Considering where I came from and what I had accumulated, I would say I have a pretty good grasp of money and how it all works. I'm not a gambler. I f I took more chances I could have been even farther ahead, but I learned that lesson too late in life. My motto was slow and steady wins the race. Now I know that there is a time to take more risks and that time is when you are still young and have nothing much to lose. The more you have, the less risks you want to take. If you don't have much, then there really isn't much you can lose, is there? Plus you have time on your side. If things don't go well, you have time to recover. As one ages, there is less time left for recovery.
Of course you never want to lose more than what you can afford to live without, but in this country, nobody has to go hungry, so one can live with very little.