Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if the whole world disagrees with me - as long as you have an adequate emergency fund and all the basics, I believe the correct answer is always pay off or pay down/recast your mortgage. You have no idea how freeing it is to not have a mortgage. Who cares if you end up with more money at age 65 the other way? I get to love life now at 41.

This is such a stupid way of thinking.

+1

I say that as someone who believes in paying down/off mortgages. First you should save for retirement/college for kids. Once you are doing that adequately, then yes paying off a mortgage is freeing and guaranteed return.

But if you don't have any kids and you're in your 40's and 50's then it's not a stupid way of thinking. Nothing wrong with paying off your mortgage and not having to pay thousands of dollars in interest payments if you don't have to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hookers and blow

After that, then what?

An STD and a drug problem.

Op - thank you all! I’ve gotten some good ideas and inspiration. We don’t come from money so it’s nice to hear what others would do.

What I would do is irrelevant. You should consider the following

Pay off student loans
Max 401k each year and calculate what contribution to college savings you need to get max tax advantage each year.
Look into doing a Roth conversion and using some of the fund to cover the taxes.
Put aside 50k Savings or in money market funds
For easily accessible cash that still earns interest.
Invest the rest in low fee mutual funds, maybe the boglehead 3 fund strategy.


I would not pay off mortgage right now unless interest rate is over 5.5-%. You’re much better off investing that money.