This season, we’ve looked at debt from a different perspective. So often, we believe that debt = bad. Even worse, our society often views it as a moral failing.
The reality is that debt is sometimes necessary—and it can even be a tool to help you better your finances.
Some of the things we bring up include:
How the rich use debt to borrow and spend using stocks and other assets as collateral and to avoid selling anything and reducing taxable events
Our propensity to consider what rich people as superior while doing the same thing as a poor is considered inferior or “trashy”
How the financial order of operations might work for some people, but can be overly prescriptive and doesn’t always work if you run into a problem
Much of the “regular” personal finance advice works best if nothing goes wrong for 20 years
Concerns that prescriptive finance a la Dave Ramsey is making its way into some schools
There’s a lot of “financial porn” out there that glorifies strategies that are inaccessible to most people, even though those they feature are outliers
Financial strategies that include debt
We featured a few people who shared their stories of how debt is necessary in some cases, including some of their own stories of using debt as a financial tool:
And don’t forget to check out our recommended resource from Dana Miranda of Healthy Rich, Dealing with debt without shame.
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Using Debt to Help Your Finances (season one wrap-up)