Paying off all of your debts is life changing. Lose your job with a mortgage or rent? How long is your emergency fund runway? Lose your job with a paid off dwelling? Runway is a lot longer.

Want to take some time off and do something different? With a lot of debt hanging over your head this may not be possible. Everything paid off? No big deal.

You have to look at risk as well as rewards. You also have to look at flexibility and opportunity.

Liabilities are liabilities. If you got hit by a truck tomorrow, you'd still be on the hook for your mortgage, but your earning ability will have diminished. If the stock market tanks tomorrow, you're still on the hook for your mortgage and there goes your investments.

That often quoted 7% figure is based on US investments, I wouldn’t expect as high a return in the UK. It’s also historical, there is no guarantee it will continue. It also includes an element of risk, whereas paying down your mortgage eliminates risk.

The cutoff is between 3.5% and 4%, depending on your risk threshold. Anything less than that, keep it on the books and make minimum payments. Anything more than that and you'd be better off paying it down now.

Long-term stock market returns are 9-10%. 7% is after inflation but that's acting on your mortgage as well. Mortgages are indeed cheap leverage for your savings portfolio as you're basically using as collateral a probably somewhat oversized asset, since most people could easily live in a smaller/simpler house if an unforeseen event happens. It's still a higher risk investment of course.

People think all debt is bad.

A mortgage is leverage. Exclude that from typicle debt.

Bad debt is anything nontaxdeductible and over riskfree rate. So consumer debt