Whatever you decide, be aware of the following:

- You will sleep 5% better every night from here on out if your mortgage is paid off

- You'll sleep 5% worse every night from here on out if you have 300k riding in the markets

A couple of these are easy to answer.

A - Never. Cash with no return is just decaying with inflation.

B - Depends on interest. If your mortgage interest is lower than no-risk interest (e.g. SGOV) then no, you'd be throwing money away by paying off the mortgage. If OTOH your mortgage interest is substantially higher than no-risk interest, then yes, paying it off (or at least overpaying monthly) is a good idea. There is a gray area if your mortgage interest is slightly higher than no-risk return right now. Numerically it makes sense to pay the mortgage, but there is also a safety aspect in keeping the liquid cash on hand.

So that leaves some combination of C & D. The best ratio there is a harder question to answer.

C. it's the only one that has you in the arena. There's no guaranteed outcome, but money itself is a team-sport.

I'm a simple man myself, so I'm answering in order to verify my own reasoning.

A. will have negative returns from inflation. D. defends against inflation but is too conservative. B. There's arguably negative value in holding more equity in terms of opportunity cost since you already have > 200% position in equity. source: I believe this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4H9LL7A-nQ

Keep 12 months living expenses in cash/t-bills. Depending on your age, increase to 24 mos if kids etc

If cash remaining -> if mortgage rate >4% pay down mortgage (locking in 4%+ yield). If you want to average 50% towards mortgage 50% VOO (S&P Index fund)

Deeper post ->https://monetarymusings.substack.com/p/how-to-not-blow-up-wh...

No one can give you an answer to this but you because it depends on what you value.

I don't have any answers but you definitely need some cash. How much? I have no idea.

With the rest, I would put some in a vanguard account. And then invest where? I want to say index funds but the market is very strange. The biggest companies have too much wealth soaked up. Is this sustainable? Is this a bubble? Who knows...

You'll always have property taxes, maintenance, insurance etc even after your house is paid off.

So that 300,000 is the money you need to passively support your house after you've paid it off.

In your spreadsheet , you have to include what is expected appreciation on the house, what is the mortgage interest rate, how much longer you have on that mortgage, your personal opinion on how well QQQ is going to do, how much you’re gonna want cash - your emergency fund for a rainy day, should be some N months of living expenses. Mix that all up in the spreadsheet, and come up with whatever feels good to you. There is no right answer, and my time machine isn't any better than yours, or anyone else's.

I would buy some physical gold as the ultimate hedge (don't invest ALL of you money!), and invest everything else in some highly rated fund. Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.

Trading yourself is just not worth it. You'll lose money long-term. An exception here is if you want to hold shares of a company long-term as a form of investment.

If your mortgage is a fixed rate at a reasonable interest, then keep it. If there's a high inflation episode, you'll be able to benefit from it.

maybe learn about options. do some practice trading. Theory is one thing, patience and common sense are other things. Above all be very, very careful, but have fun.

The practice part is important but when you are comfortable, nibble a little with small amounts.

E) bitcoin

Why is this hard? Calculate the expected value of each option, do a risk analysis, apply risk factor (based on your own tolerance), biggest number wins.