Most of my baby boomer and Gen-X friends/aquaintences/etc... are all in huge houses, with huge payments, and have huge debt. I have no debt, a huge savings and retirement account, and will retire a decade (or more) before they will.
I know many Gen-Y folks and they are much more frugal. Most of them have grown up knowing that there will likely be no social security, and they have planned accordingly.
Another plus for the wife and I is that she is a 15 minute walk to work, and I drive about 5 miles. How great is that?!?!
I am already retired 2+ years. It is amusing to watch Madison Avenue try to get me involved in refinancing the house, getting the right new car, pick out the right wide-screen display, buy a good investment property, and on and on as long as they think I have some unused debt potential. Every cabin, house (except one) on this road is a rental unit, and I watch the renters come and go and I wonder what alien intelligence has invaded their brains. The young ones party all the time and the older ones are staying off skid row somehow, driving cabs mostly. In the past 1/4 century perhaps two of them built their own houses somewhere in town and eventually moved and I suppose they are doing okay. The rest? Whatever generation--X, Y, gotta wonder.
"I know many Gen-Y folks and they are much more frugal."
Like me, two acres, small efficient saltbox cape. I have the room to triple the size of my home if I choose to do so, but I like being able to wave the oil man off and heat my home with three cords of wood a year.