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Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ
Depends on your tolerance for risk and goal for retirement given you're 50s. Do the calculation on how much interest you save over the life of the loan by paying down. It can be an eye popping amount which is a guaranteed return. You can roll the dice and put the money into the market but if you have a time horizon in the next few years, there's no surety that your investment return will be positive when you may need the cash.
You also don't need to know much about the market or investing to justify relying on a high fee brokerage. Get into a brokerage that has no fees and put it into a total market, S&P or other large, low fee index.
You could move into a shorter term loan, but do compare the savings in terms of interest over how long you think you'd have the loan. Having a higher monthly isn't necessarily attractive if there isn't a great interest rate versus something like a 30 year loan. You can utilize additional principle payments or recast the loan if you put a larger amount to principle without doing a full refi. Personally, I prefer a lower monthly because I can always pay more in to shorten the payoff term, but if finances get rough, I can fall back on the lower minimum payment amount.
Or, hedge and split your funds by putting money into both. Consider getting a good tax guy who does certified financial planner work who does things based on hours per consultation and not ongoing fees. They can help run the numbers and give you some scenarios.
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Currently I have $1.5M in an investment that's paying out a 10% return (which is why I have at least $5K a month to reinvest) however that's not growing - it will remain as $1.5M. And I have about $1.1M in cars that will probably be liquidated when I retire, so I have a good retirement base, I just want to bump it up to give me more years or more money to enjoy.
I've looked at how much interest I could save, and compared it to how much my investment could grow, tried to weigh in the fact that I can claim the interest off my tax etc. and still not really determined the ideal.