if your planning to travel, use the 50K to pay off mortgage while gone (it gives you the option not to rent it out) and when you come back from travelling it could be a while before you get the job you want, put it in a good return savings account, but that depending on what rate you are tied into in your mortgage aswell, personnally i would prefer to have the cash in hand as its difficult enough to raise 50K from the banks afterwards, esp on a salary of 35K, and if you ever upgrade, have 50K in savings looks very well, it gives you more leverage aswell when shopping around???