Paying your own bills is how you buy the right to make your own rules.

The exchange runs honestly in both directions, which is the uncomfortable part. Cover your own costs and the ground under your decisions becomes yours, because nobody is subsidising the choice and so nobody has standing to overrule it. The other side is that while somebody else is paying, they do get some say, and resenting that while taking the money is a hard position to hold.

Work out which column you are in, item by item: phone, car, rent, insurance. Then move one thing into your own column this year. Autonomy arrives in pieces, and each piece is paid for.