By Kamaron McNair

Copyright cnbc

The home Dunlap chose was less a financial decision than an emotional one. She wasn’t trying to find the property that would provide the best return on investment or be the most affordable option, but rather the one that felt like home, an example of her broader philosophy on how people should view financial decisions and wealth-building.

“I want personal finance and money to be a tool,” she says. “You don’t want it to be the thing that makes or breaks a decision for you … don’t buy the house if you can’t see yourself there, if it doesn’t feel like someplace that actually feels like home. It doesn’t matter how good of an investment it is.”

Still, she used her financial expertise to be strategic about how she bought her home.

Dunlap planned to buy a home in cash, but when she found the house she wanted, it was a bit above the price she wanted to pay, she says. However, she “was in the financial position to not just go over my budget, but to actually think differently about how I was going to afford this house at all,” she said on the podcast.

In the end, she made a “game-time decision” to get a mortgage on her house and put about 60% down, she says. The house needed plumbing repairs for which she was initially quoted around $50,000. Though she found a contractor to do the work for considerably less, the instance provided a good example of why it’s smart for new homeowners especially to keep some cash reserves.

“For the first time in five years, I’m now a multimillionaire with debt,” she says. “I think that surprises a lot of people, that debt can be used as leverage and as an asset, because I don’t want to tie up the cash I don’t have to tie up … I wanted to think about protecting my cash and using debt in the smart way.”

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