Vegas,
I'm with you... 2 paid off cars, one is 13 years old with 140k on it, the other is 9 years old with 120k on it... both run great, and I got NO CAR PAYMENTS! My house is 1700ish sqare feet in a nice neighborhood, and I bought it for under 100k and frankly we paid a little too much for it when we bought it 8.5 years ago.
I am 33, working post college now for just shy of 10 years, I make good money and certainly could "afford" the 3,000 square foot house... Many of my peers live larger than I do.. and they have the payments to prove it. I know for a fact my balance sheet beats all of them... Not only from smarter decisions with the money I have, but also from getting involved in real estate investing as a side business as well. I am within 12 months of no longer having to get up to go to work for someone else ever again in my life if things continue as they have been.
Yea, I may be driving a rusty 1996 vehicle, but I'll be driving it to the Golf Course on Wednesday morning.. while all my peers are sitting on the parkway in traffic on their ways to work to make someone else wealthy.... So, I'm not really worried what my peers are doing... I got a 30 year head start on retirement.... I think I got the better deal.
too bad we all can't be "real estate investors", riding the bubble to prosperity like you are. some of us have to actually work in a productive industry and earn wages there to make ends meet.
we can't build an economy on real estate investors, bond traders, and government employees.