Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nazgulnarsil 2717 days ago
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.
2 comments

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.

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.
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.