 that it was more beneficial to keep the mortgage than to take a big lump sum out of your savings to pay it off. Because you can't spend your house. Unless you set up a home equity loan or something like that, well, now you're right back into debt. But if you took $100,000 out of your savings to pay off your mortgage, well, now that's $100,000 I can't pull 4% a year off of.