Should I pay off my mortgage before I retire?

There's no universal answer, but the question matters because a mortgage is often a retiree's largest fixed expense. Paying it off lowers your required monthly income, which means smaller portfolio withdrawals, less taxable income, and more resilience in a downturn – a real psychological and behavioral win. The case against: if your mortgage rate is low, you might earn more by keeping the money invested, and draining a large chunk of a tax-deferred account to pay off the loan could spike your tax bill that year. A middle path is to pay it down over several years using taxable funds, or to retire with a small, manageable balance. Run the numbers, but for many people the peace of mind of entering retirement debt-free outweighs a modest math edge from investing the difference.