Crisis of Conscience - mortgage or savings

foxyfarrell

I'm in a bit of a dilemma! I have about £30,000 in savings having taken redundancy and have been systematically paying off 10% of my £130,000 mortgage for the last couple of years. The first year I didn't tell them whether to reduce the term or the payments and they automatically reduced the payments. The second year (last year) I did a bit of research and asked them to reduce the term (resulting in 8 years being knocked off my 25 year term -but keeping the payments the same). In Jan I will be paying off another 10% but this is where my dilemma comes in. Even if I paid off my whole mortgage, my long term plan was always to release the equity in my property and use the money to enhance my living standards. I have no kids and so no one to leave it to anyway. But since equity release is sooo bad in terms of rates, and other products on the market now like life time mortgages, I am just wondering if paying off my existing mortgage is actually the right way to go. I am currently 55 and already enjoy a pension of £16,100.00 per year. This will increase another £4,000 when I hit 62. So I may be able to get a life time mortgage at 62 based on an income of £20.000 or would it be better to just reduce the payments on my existing mortgage and keep it whilst I can actually afford to keep paying the premiums? Any advice really gratefully received as most of the posts seem to point to paying off your mortgage as early as you possibly can, but what's the point if long-term, I want to release funds from my property anyway?