Sometimes a Mortgage is a Wise Debt- I saw my parents constantly struggle to pay off credit cards when I was growing up. As a teenager I vowed to never go into debt and end up like them. Therefore, I lived with my parents throughout college to save money. When I graduated and started my career I moved into my own apartment because the concept of buying a home required that I take on more debt than I could possibly imagine.

One evening, after a stressful day at work, a colleague and I decided to go out to dinner to relax. We discussed everything that caused us excess stress, from our over-the-top boss, to our project with a short deadline, to the way that we are forced to live paycheck to paycheck and keep a tight hold on our finances.

My colleague mentioned that though she has little spending money, she is grateful that at least she's not throwing her money away by renting. Intrigued, I asked what she meant by that. My colleague explained that she rented her home for many years because like me, she was too fearful of taking on thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt to purchase a house.

After several years she realized that if she were to continue paying rent, she would have nothing to show for all of her hard earned money that she had spent on rent after 40 years. However, she explained that if she were to take on a mortgage and purchase a home, she would have a home that she would own after 40 years. She explained that she felt like she was literally throwing away her money by renting. By the end of our dinner I agreed with her.

The next day I decided to look into purchasing my first home. Since I could barely afford to rent, I didn't think that I could possibly afford to buy, so I contacted a mortgage broker to find out if I was correct in my thinking. The mortgage broker I worked with was very patient with me and explained that by renting I was paying the mortgage for my landlord, as well as providing him with a profit. He mentioned that I could likely buy a house for less than or equal to the cost of renting the home I was living in. We sat down together with his financial calculators and I discovered that he was correct.

For a bit less than I was paying in monthly rent for my house I could purchase a home of my own.

I could profit off of other people renting if only I bought a home or two to rent out. As soon as I got settled into my new home I got back in touch with my mortgage broker and talked about what I could qualify for. I had enough equity in the home that I had purchased to enable me to purchase another home for investment purposes. I knew that taking on a second mortgage would be the opportunity of a lifetime and would mean that I could set myself up for financial success. I no longer felt like having a mortgage was a bad thing. In fact, I felt completely opposite.

I believed that a mortgage was a way of investing in my future, since real estate tends to increase its value every few years. Even when real estate values fall, they always soar back up rapidly, making this a relatively safe investment with nearly instant returns.