<prompt> Human: Im thinking 15 years. I see lots of advice here about comparing interest rates as a deciding factor, but the few well-off people I know think its absurd not to pay down debt. Some include mortgage in that, some dont. But I havent met an actual wealthy person that followed the advice of investing instead of paying down debt.  <response>: I think the tricky thing to keep in mind that as you get wealthy, prior debt becomes a smaller and smaller portion of your net worth. Theres a difference between paying off your debt before you get wealthy versus after you already have plenty of money.Right now I could pay off my mortgage with 30 of my net worth much of which is in retirement accounts or home equity, but with a 3.5 interest rate Im sure as heck glad Ive spent the last few years with my money in the market instead of trying to get debt-free. I imagine once my mortgage is down to being more like 5 of my net worth I may well decide to pay it off just because Id enjoy the feeling of having one less thing to think about though actually its kind of nice to have the escrowing so someone else deals with my tax payments, but I need to get from here to there, and Ill probably get their faster if I invest my spare money in the meantime.I also prefer to keep the mortgage because having so access to so much more liquidity gives me freedom for considering things like changing jobs to something with a lower payhigher rewards or taking a year off of working.ETA: Similarly, I had student loan debt at 2 fixed, but at some point I decided Id rather just pay off the last 5000 than make 151month payments for years. It wasnt a financially advantageous choice, but the lost gains were worth the psychological boost. I wouldnt criticize someone who chose to keep the loan in the same situation. Especially if they had tax-advantaged account space available to fund. 