It meant that later when we became parents my wife could quit her job to be a stay at home mom -- it's not for everyone I know, but it's what she wanted and we couldn't have done it if we still had all of our other debt.But what I do regret is that we did buy into the whole DR "only borrow for your primary residence, if even then" philosophy and as a result we spent most of the recession on the sidelines missing out on deals that are probably gone forever. 

Hold Reserves (cash on the sidelines) in a high yield savings account. 

Even if it was, as Trench says, staying on the sidelines is not the right approach.

Don't sit on the sidelines because we're "near the top." 

Its usually the 90% solution, but beats making no decision and remaining on the sideline!

Online sales will continue to push brick and mortar stores to the sideline.

I have benefited from owning real estate here in CA to the tune of about $400K in cash free equity through buying and selling 3 personal homes, so I have not completely sat on the sideline!

Otherwise you will get an interception and get stuck on the sidelines.

Fail forward if you have to, you'll still be so far ahead of those on the sidelines!

There have been a lot of the "sitting on the sidelines waiting for prices to come down people" who have ended up pricing themselves out of the market to buy, who would become great tenants!