[docker_up]

Our combined income is about $600k USD, but funny enough we don't consider ourselves "rich". We consider ourselves "upper middle class" at least for the Bay Area, because we both work very hard, probably 10+ hours a day. Our mortgage on our house is less than 1 year's income so it's relatively low compared to others in the Bay Area. If one of us lost our jobs, we could still comfortably afford our mortgage but we would have to cut back on a lot of things.

Our children go to a private school that is close by, and our commutes are less than 20 mins away each. My wife makes 2x more than me and she works hard but loves her job. I'm a lot more relaxed with my job even though I'm older, but I get to spend a lot more time with the kids (ex. pickup from school every day, make dinner for them, etc).

We have enough money such that we don't have to think about it, which is a luxury. We have never fought over money, but we have fought over other more mundane things like over how we raise our children. But overall, not having to worry takes a lot of conflict off the table that many other people ave to endure, so we consider ourselves very lucky.

So yes, I'm pretty happy these days. It hasn't always been this way but once we both started making > $400k combined, things got easier and easier. A lot of our happiness these days is predicated by how our children behave, are they fighting, do they have issues at school, etc.

[assblaster]

If your mortgage is $600k, you should work towards paying that off more quickly, depending on the interest rate, so that you can be free from that burden. Once your house is paid for, then your daily work can decrease if you want, or have extra savings available for earlier retirement or maybe doing more fun things. I won't be "happy" until I'm debt free with $10mil in savings/investments, but I am definitely happy regardless because I genuinely look forward to every day of working towards that goal.

[docker_up]

The cost of capital for the mortgage was reasonably low, and my expectation is that it will approach 0% real interest rates in the near future. Therefore it doesn't make sense to me to pay it off when I would be essentially paying 0% in real rates for the mortgage. I could be wrong but I'd rather have a below 4% interest rate when rates are between 5 and 6%

[nazgulnarsil]

paying off a debt under 4% faster at the expense of putting that money into a portfolio that is expected to earn 6%+ is making your overall assets less diversified. You're trading down on both variance and return expectation.

[horsawlarway]

Sure, but that assumes the goal is just to accumulate money.

That's a fine goal if that's what you want, and if done well it can lead to financial freedom, but it's also entirely reasonable to remove fixed expenses in order to make it possible to change from a high paying and stressful job to a lower paying but more fulfilling job.

[assblaster]

You make more money paying off debt earlier, instead of investing that same money at a possible return of 6% per year, I've done the calculations myself for my situation. You should do the same.

[InitialLastName]

What?

If I have $100 in an investment at 6% yearly and $100 in debt at 4% yearly, after 1 year I have $106 in the investment and $104 in debt, so $2 more than I had a year ago. If I pay off the debt now, I have exactly the same amount of money I had a year ago.