Originally Posted by Name User

Four years ago instead of paying off my house I put the $250k into the market as finance stocks sold off. Current value today is $730,000. It would make me sick looking back to see I missed out on almost a half million in gains to save 3.12% which current day would be about $30k in interest. (Knock on wood!!)

If you lost your home it's because you didn't have a safety margin built in and you bought too much house...my house went negative equity as well (we bought in mid 2008, just prior to the crash) but despite losing $70k in income we still have the house. We had student loans too. 2008-2009 sucked.

The future reckoning with increased automation replacing jobs will cause a huge divide between the haves and have nots. Business profit will initially soar and the market returns will reflect that. Owning your house outright might be nice, but wouldn't it be better if you controlled millions in assets with annual cash flow of $100k+ just sitting on your butt? (let me introduce you to the stock ticker "O")

Putting large sums of money into investments is even more important if you want to hedge bets against future automation or medical loss. Of note, if your company includes LTD offsets, most likely your investment income (capital gains, rental income) is not counted towards that offset. So that could be used to significantly enhance your QOL if you medical out.

Buying more than one property, over leveraging your primary residence, etc is different than living a reasonable middle class life but stuffing tens of thousands a month into investments. Times are really good, take advantage of the income while we are still earning it. Also take advantage of the time off to diversify skills, this should be a priority if you are concerned about losing your job.