Mortgage or Experiences -what to prioritise?

[Aspergallus]

I know no one can give me the definitive answer to this, but would like to hear some views to help me weigh things up. Grateful to hear regrets, or things people are glad they prioritised with hindsight...

The dilemma is: about to remortgage (there are some good 5 and 10 yr fixed deals at the moment).

Option 1 -mortgage could be repaid in 10 years on a low rate fixed deal I’ve found. A large monthly sum, just slightly over what we’ve been paying for the past 6 years. Affordable but life wouldn’t be particularly luxurious, mostly holidays at home (though children are very young so arguable that we’d do this anyway), needed renovations occurring slowly. Mortgage paid off before kids have left education and 10 years before retirement...

Option 2 -mortgage repaid in 20 years coinciding with retirement. Much smaller sum leaving us much more spare cash for living life and renovating home, holidays, maybe we’d get a motor home (!)...

Other relevant info -both adults in long term secure jobs with good pensions, have income protection and life insurance so mortgage would still get paid if unexpected happened.

So what option would you go for and why /what have you done, been glad you did /regretted? I guess I err toward the sense of security of option 1 but fear regrets about not really living life to the max while kids are young and we all have our health...or maybe it’s just FOMO and the time to really enjoy that financial freedom is when the kids or older.

Option 1. You don’t know what will happen in the future.

Fluffycloudland77 that’s the thing though, I can’t think of anything that could happen that we aren’t insured against and the 20 years doesn’t extend beyond retirement so it wouldn’t exactly be reckless...still a reasonably safe option really?

Option 2.

Enjoy the experiences with your kids while they are young.

Or, is there an option c for 15 years giving you a middle ground?

I would go for living life now.

Without meaning to sound morbid any of us could all die tomorrow anyway so you could spend all your life worrying and budgeting for a retirement that might not even happen. I like to live in the now.

Option 2 with occasional overpayment?

What if the insurance policy’s you hold don’t pay out due to a technicality & one of you can’t work? Or one of your kids needs care and one of you gives up work?.

Being mortgage free is never a bad thing is it?.

Use money saving experts mortgage overpayment calculator & see how much difference overpaying makes instead. Mortgages are a very expensive debt spread over a long time. Our rates 2.68% but we repay £1.40 for every £1 borrowed.

I did Option 1. We were quite happy with our relatively low-spend life and the children as late teens needed the extra cash that was around between mortgage and retirement more than they did at primary.

Option 2. Enjoy your life. You'll end up at the same destination, won't you, only a bit later. The dc are only little once - Disney? Beach holidays?

@WitsEnding and @Singlenotsingle -Both of your posts sum up exactly what draws me to each options and why I can’t make up my mind!

@Fluffycloudland77 Being mortgage free is never a bad thing? I’m thinking it could be. If we prioritised getting there over quality of life now. You don’t get a rerun on your kids childhoods...

@Teenytinyvoice

Something like that might be the solution. Perhaps go for the 20 year option but set up standing orders to overpay half the year (?winter) and have more cash at other times. Or go for a half way house of 15 years, but the difference starts to seem less meaningful when I put it through the calculator, so that if we go 15, if feels like we may as well go 10 IYSWIM.

Option 2, we stretched ourselves max-ing our mortgage and now I seriously regret it. Hardly have any spare cash to enjoy ourselves and do nice things. I’m fed up of living like a pauper 😡

Option 2 but make overpayments with an aim to paying it all off in 15 years.

We went for option 2, and I'm just about to remortgage again with another, even longer, option 2.

I've known to many people plan to enjoy their life later, and later is too late for them.

Option 3 20 years but over pay a bit, maybe aim for a middle road of 15 years. Mortgage is important, but your children are young once, I'd rather have more money when they are younger than being older with more money than needed. Overpayment gives flexibility to do it as and when.

Mine was actually 15 years as that was the minimum available at the time, I overpaid and finished early.