The main reasons why the majority of people are unable to save much in the way of retirement or retire early or even save and buy their first principal residence or investment property is because of 2 main factors: 1. They try and time the market and become a speculator as opposed to an investor. 2. They are far too risk averse because they simply don’t understand how investing works. They are so afraid of pulling the trigger and buying an asset that might go down in price. What they fail to recognize is this is par for the course with investing. As long as you keep a long term holding period you will protect yourself from any short term corrections which are fairly likely to happen and you should expect to happen. That’s how markets work, they never go up in a straight line, there are always going to be pullbacks along the way. If you can accept this fact then you will be forced to invest your money in fixed income type of investments, which after inflation and taxes will guarantee long term losses. Remember a short term price pullback in the S&P 500 or Vancouver Real estate is only realized if you're forced to sell and take the loss. Homeownership and retirement are both 30, 40 ,50 year needs so a short term pullback in the first 2 or 3 years of holding the assets should be of little concern for you. If it is then take the advice of legendary investors like Warren Buffet and Jack Bogle and don’t look at your statements…. it’s that easy!