Getting there

Lotus-eater

Thankyou for all your advice.

Maybe to add to the confusion, due to personal changes, it now looks unlikely we will be able to fill up our ISA allowances in April. Our income has/is about to drop due to loss of self employed work.

Which makes me want to keep all the ISA's and go onto a 2 yr tracker with Nationwide (even more attractive now, as they have dropped the tracker rate by the full .5% and the BMR by only .3%)

Yet, if we paid off the mortgage and were left with almost no savings, we also have access to financial help from a relative if it would be needed, however this help would come in euros, which would mean we were helpless to the exchange rate to pay it back.
I would obviously hope that we wouldn't need any help at all, even if we completely paid off the mortgage, but its a back up plan.

Atm I am leaning towards keeping the ISA's and the £17k mortgage, mainly for the reasons setmefree2 puts forward. The OH thinks opposite and wants rid of the mortgage round our neck...... which would mean of course that we have more spare each month and if the worst happened we could live on very little..... oh dear, tough choice.

Thankyou all for your advice.

southantrim3

Ello, well done for getting your mortgage down to such a low level. Roll on the day I can get mine down to that. Imho, I think I'm gonna side with your OH - sorry. It does mean that if things do take a down turn, you will be in a position to live on very little. All you'll have to worry about then will be the utility bills, groceries etc. Just my thoughts. Well done!