This article originally appeared on Payment1.com
The short answer is YES. You definitely can. It all depends on what kind of debt, and how smart you are about using the money you borrowed, and how diligent you are at paying it off. So now you may be asking, if debt can be used to build wealth, how do I do it?
First off, you need to know about the two kinds of debt: Good Debt and Bad Debt. Good debt is a kind of debt that has low interest and is used to increase your value in the long run. Bad debt, on the other hand, has atrociously high interest and depreciates in value fairly quickly. Examples of good debt would be student loans and small business loans. Bad debt would be payday loans and credit card debt.
So if you really want to start getting a lot of money using loan money, you need to make sure it’s the good kind of debt. That part is simple. Now let’s get to the hows.
Let’s start with small business loans and the idea of leverage. You can take out a small business loan to help you improve your business. The more you invest in yourself and your business, the greater your chances are of increasing the flow of your income. You can use your small business loan to increase your inventory, or add a branch or service to the current ones you already have. Using loan money as financial leverage to increase your cash flow is a good idea. If you don’t have a business, you can always get a small personal loan and then start a business or invest in educating yourself about a particular business or skill. The more you invest in yourself, the bigger your value will be.
But what if you already have bad debt? Would this affect your ability to build wealth using debt? It would, but perhaps not as much as you might think it will. For example, you have several credit card debts and they are growing by the month. You struggle to pay off even just the minimum and building wealth is beginning to look like a pipe dream. You can try doing debt consolidation. What this does is lumping all of your debt into one big debt with a lower interest. This way, you don’t owe several banks different amounts of debt with various interest rates.
In order for you to be able to build wealth, using debt or not, the very first step is to get rid of, or to manage your bad debt. Once you get that squared away, you can start building your wealth. It is a good thing to remember to always live within your means. And the simple math of income being greater than living expenses should always be something you live by.
Which leads us to the next tip: Reduce your living expenses. The greater the difference is between your expenses versus your income, the more money you have to use as an investment. And perhaps, the best advice one could give when it comes to finance is this: always pay your debt on time and if at all possible, always pay in full.