Do you hate debt?

Well so do I, but not enough to avoid it completely. But let me qualify — I only have a problem with it if it gets the better of me. Understandably, it’s hard to resist the cards, freebies and rewards that credit card companies dangle in front of us, but this is what makes it so easy to fall into a growing credit trap that takes many years to get out of. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that debt is still just a tool that we use at our disposal. In and of itself, it is not the financial evil that many purport it to be: the problem is actually in the way it typically ends up being utilized.

I’ve personally never had a problem with debt because I tend to be very conservative with it. I’ve only managed to owe money for very few items, although these were things that I felt I *really* needed to borrow for. My position on debt is to keep it at a safe distance, to regard it with care, and to reel it in only when I feel thoroughly confident and comfortable about being able to pay all of it back. The problems arise when we don’t think far enough ahead about the consequences of borrowing money and instead just dwell on the here and now. And that’s where the root of debt trouble lies — in HOW it is used (or in many cases, abused).

In defense of debt, I’d like to share some of my positive experiences with it.

The Good Side of Debt

• If it weren’t for my several hundred thousand dollar mortgage, I wouldn’t be able to afford a house in Silicon Valley, or a good school district for my children.
• My spouse is toiling away at a startup and to help us bootstrap our business ventures, we had to turn to loans.
• To finance some of my education and college lifestyle, I admit that I had to resort to a couple of small student loans. All paid off now though!
• I’ve taken some 0% financing offers to save me some money (or even earn me some, by buying my money some extra time in my savings accounts), which I’ve subsequently paid off in full before the offers expired. Granted, I don’t do this often since I’m lousy at keeping track of payment schedules of this sort.

So these are some of the reasons I can’t really hate debt all too much. With debt, you’re able to use “other people’s money” to further your causes. And the leverage from “OPM” (as they call it) can be a good thing if you know how to handle it. There are just some things you may be better off having now, rather than later — but you’ll need to weigh this need against your capability for taking on and managing debt. Polarizing as it is, debt has its benefits, but the fact is, until we can successfully wrestle it down and have it become our slave instead of the other way around, it’ll continue to be something to hate.

—The Silicon Valley Blogger (SVB for short) is behind the The Digerati Life, a blog that covers personal finance, business, investment and real estate topics along with the occasional Silicon Valley tech story sprinkled in. SVB is a married mother of two young kids who juggles a nine to five job in the IT industry along with raising a family and various entrepreneurial pursuits.