Should I Pay Off Debt or Invest?

As long as the interest rate on your debt is lower than the rate of return you can expect, investments are going to win pretty much every time. The risk of paying off debt rather than investing is that you might be missing out on some opportunities to grow your money. Choosing investments over debt repayment is risky because it's essentially the equivalent of using leverage. It doesn't always happen like this of course. Historically the stock market has been a great place for long term returns but in any given year there is about a 25% chance that it will go down rather than up.