I largely agree with you on this. I focused on my mortgage and as a result I have less than a year of payments left. I didn't ignore investments either - roughl

I largely agree with you on this. I focused on my mortgage and as a result I have less than a year of payments left. I didn't ignore investments either - roughly 10% of my income into the market - but I did not pay the minimum mortgage payment in favor of investments. There was a point a few years ago where liquidating the investments could pay off the mortgage. To me it seems that you can get some of the benefits of the emotional release of being debt free if you have the capability to liquidate and clear debt. While many people will make the argument that instead I should have paid the minimums and had more money invested with the net effect of reaching the liquidate/pay off point, I agree with the reasoning behind your argument: market volatility will not wipe out debt that has been cleared.