If you are generating a little extra income - where would you put the surplus? a) pay off the mortgage; b) pay off outstanding credit card debt; c) invest in IRA; d) invest in IRA and kids; f) go on a family vacation; g) start an emergency fund? "Most would say that it depends on your individual situation...
If your mortgage is at a low rate (which it should be now) and your income is high, probably best to leave the mortgage and place the proceeds in the IRA...
If you have outstanding debt at high interest rates, best to get rid of that as quickly as possible...
" While the question about what to do with surplus money is certainly a very good one, the suggestions are pointless.
Here's why: There is no way to know what to do with surplus money until you have a spending plan in place and have come to trust yourself in tracking your expenses (every day) according to that plan and have learned to live with it...
for at least three months.
  Your spending plan will reveal to you all kinds of things about your priorities, values, and emotions that will help you determine where the extra money should go.
  Of course everyone's situation is different, so no one can give a blanket statement about where the money should go.
  What I always tell my clients is to dump all money into a Wealth Accumulation Account (WAA).
  Everything goes into this savings account and then is spent out from there according to the spending plan.
  If the extra money ends up in a checking account it's sure to be frittered away because we haven't determined before-hand, through a plan, how the money is to be spent.
  Until we examine our spending plan and make that decision, it sits in the WAA, safe, earning interest.
Then we make the right move for our particular situation from there.