Good Debt, Bad Debt, Get Out of Debt!
January 23, 2012 
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Good Debt, Bad Debt, Get Out of Debt!
Everyday people come to me with questions about how to get out of debt. As a motivational speaker, I focus most of my education upon successfully living your loves, goals, and defining your life mission. Nothing seems to get more in the way than debt. Debt has crippled our nation from the biggest financial wizards on Wall Street to the average citizen taking out a line of credit for just $ 500.
You’ve heard me say it a million times, “all debt is bad debt.” But I know there’s more to it than that. I can’t tell you that I’ve turned down investments in real estate, and I certainly can’t say that I’ve done it without taking a mortgage. One of the things that I find happening over and over is that people in debt start to lose their motivation to live their life mission. The guilt of debt is debilitating.
Even if your debts are turning out a positive cash flow, the need to get out of debt becomes vicious cycle where the investor becomes his own debt slave.
I hardly think this was a part of the plan for anyone that decided to make an investment by going into debt.
The thing about debt that I’d like to distinguish is the difference between “good” debt and “bad” debt. Good debt happens when the interest that you recoup from the investment makes more money than the interest rate you are paying on the debt. Sometimes, this is referred to as negative and positive cash flow in real estate.
For example, let’s say that you put a mortgage on a rental property with a 5% interest rate. The return on the rental property could be 12%. That means that your rental property is making a 7% interest. This is good debt.
Educational debt is another investment considered “good” debt.
Education is one of the easiest ways to get out of debt over the long term. Let’s say you take a course on web design or PowerPoint. You have just made an investment in your future. The chances of getting a higher paying job are a lot better when you increase your education.
To tell if this is a good return, gauge this by how long it takes you to earn back the money whether it is a raise or new business venture. Things like a college education will take longer to see a return on than a weekend seminar on utilizing social networking properties. On most of my educational ventures, I tend to gravitate towards educational investments that I think will pay themselves off within 90 days to determine if it is worth the investment.
Approaching “bad” debt, generally these are consumer goods that tend to focus more on someone buying material goods and putting them on a high interest credit card. Most of these material purchases end up being bad decisions because we really can’t afford to buy them, but we feel like we deserve them. This sense of entitlement is the kind of “bad” debt that will stand in the way of accomplishing your goals and fulfilling your life mission. You must drop this sense of entitlement to get out of debt.
Raymond Aaron,
New York Times Top Ten Bestselling Author, “Double Your Income Doing What You Love”
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