Reply to I said we can’t retire yet. Am I wrong?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Retire when house is paid off and kids are finished college.[/quote]

Without the mortgage and the tuition obligation, it would be easier for the two of you to manage your expenses.  At that point, at lease one of you can retire for sure.

We also have 500k on our primary residence.  DC1 has graduated and we are waiting for DC2 to finish college in 3 years before DH or I fully retire.  Although DC2’s tuition is covered by 529, these last 3 years are great for saving up.  We have a 3% rate on the mortgage and we are paying it down faster by adding to principle.  Even if we still carry a mortgage at 3%, it won’t be too terrible for one of us to stop working. 
[/quote]

Op here. I agree that paying off the mortgage and waiting until kids are done with college would be the most conservative thing to do.  But that would mean waiting 12 years until retirement. Like I said above DH has thought about retiring now, so waiting 12 years is probably not going to make him happy.

Each kid will have $250k for college which is plenty for in-state, but admittedly not enough for a small liberal arts school at $100k a year.  If a kid was super excited about the $100k a year school, we would figure out how to make it happen, but I would first want to walk them through all the numbers, because I really think that is an excessive and unnecessary amount for tuition.

As far as paying off the mortgage before retirement, I know that is a perennial debate on this board.  What I have to say will not put everyone at ease, but we have looked at our own numbers, and we come out ahead keeping our money in the investment accounts rather than paying off the mortgage early and are comfortable with that level of risk. We will sell the house when last kid is done with HS, and should have enough equity cashed out at that time to pay cash for something else in a lovely, but lower cost area.  We have our eye on a few locales in one of our home states on a beautiful peaceful lake.[/quote]

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