@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't want to live in the future. I want to enjoy my life all the way through. I didn't pursue very good career options in my 20s but I had the time of my life and wouldn't swap it now. I have a few friends who earn a lot of money, but they have had health problems and rarely see their kids - that's not the life for me. I wouldn't want to be poor, but I've no desire to be rich either.
Not living in the future is how a lot of people get into debt. You can also maintain a healthy life style and work hard. You're sort of taking a black/white view of either not giving a damn or becoming a workaholic, at least that's what you seem to be implying, though I'm sure that probably isn't your view point. At any rate: work smart, not hard.
Having said that, I could do with some more cash at the moment.....
I think that's true for most people anyway
The very least you can do is consider the future, even if you don't take the extreme options I did of destroying myself in my 20s, you can still retire in your 50s if you play it right (I'm assuming you're in your early 30s). Living cheap helps a lot, even now with complete financial independence I am a cheap bastard, primarily because I got into that habit years ago.
It couldn't hurt to get some advice, if you think you need it or think it could be helpful, from different people who are more experienced. I'd consider, especially, talking to older people. If you want to seriously learn to live cheap, talk to someone who lived through the great depression or came from a communist shit hole country like mine, though full disclosure, people from my homeland are really bad with money because they don't have experience with it, hell, pyramid schemes are huge there like they were in the US in the 80s, but they can tell you how to not spend money or be really cheap, just ask them how they got by in the 80s and early 90s.