Pay off a mortgage or "invest" in the stock market

So, maybe you are living a little above the average "paycheck to paycheck" slobs.  You have a little extra money saved up, doing nothing In a savings account.  What should you invest in?  Should you pay off your home mortgage early or use that money to pad your retirement nest egg?  After reviewing several articles pro and con, I was not sure which way to go either. 

After reading articles, mostly pro-stock market investing, I opened a letter that absolutely decided the issue for me.  It was the check that I got which allowed me to “cash out” of one of my former employers 401K plans to my new employer’s 401K plan.  I compared the check amount I had to the statements I got in the months before.  Then compared it to the final “F##k Y#u" statement - that is the statement that says how much my fund would have been worth had I not cashed out.  During this long market rally, my fund value started at the year at 12k.  Then climbed to a little over 13K during March.  Then it would have apparently ended at just under 15K - that is, if I hadn’t cashed out a week earlier.  Yet, somehow between the statement printings that said 13K and 15K, the value at cash-out dropped to 10K? Coincidence?  Did a one-day massive stock drop then an even greater rally happen that week that nobody bothered to report on?  Of course not. The 10K what the mutual fund company deemed my paper was worth at that time. Since they were essentially the only buyer, well, they can really can set most any price they want.  In my case,  a technicality that allowed them to keep 1/3 of the stated value was a little condition buried in the fine print called "Forfeiture".

So, beware. There may be little mines in the fine print that allow these companies to legally not pay you anywhere near what you think you might get.  Also, keep in mind that mutual funds are subject to the same supply-demand that other investments are subject to.  That is, that gains or losses are only real the day of the sale.  The rest of the time, it’s statement bullshit to keep people in the market (see the blue dots that represent apparent values as per the quarterly statements).  I've named this phenomena “the sell-out curve”.  It’s not a real curve.  Rather, it’s the feeling one gets which seems like how the market must have performed the day of sell out when you get quite a bit less in a settlement check than the statements suggest you would get.  

Oh, and when it comes to retirement, there's another future whammy too.  Keep in mind 401K investments are pre-tax dollars.  So, when I finally decide to turn this next investment back into currency to spend, I still need to pay income tax on it too! 

So, what's a smarter investment? Getting rid of debt.  That includes home mortgage debt. I'll even go out on a limb and say "especially home debt". Do the compound interest calculation. A small interest rate over a long time is still a LOT of money. In fact, for many people, they pay twice the amount of dollars they pay for their home.  Yes, yes, inflation trends can create cheaper dollars. However, the trend for doubling one's wages is not encouraging.   Also, unlike an investment firm, most individuals cannot just decide to payback a bank less than the full stated amount owed.