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@walm
Well Mr Smyth saving by paying principal repayments is actually pretty good in my opinion.
I think you are misunderstanding what people are doing when they pay for a mortgage.
Firstly as I said there are the interest payments.
These are the equivalent of rent.
You HAVE to live somewhere so these are a pretty much unavoidable cost of living.
Your "total repayable" is meaningless. You need to compare the interest cost vs. the rental cost of living in the equivalent property.
Then you need to compare the interest rate with other savings options.
Then you have the principal repayments and that is just one form of saving.
And as I said, I think it is a pretty good form of saving.
First of all it is entirely risk free which is rare these days.
(Remember for every £1 you pay off your mortgage you SAVE yourself whatever interest you would otherwise be paying.)
So for a 5% mortgage you have a guaranteed return of 5% on any principal repayments.
That's awesome.
Compare it to any high street saving accounts.
Further, you need to remember that interest income IS TAXED.
So if you were a higher rate tax payer then to achieve a genuine 5% interest you would need 8.33% (8.33*(1-40%) = 5).
Frankly though everyone should be doing their best to diversify - some mortgage repayments, some easy access savings account (for a rainy day), some ISA savings in equities and bonds as well as a pension of course.
Just my humble opinion and I am not an IFA.