You often hear financial gurus distinguish good debt from bad debt. Bad debt is using credit to buy consumables like electronics or vacations that have little long-term value, depreciate quickly or have no income-generating potential. Good debt, on ther other hand, goes for things like financing college or purchasing income-producing property.

How about financing for lap band surgery?

A Seattle Times story posted at homeequityloanlowdown.com (”Home equity loan to the rescue of obese siblings“) can only be categorized as a “great” use of of home equity debt.

In a nutshell, a “super-obese” brother and sister (Cyrus and Sheila Tehrani - each weighing more that 575 lbs) used equity in the home their father had left them to finance life-saving surgery. Health insurers had refused to cover the expensive procedures and the home equity option was their only option.

The outcome, so far, has been positive with both Tehrani’s losing more than 100 lbs and starting regular exercise programs. Hopefully, the news will get even better for them and the wisdom of using their home equity to finance new, healthier lives will never be second-guessed.

The Tehranis say they don’t mind paying $730 more each month for the next 30 years to pay off the $100,000 home-equity loan they took out to pay for their transformation and the surgery they may need in the future to cut off the folds of de-fatted skin.

Said Sheila, “Oh, my God, we are so lucky we had the option … How do you put a price on your life?”