I can build a complete financial foundation.

Foundations get built in an order, and the first course laid is never the impressive one. Nobody stands back to admire damp-proofing.

There is a moment people describe years afterwards. The washing machine died, and it was an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

Nothing about that day looked like wealth. It was the absence of one difficult phone call to somebody, and a night of ordinary sleep.

A foundation is not a thing you either have or do not have. It goes in course by course, and the only one available to lay is the next one.