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Comment by vincentmarle | Hacker News Reader

You have a mortgage and donate most of your income ... why?

Yeah, you should make sure to have at least a few months worth of cost of living available at all times. What you do with the rest is up to you really, I'd save it to be able to live off of for a year, then invest the rest.

Although I'm holding off on investing for now. Sold some of my 'play' money stocks (tesla etc) and put it in trackers. Might sell off those too and just wait it out a bit.

30 year fixed at 2k / month, 3bed 2bath in Berkeley. I plan to continue paying 2k / month for the next 22 years there's no point paying it off early. Like I said originally, the puts are there to make sure that if market dips I make enough to pay off my mortgage, so any money above 2k / month is extra for me (minus personal expenses).

> I plan to continue paying 2k / month for the next 22 years there's no point paying it off early.

Why? There's some good reasons to pay off a mortgage early:

1. You pay less interest, so you pay less in total. Don't worry about the tax rebate; it's only giving you back maybe 10% of your payments.

2. A mortgage is a loan. Fewer loans means less risk. Your house can't be foreclosed on if it doesn't have a mortgage.

3. Afterwards, you have an extra $2,000 every month, because you're not sending it to the bank. Your expenses (burn rate) goes down, so your savings will last longer if you lose your job.

Let's say they'd have to shell out $400k to pay off the mortgage. Their $2000/month payment would be gone, but if we assume an average of 6-8% ROI on the $400k, they are missing out on a return of $2000-$2600/month. 20 years from now, the $400k becomes $1.282.000. Minus taxes.

Not op. There are also good reasons to donate money today instead of tomorrow. Positive change in the world can also accumulate interest of time, and problems can also get worse over time

ROI or opportunity cost. I can continue to pay 3-4% on a few hundred thousand for a few decades. Meanwhile I have a few hundred thousand “cash in hand” that I can allocate to other assets/investments. I’m betting that my other investments will return more than my 3-4% cost. And since we’re talking decades I can choose when to unwind this allocation. As I near retirement then yes, I expect to pay off the mortgage just like I’ll move out of broad equities and in to bonds and dividend focused equities.

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