Can I save our credit with a quickie divorce?
If you're not insolvent, doing something like this is both a moral and legal hazard: When you are insolvent, the tax and moral hazard issues can be a non-issue. Setting up a scenario that makes you appear to be insolvent is where the fraud comes in. If you decide to go down this road, spend a few thousand dollars on competent legal advice. My advice to you? Act like responsible adults and owe up to your financial commitments.  When you bought your house and took out a loan from the bank, you made an agreement to pay it back. If you breach this agreement, you deserve to have your credit score trashed.  What do you think will happen to the $100K+ if you decide to stiff the bank? The bank will make up for its loss by increasing the mortgage rates for others that are taking out loans, so responsible borrowers get to subsidize those that shirk their responsibilities. If you were in a true hardship situation, I would be inclined to take a different stance. But, as you've indicated, you are perfectly able to make the payments -- you just don't feel like it. Real estate fluctuates in value, just like any other asset. If a stock I bought drops in value, does the government come and bail me out? Of course not! What I find most problematic about your plan is that not only do you wish to breach your agreement, but you are also looking for ways to conceal your breach. Please think about this. Best of luck with your decision.
"I can only share with you my happened with my wife and I. First, and foremost, if you think you need to protect your assets for some reason then do so. Be open and honest about it. If we get a divorce, X stays with me, and Y stays with you.  This seems silly, even when your doing it, but it's important. You can speak with a lawyer about this stuff as you need to, but get it in writing. Now I know this seems like planning for failure, but if you feel that foo is important to you, and you want to retain ownership of foo no mater what, then you have to do this step. It also works both ways. You can use, with some limitations, this to insulate your new family unit from your personal risks. For example, my business is mine. If we break up it stays mine. The income is shared, but the business is mine. This creates a barrier that if someone from 10 years ago sues my business, then my wife is protected from that. Keep in mind, different countries different rules. Next, and this is my advise. Give up on ""his and hers"" everything. It's just ""ours"". Together you make 5400€ decide how to spend 5400€ together. Pick your goals together. The pot is 5400€. End of line. It doesn't matter how much from one person or how much from another (unless your talking about mitigating losses from sick days or injuries or leave etc.). All that matters is that you make 5400€. Start your budgeting there.  Next setup an equal allowance. That is money, set aside for non-sense reasons. I like to buy video games, my wife likes to buy books. This is not for vacation, or stuff together, but just little, tiny stuff you can do for your self, without asking  ""permission"". The number should be small, and equal. Maybe 50€.  Finally setup a budget. House Stuff 200€, Car stuff 400€. etc. etc. then it doesn't matter who bought the house stuff. You only have to coordinate so that you don't both buy house stuff. After some time (took us around 6 months) you will find out how this works and you can add on some rules. For example, I don't go to Best Buy alone. I will spend too much on ""house stuff"". My wife doesn't like to make the budget, so I handle that, then we go over it. Things like that." As per Chad's request, I recommend that you keep at least one card in each name  as primary card holder, with the spouse being the secondary  card holder, most easily done by each adding the spouse as the secondary holder to his/her own card. Since credit reporting is usually in the name of the primary credit card holder, this allows both to continue to have credit history, important when the marriage ends (in death or divorce as the case may be). When you travel, each should carry only the  cards on which he/she is the primary card holder; not all  cards. This helps in case of a wallet or purse being stolen;  you have to report only one set of cards as lost and request  their replacement, and you have a set of cards that you can  use in the mean time (as long as you are not in different  places when the loss occurs). "Here's what my wife and I did. First, we stopped using credit cards and got rid of all other expenses that we absolutely didn't need.  A few examples: cable TV, home phone, high end internet - all shut off.  We changed our cell phone plan to a cheap one and stopped going out to restaurants or bars.  We also got rid of the cars that had payments on them and replaced them with ones we paid cash for.  Probably the most painful thing for me was selling a 2 year old 'vette and replacing it with a 5 year old random 4 door.   Some people might tell you don't do this because older cars need repairs.  Fact is, nearly all cars are going to need repairs.  It's just a matter of whether you are also making payments on it when they need them and if you can discipline yourself enough to save up a bit to cover those. After doing all this the only payments we had to make were for the house (plus electric/gas/water) and the debt we had accumulated.  I'd say that if you have the option to move back into your parent's house then do it.  Yes, it will suck for a while but you'll be able to pay everything off so much faster.  Just make sure to help around the house. Ignore the guys saying that this tanks your score and will make getting a house difficult.  