Paying off your mortgage early only really makes sense when you're getting close enough to retirement that you need to move more of your money to less risky investments with a lower rate of return.
My point isn’t that you need to race to pay it off. But that people think “how big a home/lifestyle can I afford with this income? I’ll do that.”
You could do half that, make minimum payments if you want, and invest the rest. But either way, you find yourself in such immense control. You could lose half your income and not change your lifestyle. Or retire early. Or take bigger risks.
I’ve always been fascinated how people decide what kind of home and car and such they go for. It usually seems to be: as big as I can go. And then you’re not really that more secure. I guess you can sell your home and find something smaller, but that’s hard to do at any time with kids in school, let alone during bad times.
For sure. Being house poor is definitely a thing. My wife and I made the decision that we'd only take on as many expenses as we could afford on only one of our salaries. That's a lot easier to do when I'm an engineer and she's a doctor, but I know plenty of friends in similar situations who are still leveraged to the hilt.
