Also don't forget the home mortgage deduction on the income tax, which once you are itemizing opens the door to a whole host of other deductions. My effective federal tax rate this year was 4.6%, back when I was renting I could not have accomplished that.

True, but buying a house now is betting that that tax deduction is going to exist for the next 20 years. The financial situation of the US is insane. The next 20 years aren't going to look anything like the last 40.

I said that twenty years ago as a justification for not bothering with paying into a retirement account. This turned out to be a bad bet.

Thanks for the perspective. It's easy to get caught up in events and not realize this has been believed for many years.

What did you do with the money you would have saved?

I spent it entirely on things I now do not have. Going out to eat, buying books and CDs, etc. There were times I genuinely could not have afforded to save five or ten percent of what I was making, but lots of times I could have.