@JoeTaxpayer - Derek is just being stubborn. He's unwilling to concede the point because he thinks he has found one principle which is more important than all others. He's wrong. I know what debt feels like, and I've watched my parents deal with it for their whole lives. Debt definitely takes a psychological toll, but progress reduces that toll. If a $20,000 balance becomes a $10,000 balance, that feels great even if it takes a year or two to get there. The problem is when there is no plan.

I think there are plenty of people in the same position as Canadian Luke who are perhaps even maxing out their tax-advantaged plans but don't have a lot of other great options on what to do with the excess income. Paying off the mortgage is a great option for them. On a completely unrelated note, I started working for a huge multinational company about a year ago, and they don't have an option in their 401k plan to select a particular dollar amount per pay period. Only a percentage.

I can't believe I'm the only one who wants to take exactly $18,000 out of my pay per year. Over 24 pay periods I just want a flat $750/check. I would think that should actually be quite common for obvious reasons. Okay, that wasn't completely unrelated, it was about maxing out a tax-advantaged savings plan.

Thanks for the response. I'm best off putting that whole discussion behind me, feelings vs money is often a no-win argument. The 401(k) - I worked for a large company as well. It's a percent. For whatever reason, that's just how it is. In our case, there was a match on first 5% of salary, so we'd start the year at a high percent, track it, and then drop back to 5% so the rest of the year would hit the limit.

If we simply said hold 25%, we could have hit the limit sooner, and the 5% match would get reconciled in February of the next year.

@NathanL @JoeTaxpayer That one must defer a fixed percentage per pay period rather than a fixed amount might be a matter of law and not a choice for the plan or employer. Not every participant is entitled to contribute $18000 (e.g. highly compensated employees in a plan with low enrollment from lowly compensated employees), and for employees whose earnings might vary from paycheck to paycheck, taking a fixed amount per paycheck might run into the issue that the pay for that period is less.

Back to the question of whether to pay the mortgage, I had an experience that probably has colored my view a little to the irrational side. In early 2007 a friend got involved with World Financial Group and not knowing that they were an MLM, I agreed to meet with them. I was living in a condo that had gone up in value close to 60% as the housing market was overheating. They tried to convince me to refinance and put all of the equity into the stock market.

I didn't follow their advice, and I felt vindicated in late 2008 as the stock market crashed and the housing market started following. I also got married in 2008, and I managed to unload my condo without a loss before the market completely collapsed in the following years. I know (now) that if I had let the money ride in 2009 that I would have come out ahead by keeping my money in the market, but it was a scary thought to think that I could have leveraged myself so highly just before a crash.

So that probably explains a little of my aversion to the idea of keeping a mortgage longer than necessary.

There's a big difference between saying that a certain strategy isn't right for you, and making sweeping statements that it's simply not good for anyone. In this case, I understand some would prefer a fixed 3% return vs a possibly higher one. I also feel strongly that it's best to understand that tradeoff. In the end, I respect that we are all different, but I have no respect for celebrities that speak with a voice of authority and won't consider others' views.