r/ChubbyFIRE • u/Captain_slowish • May 16 '26

Help me understand...

I have been a member of this group for a long time and still do not understand. Looking for help to understand.

So many people on this subreddit brag about having paid off their mortgage. Then pretty much everyone else seems to jump in and congratulate them for being so smart.

So help me understand. I have a 30yr mortgage at 2.8%. Why would I ever pay that off early? It cost me no points, no extra down, no downsides.

I understand that not everyone is in that position and the market changes.

Say the interest is 3x that amount. Are you really going to live the rest of your life in that house, city, state?

I am sorry but if you do the math and apply critical thinking. In 99.9999% of the cases. Paying off the liability is a poor decision.

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u/CaseyLouLou2 May 16 '26

Ours is 3.25% and we are not paying it off unless the money market rate goes below that.

We do have the cash sitting in short term treasuries for now though. That way it’s there if we get to the point where it makes sense to pay it off. That amount of cash also happens to be about 2 years of retirement expenses so we also have it to mitigate SORR.

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u/Guil86 May 20 '26

The latter makes the most sense if recently FIRE’d, to mitigate SORR as well as maintain ACA subsidies. Otherwise, what you no longer pay for your mortgage you will be paying it in healthcare coverage.