Aren’t you better off keeping the 7% tax-deferred income from your IRA, since your VA loan is only 3.5% and tax-deductible?
I Can’t draw mine out until I turn 72.5, that is 5 yrs away.
Hubby takes the bare minimum the government makes him take out as he is 75. We plow that back into the new house instead of blowing it. This last year we used it to replace the 12 yr old insufficient 40 gal hot water tank with a tankless unit.
When we sold the old house we financed it ourselves for the VA rate, after the couple passed the VA loan process, VA wanted to many unneeded very costly upgrades. They didn’t want or need. And we didn’t want to do. That gets put into the new house too. So we will pay off a 30 year loan in roughly 12 yrs at the rate we reinvest extra money. Cuts the interest way down.
It then becomes a tax trade off with net 0 effects.