Cloning Your Money

Published: March 26, 2021, 5:14 p.m.

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Growing up, I adopted a negative view of borrowing.\\xa0 I saw many family members get in over their heads in debt, which eventually led to horrible things like divorce and bankruptcy.\\xa0 I looked up to many people in my community and at my church who talked about debt as something dangerous or evil.\\xa0 I always thought it was best to avoid debt like the plague with these exposures and perceptions.

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When I went to college, I worked full-time and paid for all my classes as I went.\\xa0 I never took out one student loan for undergraduate or graduate school.\\xa0 I was afraid of borrowing because of the damage that I had seen it cause.

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In my first Corporate Finance course in grad school, I started to really comprehend the math behind leverage (borrowing) and the potentially positive outcomes it could create for a company.\\xa0 By looking at the interest expense associated with the debt concerning the potential return on capital, one could decipher if it was prudent to borrow.

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Prudence was the key.

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This new lesson on prudent borrowing shifted my paradigm of how I viewed debt, and my long-held negative associations of debt were being challenged.

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tcummings@thebahnsengroup.com\\ndpernas@thebahnsengroup.com

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Links mentioned in this episode:

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