Can you guys not understand the simple simple math here. Even if your mortgage is half your expenses. Putting money towards principal doesn't help you fire any earlier. It make it later. Especially if you aren't maxing tax advantaged accounts.
It's purely emotional. If you want to pay it off pay it off but be truthful to yourself and know you're paying it off to give yourself a false feeling of comfort.
Basically you're just doing what TSA does at airports to yourself. Giving your self a false feeling of being safer. You're actually more unsafe.
Posters here frequently take complicated decisions and oversimplify them into black and white issues. It honestly feels like we're debating gun rights, abortion, healthcare, etc., when in fact, all of these issues require an extremely nuanced and detailed inspection of evidence and reason.
Instead of debating political issues on here, it's things like buy vs. rent, pay down mortgage or invest, have cable TV or don't, bike to work or you're an idiot, etc. This is all very complicated stuff and applies to each person individually. It's not black and white.
Thus, I get pretty agitated with condescending posts like the one quoted above. You have no idea what that person's financial situation is, you have no idea how they grew up, their family situation, etc. You also discount the emotional and personal aspect of PERSONAL finance as if humans are supposed to be robotic calculators removed from emotion. They're not.
Take me, for example. My parents got divorced when I was 18 (ten years ago). They are now 60 and each have $125k left on their mortgages. Were (or are) they mustachian? No. But I've seen how the process of refinancing and taking out HELOCs has negatively affected them beyond description. They are both going to have to work until they are 70.
Meanwhile, my GF's parents have a paid off home. They paid it off about 5 years early by paying like $50 more per month. GF's dad is basically retired (does accounting on the side) and her mom still works because she loves her job.
So my own personal observation of seeing my parents pay on a mortgage for the last 35 years has led me to strongly, strongly, strongly want a paid off home when I'm ready to retire. You can sit here all you want and say NUMBERS NUMBERS NUMBERS. I really don't care.
Now am I going to go crazy paying it off ? No. Tax refunds, bonuses, etc. are going to go in a tIRA, 529, or money market account of some type and thus increase our savings rate. We plan to just pay about an extra $140/month. That number is based on having the house paid off by the time I want to FIRE (45). Not having a mortgage payment means that my COL will be lower for retirement, thus meaning I don't need to save as much for retirement.
Sure, $140/month for 18 years is almost $30,000 cash. And if I put that $140/month into a tIRA and let it grow for 18 years I'd have $50,000.
Wahoo. Yippee. If things go to plan I will have at least $993k invested by then with a yearly expenditure of around $35k (3.5% withdrawal rate).
Is that calculation cut and dry? Of course not. Is it likely to change? Of course. And I totally expect smarter people than me to post OMG YOU'RE WRONG CHECK OUT THIS CALCULATION.
But both my GF and I want our house paid off when I retire. Simple as that. Go ahead and show me a calculation that I'm losing out on $10 or $20k or whatever in possible gains. It doesn't matter to us.
One last thing, and it leads back to my first point: this community gets so lost in the tiny details that it completely loses track of how just doing the big things right puts you ahead of 90% of the pack. 50% savings rate, taking advantage of tax advantaged accounts, having an emergency fund, driving paid off used cars and living close to work, on and on--that means you're doing really good.
The small decisions of where the extra money after that goes is nothing more than the personal side of personal finance. And if someone else's small decisions (i.e., what to do with $140/month) makes you think they are dumb, you need to relax.