Timing is everything, I know some seriously well off pilots, now in their late 50's and 60's who've never been through the industry shock that the young fellas and girls are going through now.
My first airline choice was Ansett in the late 90s, guess how that turned out when a major actually goes broke right when you are trying to get out of GA. Lived through the 80s interest rates and 90s recession. I actually did ok through the pandemic, never have relied on debt beyond my means and that results in repayments being only a small portion of my income. Most of my early mortgages were on around 5-10% interest, car loans on 10-15%, cards over 20%. So what the average new pilot has on offer now is still well below what I was paying off. Yeah things are more expensive, in areas, but adjusted for inflation cars and general goods are only on par now, not more expensive. I was paying the same per month on my first house due to higher rates on 1/4 the mortgage I took out for my last, which is now almost paid off. What I see now is mostly poor management of what is much easier to obtain debt.
And knocked back 3 years, wait until you have health issues that knock you out of any work for a year or two as you age, no gov handouts, no freezes on debts and rent and such. Guess what, been there, done that as well, still on track for early retirement. The health issues really do make you consider what your purpose is in life and what is really valuable to you, if its still borrowing money to live in a penthouse with 5 Mercs, good for you. The pandemic made my finances drop a little, go backwards? I don't consider my finances as forward or backwards, there's enough or there's not, always maintain a more than comfortable margin. I work with FOs that buy $10k dogs, know QF SOs that owned pubs in their late 20s. If that's struggling in the modern world, well god help us all,