[Fat Charlie]

Like any tool, debt can be good and bad. There's a huge difference between necessary debt an unnecessary debt.

Mortgage debt sure looks crushing, but I was going to have to pay for a place to live anyway. I had been renting in a nice duplex for $1100 a month (plus utilities and I had to mow/shovel, etc.) With zero down I moved into a nice house with a payment of $1250 a month.

The value of a house, like a stock, is irrelevant until the day you have to sell it. It's gone up and down in the last 13 years, but what have I been getting for that extra $150 a month? Modding. Our first day there I took a jigsaw to the basement door and put in a cat door. Now I've got an attic, a shed, a swingset, gardens, an indoor hot tub, an outdoor pool, a fire pit, an invisible fence and a paved driveway. I've installed ceiling fans and done some other wiring. I've modded the deck, planted fruit trees, transplanted maple trees, cut down various others and planted some bushes. We've done some cool painting.

Now I mow the lawn to my own standards, not worrying because I was out of town for the weekend and the landlord is coming over tomorrow for some reason and will see it shaggy. Renting, we may have been allowed to pay out of our own pockets to pave the landlord's driveway and maybe paint some rooms. After getting permission and having the colors approved. Oh, and I also get a $500 break on my property taxes for being such a great guy. Since I couldn't get that as a renter, the $150/month drops down to $109 a month. Sure, taking on $179k in "debt" sounds bad, but all we really did was increase one of our expenses a bit and radically improve our lives. And after enjoying our better living conditions for years, if we get any money at all out of a sale then we're ahead even more. Renting, we'd have nothing but a U-Haul full of stuff.

Without debt, I'd have had to pay rent my whole life. But by phrasing my housing payment as debt I changed my whole life for the better and I'm on track to owning it outright.