> A good chunk of the income tax system is designed to lower the cost of owning real estate. Foregoing that is no better than paying credit card interest
You typically pay 1.5x just in mortgage and interest. Most people have a maintenance emergency that costs 10k+ once every other year or so. HOA fees are no joke, neither is complying to their rules. Maybe you will get better tax returns and if you are really good at budgeting (unlike most) you can spread out your return to lessen this burden but you still will have at least 50% less regular cashflow for the duration of the mortgage (15-30 years!). That's what I mean by money making sense. If you have 50k+ in your savings and mortgage paymen+hoa will be at least less than half your monthly income you can afford it. In other words, if you can pay off the house in 5-7 years without living paycheck to paycheck and can withstand normal emergencies it is a good idea to own a house and much of it also depends on the interest. There are plenty of rent or buy calculators online that let you measure exactly this. For most people they say renting is better these days.
> You'll need to use a credit card to use Uber. Unless you're suggesting using debit cards for that which isn't a great idea.
Yeah, debit cards! check out privacy.com. Paying with the money you have, no more or less is how it is supposed to work.