The way I became financially independent is by being consistent in developing my online business whilst holding a regular job.

Once my online business started generating regular income, I quit the job and moved to India where it was very cheap to live. That was not the only reason I moved there but it was one of them.

There, having all the time in the world, I continued building my business. Then when I saved enough, I bought land in my home country, without any debt, because it only had a tiny hut which I'm hoping to keep developing to make it into a cozy livable space.

My advice is to never to get into debt in the first place; most university degrees are useless unless you are doing some specialized job like in medicine. Otherwise it's just waste of money. You can learn work skills as you go.

I also think that it's psychologically draining to know that you have mountains of debt; so I would never buy anything that I don't have money for.