

I have “purchased” thousands of books from Amazon, but never given them money for a book.
They run free specials all the time. FreeReadFeed scans for them. It’s a great way to discover authors to purchase their books at another site or use the library apps.
During the last housing bubble, you could rent the same place for less than 1/2 the cost of buying it. Renting and investing made more sense then.
Currently buying a house is overpriced but rent is even more so.
The best financial decision right now is to live with your parents your entire life. If you don’t have a parent you can stay with, then a tent and cardboard boxes in the park it is.