Although they are right that it will drop your score the fact is that you aren't in any position to make large purchases anyway and won't be for quite some time, so it really doesn't matter.  Your number one goal is to dig yourself out of this hole, not engage in activity that will keep you in it. Next, if you are only working part time then you need to do one of two things.  Either get a full time job or go find a second part time one.  The preference is obviously on the first, which you should be able to do in your spare time.  If, for some reason, you don't have the tech skills necessary to do this then go find any part time job you can.   It took us about 3 years to finally pay everything (except the house) off - we owed a lot.  During that time everything we bought was paid for in cash with the vast majority of our money going to pay off those accounts. Once the final account was paid off, I did go ahead and get a credit card.  I made very minor purchases on it - mostly just gas - and paid it off a few days before it was due each month.  Every 4 months they increased my limit.   After around 18 months of using that one card my credit score was back in the 700+ range and with no debt other than the mortgage. *note: I echo what others have said about ""Credit Repair"" companies.  Anything they can do, you can too.  It's a matter of cutting costs, living within your means and paying the bills.  If the interest rates are killing you, then try to get a consolidation loan.  If you can't do that then negotiate settlements with them, just get everything in writing prior to making a payment on it if you go this route.  BTW, make sure you actually can't pay them before attempting to settle." "It is possible to achieve a substitute for refinancing, but because of the ""short"" life of cars at least relative to housing, there are no true refinancings. First, the entire loan will not be able to be refinanced.  The balance less approximately 80% of the value of the car will have to be repaid.  Cars depreciate by something like 20% per year, so $2,000 will have to be repaid. Now, you should be able to get a loan if your boyfriend has good credit, but the interest rate will not drop too much further from the current loan's rate because of your presumably bad credit rating, assumed because of your current interest rate. While this is doable, this is not a good strategy if you intend to have a long term relationship.  One of the worst corruptors of a relationship is money.  It will put a strain on your relationship and lower the odds of success. The optimal strategy, if the monthly payments are too high, is to try to sell the car so to buy a cheaper car.  The difficulty here is that the bank will not allow this if balance of the loan exceeds the proceeds from the sale, so putting as much money towards paying the balance to allow a sale is best. As a side note, please insure your car against occurrences such as theft and damage with a deductible low enough to justify the monthly payment.  It is a terrible position to have a loan, no car, and no collateral against the car." I would not be concerned about the impact to your credit rating.  You already have an excellent credit score, and the temporary change to your utilization will have minimal impact to your score. If you really need to make this $2500 purchase and you have the money in the bank to pay for it, I would not recommend borrowing this money.  Only put it on the credit card if you plan on paying it off in full without paying interest. Let me ask you this: Why do you want to keep this $2500 in the bank?  It certainly isn't earning you anything significant.  My guess is that you'd like to keep it there for an emergency.  Well, is this $2500 purchase an emergency?  If it is necessary, then spend the money.  If not, then save up the money until you have enough to make the purchase.  It doesn't make sense to keep money for an emergency in the bank, but then when one comes up, to leave the money in the bank and pay interest on your emergency purchase. If you make this emergency purchase and another emergency comes up, you can always (if necessary) borrow the money at that time.  It doesn't make sense to borrow money before you need it. That having been said, I would encourage you to build up your emergency fund so that you have enough money in there to handle things like this without completely depleting your savings account.  3 to 6 months of expenses is the general recommendation for your emergency fund.  Then if something unplanned comes up, you'll have the money in the bank without having to borrow and pay interest. I know you say you are aware of secured and unsecured debt and you've made your decision.  Did you do the numbers?  You will pay 44k over the life of the mortgage for that 24k (Based on 4.5% APR mortgage). Once you refinance your mortgage, do you plan on using credit for a while?  Lots of Americans are hyperfocused on credit scores.  The only times it affects your life are when you finance something, when you apply to rent a house or apartment, and sometimes when you apply for a job.  Credit score should not be a factor in this decision. You're borrowing the money at a lower rate to pay off the high rate cards because you want to pay less in interest.  Considering #1 is there any reason NOT to pay off the cards immediately, if not sooner? "You say  Also I have been the only one with an income in our household for last 15 years, so for most of our marriage any debts have been in my name. She has a credit card (opened in 1999) that she has not used for years and she is also a secondary card holder on an American Express card and a MasterCard that are both in my name (she has not used the cards as we try to keep them only for emergencies). This would seem to indicate that the dealer is correct.  