I believe that debt can best be avoided by proper budgeting and living within one’s means to start off with. That means including in that budgeting a savings plan so you are building up a cushion in order to allow you to better survive the lean times. It’s just like the story in the Bible where seven years of plenty were followed by seven years of famine. The reason that the Egyptians were able to survive the seven years of famine was because they had saved warehouses of grain during the seven years of plenty, whereas everyone else blew all their resources and starved when the going got tough. This is the age-old cycle of economic boom and bust, of prosperity followed by downturn. And people need to anticipate it. It is difficult because we go through periods of reasonable prosperity and we don’t remember the bad side too much. So my advice really boils down to proper budgeting, living within your means and saving. And the younger we can educate people in that, the better.