Yes but I’m not saying people should be maxing out their 401/403 accounts rather I’m commenting on the thinking behind those who urge that one invest instead of paying off the mortgage early. I think in many cases those who say this are doing neither. Just look at the stats on credit card debt and HELOCs for older workers. I have a friend that is 63 and has a combined $550,000.00 debt and just took out a new 3 year car lease.
Anyway good on you for being a saver. We (Sue and I) are working for one reason and that is to build up our nest egg. That is all. True confession: we were not good at the personal finance thing until about 10 years ago. Overnight we switched gears, paid off all of our debt and have been throwing every cent that is not nailed down into either our 401K, 403B, our taxable brokerage account or our HYSA. I know many are suffering from the economy but for us it’s not a problem and the future looks good because we took drastic steps and turned our sinking ship around and set sail to a different port, the Island of Debtfreeville.
But God healed me from an "incurable" disease in my 20's. Then I went through a horrible divorce and custody battle (again hopeless for a man), but God had me win that too. I married again, with a woman as committed as I not just to God and family, but also to being wise with finances. We paid off all our debts except the mortgage (low fixed interest rate) and maxed out our Roth IRA's and put some in Roth 401K's, while also putting kids through college/trade school as long as the kids picked good careers and did their homework on what training could get them where they wanted.
I recently took out two loans related to my home energy project (going solar, making one of our cars an EV, making the home more energy efficient even without solar, and after the solar proved itself good enough I converted my two natural gas appliances to electric to get rid of the nat gas bill). This gives our retirement finances some insulation against the Dims' future stupid energy policies jacking up energy costs. I basically pay a car payment + HELOC payment + tiny power bill in place of what used to be a high power bill + high natural gas bill + tons at the gasoline pump. (Do your homework before going solar and/or EV. They don't fit most people's needs and wants. But they do ours, especially since we still have an ICE pickup for the times an EV won't do.) The car payment and HELOC payment are a normal part of our budget until the 4-year car loan is paid off in two years. I wouldn't have taken on those two debts this close to retirement if they weren't removing other expenses from my budget (the energy costs I'm mostly avoiding by having 80% of my home's power come from homemade energy, including the energy used to charge the EV for 16K miles/year of local driving). When I retire I'll have just the mortgage payment and HELOC payment, with the HELOC payment getting smaller as the HELOC balance is paid down, and it's paid by my budget not having to pay for sky high energy bills and gas at the pump (which on the whole go up except during an election year or a Republican is in office).