>Hhhm, I was not speaking of monetary profit alone. Investing in a wartime effort in WW2 IMO was a good investment,
>even when done on credit.
>
>Why didn't you say so in the first place <s> ? I absolutely agree with you on that.
>
>not sure how to interpret the smile:
>literally as in "that's me - I pay cash for my house as well" (well, part investment, part reducing necessary cost)
>or more like "I leave borrowing for the house to my husband".
>
>Actually, when we moved back to the states, we almost did pay cash for our house. We paid it off in a year because the way mortgage interest is compounded, we knew that we were saving ourselves a fortune. No, we weren't able to do this because we are wealthy. We were able to do this because we have been frugal our entire lives, never lived beyond our means and never accumulated any credit card debt. Also, we bought a very modest house that we could afford. What a novel concept...

Not to me - I live in a modest flat, but the house has more appartments rented out.
Buying it for me wholesale was really part monetary/retirement investment,
and I paid ~50% in cash and the rest in a very short time,
so the part of saving a fortune rings a bell, as does living frugally ;-)

Looking for cheap appartments early in life and searching for the house for a long time instead of
jumping from flat to flat or house to house on house broker reccommondation helped a lot as well.
About the only luxury I need is silence while still being near centre of the city as well as having added
floor heating under nice marble: I often program according to Charles dress code, even in winter