This is the best advice I've seen in this thread. A great thing about having a mortgage for many people is the forced savings of paying down the principal, but

This is the best advice I've seen in this thread. A great thing about having a mortgage for many people is the forced savings of paying down the principal, but you want to maximize that virtue of home ownership by not over-buying - which brings with it proportionally higher taxes, utility costs, maintenance costs. Buy the smallest cheapest house that doesn't suck, and make sure you have auto-invest transfers to a brokerage account set up to get that excess out of your grubby paws. Mostly you'll just spend it on crap. If you do want something important (e.g. a car), you can buy it cash, but it's painful to pull a big chunk money out. That's what you want.