I'd have to say that I agree with Kim. I just know so little about investing that I am not sure what to do. I also cannot afford to hire someone to give me that advice and manage our money.

What type of account do you set up for retirement? I know that I do not want my husband to have to work when he no longer should be because of health or age unless he wants too.

I think you have to take Dave's advice and fenagle it to your own lifestyle. We were paying off our credit card debt (included were appliances, living room furniture, and other crap we were stupid about buying) last year when we ran across dave. We had paid about half of it off, but then took his debt snowball advice and used it for the rest of our debt. We currently have no consumer credit card debt, and we paid off over $22,000 last year. We didn't go as gung ho as he said, we didn't stop investing, we didn't stop our 401K, we just quit wastefully spending what we were, and applied it all to our debt. You have no idea how good we feel right now. Currently we have our mortgage and our car payments, and that's it. At the beginning of 2008 we had a plan in place to pay off the cars and THEN pay off our mortgage. If we do it going as planned, we will have our 15 year mortgage paid off 10 years early. But, we haven't made the effort just yet. We had some trips come up, so we took them. I don't regret spending that money on our trips. We have two more to go on this year. This is all made a little simpler by my working full time, DH putting all his money to our debts and vacations, and us having no children as of yet. Plans will definitely change when kids come along, so we are hoping to get the rest of our debt on a roll before then. ANyway, enough of my rambling, but I do agree with dave in most senses with his ideas, and adjust them to fit our life accordingly. I would love nothing more than to be fully invested, living completely debt free and enjoying my life while i'm still young and with young kids, with no financial worries. Hopefully we can make it happen.

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Chopey

If a family is able to do this (no not all are able - but many are more able than they think) then wouldn't it make more sense and then be able to save that much more when it is done after only 5 years?

I guess I don't understand this reasoning. If you follow Dave's advice you're already investing 15% of your income for retirement before you start paying off your mortgage. Lets say your mortgage payment is $1,600 a month and you can add money to pay it off several years early. After the mortgage is payed off it frees up that money that was tied up in the mortgage for other things. And you don't need to worry about your retirement $$ being able to cover your mortgage payment.

At the end of the day, you're going to end up with more money if you can get a 13% return. Most 30 year fixed mortgages are well under 13%, some as low as around 5% these days. Here is an article that explains it, along with many other reasons to invest vs. pay down the mortgage early:
The Case Against Mortgage Pre-Payment » Consumerism Commentary: A Personal Finance Blog

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Kim - this article is basically stating not to pay more to your mortgage b/c you should be doing other things first. DR says this too. Dave says you need to have about 6 months of living expenses saved up, have life and disability insurance and be saving 15% of your monthly takehome for retirement THEN you put it on your mortgage. I would think that it would be unwise to pay off your mortgage before having 6 months living expenses etc.

It all comes down to how you want to live. I would rather live totally debt free. I am always surprised to see how much debt other people are willing to live with including those on this board.

that's what I'm saying....yes! It would make a ton of sense to have absolutely zero debt while still investing the most you can....even if you didn't invest all that you could in doing so, you'd still have that much money to invest when you are done....it makes sense in my mind, anyway! (especially for us, if we can get it done before the ripe old age of 32)

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Chopey

I agree, it's what each person is comfortable with. I am just one who thinks having a low fixed rate mortgage isn't necessarily a bad thing when you can get a higher return on your money elsewhere. Having the money saved up elsewhere gives you more options, freedom, and flexibility IMO. I can always use that money to pay off my mortage early if I choose to do so.

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I see what you're saying. I think it's my "security gland". My parents are close to retirement and their house is paid off, which gives them a lot more flexibility than some of my dad's friends who are retiring (Fed employees have to retire at a certain age) and still have a home mortgage.

I also have a bad taste in my mouth from watching HDTV and seeing a lot of people buying houses, with an interest only loan, because they "could get more out of the stock market" investing the money they would use for a principle payment. Obviously this was during the housing boom when everything was going well, but I often wonder how those people are doing now that the stock market isn't doing as well, house prices have dropped and the principle portion of their mortgage is coming due.

I agree that this makes financial sense. But for some, especially during times of a volatile stock market, it makes more physiological sense to pay off the mortgage early. It feels really good when you walk in the front door and it's yours .. no matter what the markets have done that year.