Good Debt or No Debt: Where Money Teachers Split
October 6, 2026 · 17 min read
One camp tells people to eliminate every loan before doing anything else, and another says borrowing well is how wealth gets built. This piece sets out each case and who each piece of advice is meant for.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- All five agree: borrowing for consumption is a mistake.
- Kamel: take debt off the table except a mortgage of about 25 percent or less of take-home pay.
- Kamel: use the debt snowball, smallest balance first, for momentum.
- Kamel's sequence starts with a $1,000 emergency fund, then all consumer debt, then three to six months of expenses.
- Kamel: high income is no exemption. Lifestyle rises to meet it.
- O'Neal: do not buy anything unless you could pay cash for it twice, and wait 48 hours on anything over $500.
- O'Neal: stay free of consumer debt for at least 24 months before getting another card.
- Hammer: do not consolidate or declare bankruptcy until the behavior has changed.
- Hammer: fund a full emergency fund before fun spending. He favors six months of expenses.
- Cardone: good debt is paid off by a tenant or customer. Consumer debt is terrible debt.
- Cardone's own warning: small always gets hurt.
- Srivatsaa: check good people, good intentions, good rationale and good contracts before any investment.
- Srivatsaa: take bets where the worst case is getting your money back.
- Warning: the pro-debt stories come from survivors operating at large scale.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.