Keith challenges the belief that all debt is bad and reframes it as a tool for building wealth when used intentionally.

He contrasts destructive consumer debt with productive investment debt, especially in real estate, and explains how inflation, long-term fixed-rate loans, and rental income can work together to grow net worth.

Keith explores the mindset shift from prioritizing safety and being debt-free to pursuing growth through leverage, highlights the opportunity cost of avoiding debt, and offers practical guidelines for using borrowing rationally rather than emotionally.

He also shows how modern economies and many wealthy individuals rely on strategic debt, positioning it as a key part of a more intentional, asset-focused version of the American Dream.

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Complete episode transcript:

Keith Weinhold 0:00

welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith weinholder, there's bad debt, good debt and great debt. Are you using debt wisely, and are you ensuring that you stay in debt? Because debt is the American dream today, on get rich education milestone episode 600

Corey Coates 0:23

since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard in every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com

Keith Weinhold 1:06

the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com

Speaker 1 1:40

You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.

Keith Weinhold 1:56

Welcome to GRE from Kennewick, Washington at Kennebunkport, Maine and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are inside get rich education. Yes, America's favorite slack jawed mammal on a microphone has got his act back on track, for your listening pleasure, since 2014 This is our 600th wealth building week in a row, you've been misled, not maliciously, not even intentionally, but somewhere along the way, a really expensive idea got planted inside your head, and it was once planted inside my head, that debt is bad, just blanketly bad, that the goal is to be debt free, that owing money to somebody else is something to escape as fast as possible. And look, I get it, if your mindset is in the old middle class consumer credit world like mine was for much of my life, debt feels heavy, it feels like risk, it feels like obligation, but the people telling you to avoid debt, they're the same people that never built much wealth now a reliance on 22% APR, credit card debt just To pay basic living expenses, because it's the only way that you could do it, merely making the minimum monthly payment that right there is the road to ruin. Why? Well, because the interest rate is high, because you have to pay it back yourself, and because it's unsecured, meaning that there's no collateral, and at the same time, the people quietly getting rich, what are they doing? They're using debt every single day. So debt is not the enemy, it's just the tool, and like any tool, it can build a house, or it can smash your thumb if you miss the nail. Well today we're going to separate the two, because if you understand this one concept, then you stop playing defense financially and start going on offense. In fact, I'll go further. Debt isn't the opposite of the American Dream used correctly. Debt is the American dream. Now, my turning point was really fueled when I made my first ever home, that $295,000 blue four Plex Building Two decades ago, with just my three and a half percent down payment. That meant that 96 and a half percent was borrowed. That's debt, and that fueled everything for me, and got the ball rolling on using that seminal four Plex to leverage even more debt and more property with 1031 exchanges and cash out refinances debt made that American dream free. Me because I could not have afforded $295,000 all cash back then. Now, a guest that we had on the show last year and the owner of a commercial lending company, Hannah Hannan, she recently talked about the virtues of debt. I met Hannah because we were both faculty members on last year's real estate guys Investor Summit at sea cruise. Well, Hannah went on a different cruise and saw in Jamaica that there were all these vacant and uncompleted houses just sort of weirdly stuck at different stages of construction. She asked the tour guide, why are these houses all abandoned? And and the tour guide answered, we don't have loans here in Jamaica. People have to work make money and then start the build, and then the build pauses while they make more money, and then they have to construct the next phase of the build as they go and go back to making more money like that. I mean, sheesh, that's awful. Can you imagine if you had to build a home or a rental property for yourself that way? Well, back here in the US, access to debt is what allows people to build wealth faster, especially in real estate, you can use other people's money control large assets, pay less in taxes and compound off a much smaller amount of capital. That's the difference. Debt availability is really good in the US compared to other nations, and that's the emphasis on the American part of today's episode. Debt is the American dream. Now, when it comes to the big misunderstanding, most people think that debt is really just one thing. They just lump it all like it's all bad, credit cards, car loans, student loans, mortgages. A lot of people, they really do. They just still throw it all into one mental bucket that's sort of labeled da, avoid that at all costs. I'm telling you, no way you cannot do that. I mean, this is like saying food is bad because candy exists. No, there's junk food and there's fuel. It's the same with debt. Consumer debt is a wealth killer. Investment debt is a wealth creator, and if you don't know the difference well, you end up avoiding the very thing that could move your life forward. Here's another way to think about it, debt doesn't make you poor. Using debt poorly makes you poor.

Keith Weinhold 7:36

In real estate, inflation is quietly paying your mortgage, even if you never made a principal payment at all. When you really understand this, it almost sounds too good to be true. Most people think inflation is just rising prices, and it is that, but they miss the other side of the equation. Inflation also shrinks debt, something I've been talking about for more than 10 years here. If you have a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, you're paying back that loan with future dollars that are worth less, and meanwhile, rents tend to rise, wages tend to rise, and asset values tend to rise, but your mortgage, it stays fixed. Inflation can't touch it, and that means that over time, your payment gets easier and easier to make. Oh, and then if you've got a tenant i...