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My wife and I have been out of consumer debt since January 2002. No credit cards. No car loans. Nothing. In 2007, we paid off our second house. We had a 30-year mortgage for about $130,000 beginning in 2003. We paid it off in just under five years. In 2009, we needed to move, and we went back into debt for our new home. We paid that house off in 2012. Wow! It seems like so long ago, but it’s only been nine years.

We worked pretty hard to pay off all our debt and those houses early. Fortunately, my income kept going up year after year from 2001 through 2012 which made it a bit easier to accomplish. But for the average person, is working your way out of debt the best way? It’s the way I did it. It’s the way millions of Americans do it. But is it the best way?

Working your way out of debt is 100% doable and repeatable. It works every time. If you work and use your extra money to pay off debt, your debt goes down and it eventually goes away. But let me present a slightly different way of addressing debt. Have you thought about investing your way out of debt?

Investing Your Way Out of Debt
I’m not going to be one of those financial guys that tells you that investing your way out of debt is always the absolute best thing to do. It does carry a bit of risk and there are some potential pitfalls, but I believe it’s a viable option for helping you pay off debt faster while still leaving you money. Follow along.

For most people, working for money is the primary source of income. If you have $10,000 in debt and you make $10 per hour, You need to work for around 1,000 hours to pay off your debt. If you make $20 per hour, you need to work at least 500 hours. If you make $100 per hour, you need to work 100 hours to pay off $10,000 in debt. Get the picture? You’re trading your life, in hours, to pay off your debt no matter how much you get paid. Your life and your time are precious. Protect them.

So, let’s look at a different route. Can you invest your way out of debt? It really depends on quite a few things, but for some, yes. It is an alternative.

Under a work-your-way-out-of-debt model, you trade hours of your life for $10,000 to pay off your debt. Once the debt is paid off, you have nothing. Under an invest-your-way-out-of-debt model, you work for your $10,000, but you will put it into an investment account and then use the growth from your investment to pay off your debt. In the end, you still have your $10,000.

Get the picture? Does it sound too good to be true? Well, yes and no.

For the average person, sticking with the simple model of working your way out of debt is the easiest and most surefire way to eliminate your debt. But for the adventurous soul who may want to take on a little risk, investing your way out of debt is a possibility. How does it work?

The standard credit card interest rate is going to range anywhere from 5 percent up to 33 percent. Yes, 33 percent. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. The interest rates are so high they should be criminal, but we’ll avoid that hot topic for now.

Common wisdom (from financial advisors) says that you can only get 7–10 percent annual growth from your investments. If you’re a Dave Ramsey fan, then you’re familiar with Dave’s 12-percent investment returns. For traditional financial planning, these are relatively safe numbers. However, for the astute investor and during key times in America’s economic history, there is the opportunity to exceed these growth rates, and this is the reason I’m writing this article . . . because some of it runs contrary to “traditional financial wisdom.”

Never Pay Off Your House
Have you ever heard someone say this? While I don’t agree with it completely, mathematically it makes sense. For example: today, interest rates are running 2–4 percent. Investing growth has been seeing growth of over 10 percent per year. If you’d paid $10,000 on your house, you would have “earned 4 percent” on your money by paying down your mortgage. If you’d invested, however, you would have gained 10 percent. That’s a net 6 percent gain or roughly $600 per year which would allow you to pay your mortgage or any other debt down.

Over 20 years, that $10,000 invested could beat the early house payment strategy by $20,000! Investing that $10,000 rather than paying it towards your house can create a significant effect on your financial future. Now imagine if you were to invest $10,000 a year instead of making early payments on your house. Yes, it compounds. The numbers get bigger the further out you go.

But it’s not all about the money. While investing your money instead of paying down your mortgage can create more future wealth, it may not offer the most security for your family.

My wife and I chose to pay our house off early. It brought us a lot of safety, security and peace of mind. We enjoy not worrying about or dealing with house payments. We were 42 when we paid off our house. It feels good!

Try High-Growth-Potential Investments
Investing can be risky, but there are ways to lower your risk. When choosing whether to use your money to pay off debt or invest, consider the risks. For debt with higher interest rates (over 10 percent, such as many credit cards), it makes more sense to pay off debt. It’s safe and it gets you a return on the money you have.

It’s not easy to make 20 percent annually investing, but some people do it. For the average person, the smart choice is to pay off your debt if the interest rate is 10 percent or higher. However, there are some investment opportunities that could yield much higher returns. Remember that higher returns often means higher risk.

Let’s take the cryptocurrency Bitcoin for example. If you had purchased $10,000 in Bitcoin in 2020, you’d have $50,000–$75,000 today, depending on when you purchased. Bitcoin is just one example and there are many others—Ethereum, Litecoin, Doge, Cardano and quite a few other cryptocurrencies. Some of these investments went up tenfold in a single year. That’s 1,000 percent. In one year! I have several of these investments that enjoyed some growth over the last year.

Cryptocurrencies aren’t the only investments that have seen huge growth. Many stocks have seen growth as well. Tesla, Apple, Amazon, and many more have all seen growth that would help you invest your way out of debt.

Land investments can make a good option if you can find the right deal and have the experience to make money, but it’s often more time-consuming and requires more cash when compared to stocks, cryptocurrencies, gold or silver where you can get started with less than $1,000.

Consider Converting Your Cash
We’re in a unique time in world economics. China and Russia have been buying up gold since 2010 to stabilize their currencies. Poland has recently been buying up gold. JP Morgan Chase bank has been acquiring massive amounts of silver. Instead of holding cash—a paper currency that suffers due to inflation—consider converting some of your cash to silver. If you have $10,000–$50,000 in an emergency fund, consider converting 20 percent into hard silver or gold. Gold and silver are still currency and you can exchange them if you ever need to.

By converting some of your cash into gold and silver, you’re protecting yourself from being fully exposed by investing only in the U.S. dollar. At this time, many economists are expecting the U.S. to hit hyper-inflation. If you’re holding cash, it will rapidly lose its value. In the 1970s, the U.S. experienced inflation rates as high as 11 percent annually.

Investing your way out of debt carries some risk with it, for sure, but it also carries some opportunities. Whether you choose to work your way out of debt or invest your way out of debt, you need to have a plan to get out of debt and avoid it if at all possible.