[Cowperson]

Your home is an asset and, current market kerfuffle aside, likely a tax-free appreciating asset through time, making it also an investment.

My own Rancho southwest of the city has at least doubled and more likely tripled from its original purchase price. Tax-free.

It's not uncommon in planning to see people thinking of their home as something of a tax free retirement bonus where they'll downsize in their older age and skim the profits off for use as income when their more liquid assets run out.

Debt, attached to a depreciating or appreciating asset, is really about having the cash flow to service it through a certain period of time.

Young folks tend to forget or lack the experience of knowing that income can be cyclical in relation to economies and they get cocky before they get laid off and have their pants around their ankles . . . . . . while older folks didn't pay enough attention to getting rid of debt while they were working and then found their reduced retirement income can't support it.

Concentrate on the cash flow. Can it support the debt and is that cash flow sustainable through the likely duration of the debt?

I encourage people to spend money on frivoulous experiences versus luxury cars and gigantic houses and, I think, older folks tend to understand that more. I like writing those cheques for them and usually have a smile on my face when I do so . . . . then demand to hear their stories.

I hope to die at 94 years of age outside a diner, stiffing VISA with a maxxed out credit card while giving the beautiful waitress my last $100 bill as a tip, shot dead on the sidewalk by a jealous teenage husband and the county having to pay the bill to cremate me.

Cowperson