Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund
I'm probably going to get a bunch of downvotes for this, but here's my not-very-popular point of view: I think many times we tend to shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to get too clever with our money. In all our cleverness, we forget a few basic rules about how money works: It's better to have 0 debt and a small amount of savings than lots of debt and lots of savings. Debt will bite you. Many times even the "good" mortgage debt will bite you. I have several friends who have gotten mortgages only to find out they had to move long before they were able to pay it off. And they weren't able to sell their homes or they sold at a loss. When you have debt, you are restricted. Someone else is always holding something over your head. You're bound to it. Pay it off ASAP (within reason) while putting a decent amount into a high-yield savings account. Only after the debt is gone, go and be clever with your money.