Your wife has no credit history.   You say that you paid off her student loans some years back.  If ""some years"" was more than seven, then they have dropped off her credit report.  If that's the most recent credit activity, then she effectively has none.   Even if you get past that, note that she also doesn't have any income, which makes her a lousy co-signer.  There's no real circumstance where you couldn't pay for the car but she could based on the historical data.  She would have to get a job first.  Since they had no information on her whatsoever, they probably didn't even get to that." On the face, this appears a sound method to manage long run cumulative interest, but there are some caveats. Maxing out credit cards will destroy your credit rating.  You will receive no more reasonable offers for credit, only shady ones.  Though your credit rating will rise the moment you bring the balance back down to 10%, even with high income, it's easy to overshoot the 8 months, and then a high interest rate kicks in because of the low credit rating. Further, maxing out credit cards will encourage credit card lenders to begin cutting limits and at worse demand early payment. Now, after month 6 hits, your financial payment obligations skyrocket.  A sudden jolt is never easy to manage.  This will increase risk of missing a payment, a disaster for such hair line financing. In short, the probability of decimating your financial structure is high for very little benefit. If you are confident that you can pay off $4,000 in 8 months then simply apply those payments to the student loan directly, cutting out the middle man.  Your creditors will be pleased to see your total liabilities fall at a high rate while your utilization remains small, encouraging them to offer you more credit and lower rates. The ideal credit card utilization rate is 10%, so it would be wise to use that portion to repay the student loans. Building up credit will allow you to use the credit as an auxiliary cushion when financial disaster strikes.  Keeping an excellent credit rating will allow you to finance the largest home possible for your money.  Every percentage point of mortgage interest can mean the difference between a million USD home and a $750,000 one. If you hadn't done it already cut up the cards. Don't close the accounts because it could hurt your credit score even more. Switching some or all of the CC debt onto low rate cards, or a debt consolidation loan is a way that some people use to reduce their credit card payments.  The biggest risk is that you become less aggressive with the loan payback. If you were planning on paying $800 in minimum payments,plus $200 extra each month; then still pay $1000 with the new loan and remaining credit cards.  Another risk is that you start overusing the credit card again, because you have available credit on the card that was paid off with the loan. The third risk, which you haven't proposed, occurs when people switch unsecured credit card dept, to a secured 2nd mortgage debt. This then puts the family home at risk. I know one piece of information that can help you (in a macabe sort of way) - from what my wife has told me, if your partner dies, you are not responsible for paying for their debts, especially student loans. I expect the same thing for credit cards - if someone were to happen to charge $2,000 on their credit card and get hit by a bus, the credit card company can cajole and plead for you to pay for it, but you have no legal requirement to do so.  Unfortunately I do not have as much information about as if you spouse is living. Some already mentioned that you could pay with your savings and use the credit card as an emergency buffer. However, if you think there is a reasonable chance that your creditcard gets revoked and that you need cash quickly, here is a simple alternative: Why not use the money and pay the cards off? You say you'll have no money to your name, and while that's true, you do have $36,000 in available credit should an emergency arise. If it were me, I'd pay them off, make every effort to live on the cash I have without using credit and leave the cards open as a source of emergency funds (new home theaters are not emergencies!) until I got enough savings built up to not have to use credit at all. This is probably a good time to note that credit is not a liquid asset, and not an emergency fund. Credit can be revoked or denied at any time, and Murphy's law states that you may have issues with credit when everything else goes wrong too. I doubt it. If you have a good track record with your car loan, that will count for a lot more than the fact that you don't have it anymore. When you look for a house, your debt load will be lower without the car loan, which may help you get the mortgage you want. Just keep paying your credit card bills on time and your credit rating will improve month by month. "Pay cash.  You have the cash to pay for it now, but God forbid something happen to you or your wife that requires you to dip into that cash in the future. In such an event, you could end up paying a lot more for your home theater than you planned. The best way to keep your consumer credit card debt at zero (and protect your already-excellent credit) is to not add to the number of credit cards you already have.   At least in the U.S., interest rates on saving accounts of any sort are so low, I don't think it's worthwhile to include as a deciding factor in whether not you ""borrow"" at 0% instead of buying in cash."