Edit: update I decided on a CD. I may do an index fund in the future. This was a short commitment and easy to understand. Thanks everybody.
I like these points. Preventing a future expense by paying less now is always worth it, if you can afford it.
Being poor is expensive.
It’s much more expensive to be poor now than it used to be!
That depends, how far in the future, how big of an expense, how much interest can you earn, and what’s inflation looking like?
If it’s more than a couple thousand dollars more than a couple years out, you could possibly make useful money with a high interest bearing account provided inflation is expected to be less than about 2/3 of the interest rate of the account.
Time IS money.
This might make sense for people with six+ figures sitting in a savings account, but the average person today doesn’t have enough cash to think about earning interest on it. For them, paying off a debt now would be cheaper in the long run. For the most part, at least.