I think many are severely under estimating what a paid off house means. For many, that's freeing up $30-60K a year in after tax money or 3-5K a month. interest for many on their mortgage is like $10-30K a year. Again that's after tax money. Car payments are also often on many people's minds, but these often don't last more than 5 Years. They seem like small amounts big picture (ie: $500 a month = $6K a year), but on the short term monthly basis, they really stretch some monthly budgets thin.
Perhaps that's a huge difference of the younger and working vs retired, the difference between a need and a want seems much more easily determined when retired.
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