Would anyone recommend investing in RRSPs at my age?

Will Rogers's advice from 80 years ago is still valid: "Buy land, son. They ain't makin' any more of it."

One of the wisest men I ever knew said that you should only invest in something that really interests you. That guarantees that you will be the best-informed investor in that field. If you love Persian rugs, fine art, classic cars, gemstones, race horses, or any collectible, then specialize in it. You'll know how to make money so you'll make money.

My wife really likes houses and knows a lot about them and the land they're on, so our best investments have been in real estate. We've never done well in the stock market. However, there are a couple of fairly new industries that interest her, and she's done well by investing in the companies in those industries that she finds promising.

I had a friend who cashed out all of his savings and bought unset tanzanites when they were first discovered 30 or 40 years ago. He was an expert in gemology and he knew that those stones would stay rare and become extremely popular. He was right and he became a multimillionaire.

That said, you should buy a house because everyone needs a place to live. If you don't buy one you're going to have to rent one, and in the long run buying it is a far more profitable use of your money.

You have the benefit of the long run. You can diversify your investments so that the risks balance each other. If you had bought the stocks in the Dow-Jones portfolio in 1928, even though the Depression happened and many of those stocks became worthless, you would have made a fortune on the companies that survived. Today you'd probably want to diversify internationally, so that your future won't depend entirely on the economy in a single country.

The biggest issue at your age is discipline. Within broad limits, it hardly matters what you invest in. What matters is that you do it. This year, you feel like a responsible young man and you're ready to launch your investment program. The most important component in that program is you. In 2012:

• Don't get depressed and quit your job.
• Don't fall in love with a floozy and spend all of your money trying to impress her.
• Don't feel sorry for your brother and bail him out of jail, pay off his mortgage, or pay his medical bills because he forgot to keep up with his insurance premium.
• Don't forget to keep up with your own insurance premium so an illness or accident doesn't destroy all your savings.
• Don't fall for some religious drenn and start supporting a church.
• Don't start gambling.
• Don't decide to become a musician.
• Don't feel that you can't live without a $100,000 car.

So, do the arithmetic. Assume you put $500 a month into an investment that yields a very conservative return of 6% per year. In 2057, when the retirement age will be 75, you'll have 1.8 million dollars.