Exjackly

As I am not the first person to discuss good debt, lets treat the topic a little bit differently. In this post, you will find a list to a number of other posts and online articles that discuss Good Debt. After each link, you will find a single sentence with the most important point about Good Debt at that link.

• Good debt vs. bad debt at Money.com. This link covers the platitudes, saying that good debt is for what you ened but cannot pay cash for while bad debt is for anything that you do not need; despite not telling you how to figure out if something is a need or a want.
• Good debt and bad debt at Bankrate is a much better article. This article points out that good debt helps to make you wealthy but still sticks with generalities like “Mortgage debt is good debt” (it is not always). Same article is also at MSN as Good debt versus bad debt.
• Garden and Hearth also talks about Good debt vs. bad debt. Their article lists out the key points (good terms, purchasing an asset, etc.) that differentiate good reasons for taking out a loan from bad.
• My Financial Awareness revisits the topic with A New Look at Good Debt vs. Bad Debt. This new look emphasizes that once you have the debt, it does not matter why you got it: debt is debt and needs to be dealt with regardless of how you incurred it.
• On the Rule #1 Blog, Phil Town elaborates on a reader’s question in GOOD DEBT, BAD DEBT. This post is a good one that shows how to tell if a mortgage is a good debt using a positive example.
• There is Freedom in the Hills of New Hampshire to discuss Good Debt vs. Bad Debt. This is different from the rest because it discusses how any debt can be considered bad, but mentions how credit cards - for all that is bad about them - can still help “smooth” out one’s financial life.
• Queercents get personal in Almost Debt Free: Good Debt vs Bad Debt. The key point here is in his discussion about student loans where he points out that some of it is good, and some of it is not so good.

Reading through these articles, and all of the others you can find with a simple Google search (or Yahoo! or MSN), you start to get a sense that there is a wide gamut of opinions on the value of debt. This is true because there is a wide range of tolerance for risk. No Credit Needed Blog has done well for his family by attacking debt and eliminating it from his life. Others, like Donald Trump (see wikipedia) have used massive amounts of debt to reach their goals.

In the end, regardless of where on the spectrum that you are, the decision on if a particular debt is a good one is one that you will have to make. Use the general guidelines about using loans for assets and leverage, but do not take on any debt - even if it is otherwise ‘Good’ debt - unless you are comfortable doing so and do not take on more than you need to reach your goals.

Good luck, and may all of your financial goals be reached while you enjoy the rest of your life.

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