I don't think all debt is equal, and I don't think all debt hurts your ability to handle volatility.
I have a 30 year mortgage on my house with a 2.75% interest rate. That has effectively given myself "rent control"; outside of a potential rise of property taxes, my "rent" payment will not exceed a certain number of dollars. That means that if the housing prices rise rapidly, I'm covered.
If I had decided not to leverage several hundred thousands of dollars of debt, then yes I'd have more cash directly now, but I might have suffered the fate that lots of others faced with the recent spikes in rent that have happened due to COVID. I simply didn't have to worry about that.
Obviously there's different types of debt; some insanely high-interest loan you get from a payday loan place absolutely is a bad and will hurt your ability to stand volatility.
I have a 30 year mortgage on my house with a 2.75% interest rate. That has effectively given myself "rent control"; outside of a potential rise of property taxes, my "rent" payment will not exceed a certain number of dollars. That means that if the housing prices rise rapidly, I'm covered.
If I had decided not to leverage several hundred thousands of dollars of debt, then yes I'd have more cash directly now, but I might have suffered the fate that lots of others faced with the recent spikes in rent that have happened due to COVID. I simply didn't have to worry about that.
Obviously there's different types of debt; some insanely high-interest loan you get from a payday loan place absolutely is a bad and will hurt your ability to stand volatility.