Should you retire your mortgage before you retire, when you retire, or sometime after you retire? This video shares my thoughts.

I start by sharing a statistic in The Retirement Manifesto's recent blog,
https://www.theretirementmanifesto.co...
Is that right? 51% of Baby Boomers are paying off a mortgage as they enter retirement?
His blog cited this one: https://legaljobs.io/blog/retirement...
But that didn't have a source either. So I reviewed a few recent white papers on the search, including these:

https://crr.bc.edu/wpcontent/uploads...

https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/square...

https://cfsrdrc.wisc.edu/files/workin...

And here are some more popular media stories on the subject:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/10/amor...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/payoff...

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mo...

I conclude with my thoughts: Paying off the mortgage in your lates 40s or early 50s allow you to redirect cash flow to catchup contributions and max out retirement savings.

If you do carry a mortgage into retirement, build a strategy to pay it off, perhaps with a dedicated fixed income source, or through asset allocations as equity positions grow.

But DON'T just pay it off with money from your taxdeferred account! You would incur extra taxes doing that!

By the way, I am not an accountant, or a financial planner. I don’t have any special initials after my name. So take this as entertaining ideas from one educated consumer to another. Always do your own due diligence and seek out professional advisor if you need one.