I always pay my bills...I feel like such a putz!
I know. Living within your means makes you a fool.
I know someone who got in so far over their head it would make your head spin. But they've still got everything they had before, except for an extra house or two. It's all mortgaged to the hilt; some of it is owned by their lender, but the lender can't get rid of it, so it still "looks like" it's theirs.
They drive around in a Lexus. I drive around in a Honda.
Some of the money they used to buy the Lexus was borrowed from me. The fancy lifestyle this person was showing off to his circle of friends for the last five or six years was all leverage, all borrowed money.