New Strategies For Smart Borrowing

Rising interest rates and new tax rules mean taking a different approach to how you shop for loans and manage your debt.

- Miriam Cross And Patricia Mertz Esswein

A lot of financially savvy people make a distinction between good debt and bad debt. Good debt is used to finance goals that will improve your net worth—such as a home purchase, a college education or a small business. Good debt is even better if it carries a low interest rate and is tax-deductible. Bad debt is the kind you incur to buy things you can’t afford with your paycheck—the big-screen TV you put on a credit card or the Caribbean trip you paid for with your home-equity line of credit. In some people’s book, it’s a bad idea to borrow to buy any depreciating asset, including a car.

But even good debt turns bad when you overindulge, as happened in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The bursting of the housing bubble and the stock market bust forced many Americans to go on a debt diet, and in the last decade, even though credit has been historically cheap, we’ve been pretty careful borrowers. Household debt has increased since the Great Recession, but that’s largely a desirable side effect of the strong economy and a healthy relaxation in lending. Mortgage balances have been rising (although they are still way below the peak reached in 2008), and studentloan, auto-loan and credit card debt levels have also gone up.

There are a few worrisome trends: Borrowers age 60 and older now hold 22.5% of total outstanding balances for all types of loans, up from 15.9% in 2008. Older borrowers are also taking on more student-loan debt to help pay for the education of children and grandchildren. The average amount of student-loan debt owed by borrowers age 60 and older nearly doubled from 2005 to 2015, to $23,500, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Another worry: Among younger student-loan borrowers, delinquencies are rising.