shelves, or any...