Hi,
Long time lurker (I read you guys daily, but very very rarely comment). First some background info:
Me: 38
Husband: 44
No kids
Gross income yearly- 250k
Assets: approx: 900K - this includes all retirement and investments (does not include the house) Note - about 200k of this is in one company - a large company that DH works for. I know, I know. :-)
We owe about 255k on the house. We are wondering if it makes sense to sell the company stock and put that money toward our mortgage.
It would give us great peace of mind to know the house is paid off and this is definitely a huge, huge piece to us being FI.
I should also mention my husband will be awarded a large chunk of stock in April by the company. The real value won't be known but by current prices maybe somewhere around 200K (however we do always hold for at least a year before selling, so we wouldn't sell this right away. Who knows what it will be in a year).
We are leaning towards selling and putting cash towards the house. My husband is in the oil industry and while he feels fairly secure in his job, this latest downturn is really reminding us that things can change very quickly. He is the high earner between the two of us. I make 58k in (what I perceive as) a very secure job.
Of course I understand selling and diversifying that money into mutual funds would be the "smartest" thing to do when putting pen to paper and analyzing potential gains, but there is something to be said for peace of mind.
We know we will be paying capital gains taxes.
What are your thoughts?