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. Listen to our season wrap up with more perspectives on why debt may be a necessity.

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:

* Brynne Conroy

* Tiffany Grant

* Dustin Heiner

* Deacon Hayes

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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And make sure you check out our websites as well:

* Sarah Li-Cain

* Miranda Marquit