I agree with most of this, but I’d say that being poor ultimately made me a far better financial planner. I used to shop with a calculator in my hand because I had $20 for groceries and I was going to spend every cent in the absolute most strategic way possible. Nothing can convey the pain of being a fat girl who just wasted the last of her food on a meal she ruined.
Because I had nothing, I had to manage my money extremely well, and that’s given me some really awesome skills my other friends don’t have. I disagree with him about the windfall cash. My tax return became my savings account every year, and I used that money to pay for unexpected expenses. I also lived at my means, and if I was in a situation where the alternatives were borrow money or not have a working car, I just didn’t fix the car until I had the cash. But I agree on his guitar-playing analogy. You can’t know what to do with extra cash until that’s something you have on the reg. The only reason I knew to put my tax return in savings is because somebody told me to. Without positive older role models who spoke frankly with me about money, I would have made so many more mistakes.
As for the other crap, knowing your balance to the penny and owning less than four pairs of pants are totally reasonable. I don’t know where this dude got so fancy.