Mortgage v savings conudrum

Running_on_empty_2 · 17 October 2017 at 8:05AM

Hi forum posters,
We have a bit of a savings/mortgage related conundrum which we can’t quite work out.
We have a £32k chunk of a mortgage (added from a house move) which we can pay off from £40k of Premium Bond savings we have worked up.
On our mortgage we currently pay base rate +0.99% on the mortgage with 18 years to go (leaving us with £180k to pay). Our property it worth around £525k. We also have life insurance on the mortgage, as well as other additional life insurance premiums (so an argument that should the worst happen we are covered anyway). We’re both professionals with permanent (but high pressure) jobs in education and want to retire by 60 if possible (on almost full USS and TPS pensions), with joint salaries over £100k (but have other financial commitments we cannot avoid).
If we were to pay the £32k off we would have £8k left in premium bonds & also £12k in a S&S ISA too - but no other real lump sums/investments. We were going to keep these going and either overpay on the mortgage each month or out that money back into these each month.
Our main aim is to be financially independent and able to retire by the time we hit 60 (15 years to go), so we can look at retirement or going part time.
So, our conundrum is should we keep saving and paying the mortgage back on the £32k chunk, or would we be better paying off the £32k chunk - but then losing our nest egg of savings....? Indeed, are there any suggestions people might have that we haven’t considered?!
All advice appreciated - thanks in advance. :-)
PS – we posted this in the “mortgage-free wannabe” and "investments" forum forum, so obviously had biased responses there already, so this is for some more ‘objective’ advice!