The fact Firecracker and Wanderer have eschewed real estate in favour of an early idleness, and are actually of Asian (!) heritage, has turned a lot of newsroom cranks. After saving madly, living on air and investing their 500 grand (with me), these guys ended up claiming to be the nation's youngest retired millionaires. My callers? Not so much. The liquid assets among 35-year-olds who have been working for seven or eight years is breathtaking. There aren't any. Instead, all the cash has gone into lifestyle, a soul-sucking condo or repaying student debt. The kids basically have no idea what an RRSP is, or an ETF, and equate a TFSA with a high-interest savings account at the bank.

If you've made a windfall profit, take it and run. If you're leveraged up to the pits and speculating on big gains, bail. If you're within a few years of retirement with most of your net worth in four walls, suck it out. If you cannot afford to see your equity peeled back by a third or more, and stay that way for years, then retreat. If you listened to Mom and bought a condo with diddly down, get out.

Over the past few weeks the various media have inundated us with housing projections, prophecies and prognostications. The housing market is going up -- or going down! (compared to what?) What do those headlines even mean? Are housing starts up? Are housing prices up? Are the number of homes sold up? Or are more and more people building and living in concrete high rises?