You seem to have made some good choices but you don’t seem to understand how much luck has to do with the outcome.
It doesn’t take very much to wipe out savings or destroy a plan, especially before you got any funds to handle the unexpected and even more so in the US and it’s low de-comodification.
Get hit by a car by no fault of your own, rack up a high medical bill and be fired due to not being able to work. It’s not that an outlandish scenario and one that most can’t plan for or have money in reserve for.
And that’s of course even harder for someone growing up in a poor household and working minimal wage jobs.