I'm set to retire at 52-57. The wife and I met for months with planners to put our plan together, for will, trusts, retirement, and life INS. That stuff is painful to sit through if you have never done it. Only thing we will touch is our liquid nest egg. Which will get rebuilt. We had planned to use it for a bigger house. We are folllowing our plan. I doubt it takes us 30 years to pay off the new house. As I said before everyone's plan is a little different. We are just buying our "payoff" house a bit later in life. Just like we waited to have kids to be sure we were going to stay married.