I sometimes wonder if the reason that I always push things to the limit in an attempt to do as much as possible with my resources is somehow down to years of playing strategy games on computers, where correctly timing several turns of complete poverty results in massive success 50% of the time.

Unfortunately, this behaviour doesn't translate well to a medium in which the "reset" button involves 6 years without access to credit.

Hasn't happened yet. Nearly. But fortunately not yet.