{"id":74,"date":"2015-01-20T21:21:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T21:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.belbolcpa.com\/blog\/?p=74"},"modified":"2015-01-20T21:21:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T21:21:06","slug":"is-debt-really-that-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/is-debt-really-that-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Debt Really That Bad?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is it bad to have debt? Should you pay off your debt early? What about credit cards? These are all questions to consider regarding your personal and business finances. Let\u2019s take a look at the good and bad.<\/p>\n<p>If you view debt as a financial tool to help you to achieve your goals, then debt is a good thing. Some benefits of debt:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Virtually all homeowners take out a mortgage when purchasing their first home; otherwise they most likely would not be able to purchase a home.<\/li>\n<li>A loan for your business may help you to expand your business to help it grow, such as an equipment loan or a line of credit to use during lean times.<\/li>\n<li>By using debt it may help you to conserve your cash so you do not have to deplete your savings to purchase a vehicle, for example.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, the ugly side of debt:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the interest rate of your debt is very high, then you may end up paying much more than the original loan balance. This may be true with credit cards.<\/li>\n<li>Debt payments that are too high compared to your income will put a strain on your finances.<\/li>\n<li>If your income goes down for an extended period of time, while having a lot of debt, may result in bankruptcy, foreclosure, and a poor credit score.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it bad to have debt? Should you pay off your debt early? What about credit cards? These are all questions to consider regarding your personal and business finances. Let\u2019s take a look at the good and bad. If you view debt as a financial tool to help you to achieve your goals, then debt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8],"tags":[23,29,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-74","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business","7":"category-expenses","8":"category-financial","9":"tag-debt","10":"tag-expenses","11":"tag-financial-planning","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}