Everyone loves good debts, or at least believe they should accumulate good debts. Of course, some believe no debt would be best if one wants stability. After all, even if one has good debts such as property, one is still open to property price fluctuations during bad times. More importantly however, did we accumulate more of the good debts so that these good debts can continue to build on top of itself and your good debts continue to become better debts? Do note that savings is an extremely important element for you to tap on so that you can increase your good debt. When was the last time you saved MORE? 🙂
Property investment is a great way to accumulate good debt IF you were not simply buying and happen to buy at the highest price per sf ever thinking it will go even higher. If it does, lucky you. If it does not, you would have to restart all over again. Buying good stocks is also another way and if you bought that stock because someone told you that it will be going up very soon, I wish you luck. It’s better to understand a little bit about the company you are buying and think longer term. It should beat your FD’s return over time.
Another good debt many people talk about is education. However, in terms of education, for example a Master Degree, this is a neutral area. If you can afford, why not. Just understand why you wanted it in the first place. If you think a Master Degree will push you up the corporate ladder, think again. However, when an organisation is deciding on the better candidate when they have two, guess who would be chosen if one has just a degree and another with a Master? PHD is another thing altogether, perhaps applicable only in niche positions. Master degree is however a good plus point. Don’t believe? Take a look at the job ads for senior manager and you would understand why.
Many would tell you, education is not important. Look at many of the billionaires, so many of them were university dropouts. The only reminder I would like to offer would be to take a look at majority of those who do well today. Many of them had a faster and better start because they had a degree in the first place. Without one, you may not even get to start. Again, just look at all the job advertisements today for any senior executive positions and all the way till senior management. When I started many years ago after my first degree, my position was immediately 3 levels ahead of my senior who had only a diploma. 3 levels ahead meant I started at 9 years ahead. This is a fact of life. In fact studying for a a degree is so easy these days that if one is not pursuing one, the only reason is just laziness, nothing else.
Yes, good debt include not just investing in physical assets. It includes investing in the best asset too; yourself. Happy getting more good debts.
written on 11 Apr 2015
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The Good Debts, the property and the degree
Comments
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Hi Chialih,
There is a good point in highlighting the importance of education which is investing to yourself is one of investment strategy.i fully agreed with you.
As you refer degree, master degree and PHD, there are more in academic, what about those with professional certification, what would be the better value in term of competency for corporate ladder objective, generally, i feel that education should be treated as educating tool for people and lead to what they want to be… , to me, it is unlikely to be corporate ladder oriented or intention, for instance, moving up to managerial level.
In fact, education is like a tool to help or lead one to its own direction as every individual has their own objective in life. if one would like to be rich or success from education solely, there would be misleading, for being success or rich, education is not only way but just a tool, why not run your own business if you really want to be rich, by having a mentality to be rich from education, it is likely to be inappropriate.
Please do not get me wrong, i do not discourage people from further studying, i still think that education is very important in life. Ultimately, my point is.. the mind set has to be right in the first place for education. it doesn’t mean one in high level of qualification, he can be surely be successful, there is no single answer to be success. there are many way to be successful, In fact, it is just a tool as knowledge helping one to be success or use the tool applied into respective field.
The objective of hiring a staff by a company is to help company to generate yield result for business mission, it is not because he has high qualification. As you can say, paper qualification has proven one’s capability to handle the role, YES, you are right, company has selected the right candidate based on its paper profile, in reality, the person can perform or not, it is difference topic, but in the end, result oriented is still the key point or ultimate topic to be reviewed from company perspective. my 2 cents.-
As long as it us continuous learning that is the best. Life does not end with just a degree or any qualification. I still read no less than 5 different news sites per day today.
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