Reply #23: you're missing mine, too [View All]

[southerngirlwriter]

investment income is not guaranteed. No matter where you put your money, there's some risk. Even in mutual funds, there's some risk attached to it. When your house is paid off, the risks attached to an ENORMOUS number of real-life variables vanish. You can live there forever and ever and ever and ever and no one can take it away.

If his house was already paid-off, would you tell him to go get a mortgage on it so he could have money to play the stock market with? As long as he made enough money to meet the payments and just a few bucks more than that, he's "making" money. But what's he risking? I doubt you'd tell him to do that. That's basically what he's doing if he plays the markets instead of paying off his home.