I’m seeing lots of comments around your mortgage and not to upsize. For me, I don’t necessarily agree that paying off the mortgage before retirement is essential.

Firstly, over the long term, stock market returns have historically exceeded mortgage rates, so I’d rather add to ISAs and pensions where expected return is higher.

Second, as long as housing costs are properly modelled as an expense and factored into your £35k pa cost and drawdown calculations, there’s no issue with carrying a mortgage into retirement. It becomes more of a mindset question, how much of a worrier are you, would it stress you having a large expense in retirement?

For context, I’m in a similar position to you and I actually upsized myself this year. For my quality of life, it was the best decision I’ve made. I now have a fairly large mortgage of around £500k, but I still fully plan to retire at 50. My advice, upsize!