Which is Better - No Debt or Some Debt? - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Which is Better - No Debt or Some Debt? The key questions as far as how much debt to have and is debt a good thing or not is, you need to have a credit rating. And if you don't have a credit rating, it's hard to get loans, it's hard to even run an apartment, it's hard to get a car, etc. So, I always recommend that people have at least one credit card, usually that's all they really need. And they should have a credit card with a low credit limit, that they can afford to pay off every month. And so, the first step in establishing credit would be open a credit card, pay it off every month, and be very diligent about it. And then a next step to build credit would be getting a car loan. But again, the key thing that's going to affect your credit rating is paying on time and paying off your debt. So those are the recommendations with respect to how to handle that. But to supplement the credit card, of course, you can have a debit card. So those are the two you need: the debit card and the credit card, but use the credit card just like you would use the debit card, recognizing I have enough in my checking account to pay this off.
