Sure, but this isn&#x27;t a serious option for most people. Other commenters have pointed out that credit scores have gone beyond just borrowing money, so I won&#x27;t address that aspect.<p>Many people don&#x27;t know how to make money as adults without borrowing money to go to university (and student loans are non-dischargeable debt), so as soon as you become an adult, before you can even enter the productive workforce, you&#x27;re saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and interest payments that&#x27;ll follow most people around for <i>decades</i>.<p>Culturally, people in the U.S. are pressured to buy a home as quickly as possible. If you&#x27;re in your 30s and still renting people assume you don&#x27;t know how to manage money. Renting and tenancy in most places in the U.S. is configured such that if you want stability, you need to &quot;buy&quot; (meaning, you need to pay rent to the bank instead of a landlord).<p>If you want a decent car that doesn&#x27;t break down constantly (which is a functional requirement in most places in the U.S.), one generally needs to borrow money to afford that, at least until he&#x27;s well into his career and has the opportunity to redirect some student loan money into paying cash for a car.<p>You have to borrow money on credit cards to get a decent credit score that&#x27;ll make it so you&#x27;re not immediately underwater in these fixed collateral-backed installment loans.<p>While it is <i>theoretically</i> possible to go without borrowing much money, it&#x27;s not practical for the majority of people. It was made that way on purpose, because banks like money. The system is structured so that the average American pays <i>at least</i> 2x the real cost of goods all the way through to retirement (pays once to the vendor&#x2F;seller, and once or more in interest to the lender that financed the purchase).<p>I personally find this disgusting and really hope we can see changes that make interest and borrowing truly and practically optional for average people in future generations.