Learn why paying down your mortgage is dumb - AJC Feed

[alexwclark]

just silly.

[Shrawty]

Mathematically this all is true (assuming the markets recover to normalcy eventually). But there is an emotional side to money that math doesn't take into account. I think it also depends on how bold or conservative you are. For some people a guaranteed 6.25% fixed return looks pretty good. For others they don't mind the element of risk for the higher return with other investments which (once again assuming the markets return to normalcy) is very likely.

[mastertanker001]

It's absolutely worth it. My calculations say I should be sitting on $24,200,000 (approx) by age 65. Halting extra payments on my mortgage now would only net me another $700,000 by that time. I can do without it. My wife and I both come from blue collar backgrounds, and I had the misfortune of learning at an early age what foreclosure is all about. We don't care what the math says. Security, as much as we can get, is more important to us than another $700,000 in 30 years.

[mastertanker001]

I don't look at paying off my mortgage as "earning" anything other than the the right to own my house free and clear. It's a home, not a piggy bank. And doing so hasn't delayed my investing. 15% of my gross income currently goes towards mutual fund investments, even with an accelerated mortgage payment. And that number will go way up once I don't have any more payments. Maybe you look at it differently, but the security of owning my own home isn't so easy to quantify in dollars and cents.

[mastertanker001]

Or...I could pay off my home as quick as possible and just invest what I was paying in interest to the bank into mutual funds, as well as funding my 401(k) and my Roth IRA. by the time I retire, I could live on a six or even seven digit income from my nest egg without ever having to put my house on the line.

What a tool.