Ucgal, i think you hit it on the nail. Finance plans change over time, as your age, wealth, health, family situation changes.It depends where you are at… There are a lot of people who are post retirement in their 60/70ies still playing the stock market in a significant. I shake my head going WTF, are you nuts?

there are these funds which I call basket funds (not necessarily I think there are good/or bad) but they are like

Fund X for Retirement in 2036
Fund Y for Retirement in 2046, etc,etc

The difference in these funds is the mixture of asset allocation ,where the later date ones take on considerably more risk and the former considerably more in cash/dividend/short term bonds.

More importantly..How urgently do you need the cash now…

There will be a time when personally I think having a house paid of makes sense. For me, now isn’t the time.