Sure you can just "walk away from debt". People do it everday. However here are some things to consider What if you lose your current apartment (friend moves, sells property, friendship ends, etc). Virtually all landlords now pull FICO to see your likely hood of not paying? What happens when you need another car (5+ years, 150K+ miles)? Are you going to pay cash? Do you have a plan to have enough cash? Do you have the willpower not to spend $$$ that is just sitting in bank? What happens if someday you find someone else and get married and/or just live together. She wants to buy a house but you need both your incomes to qualify. If you use joint income then they will put both sets of FICO scores? What happens if you get away with it for 3,4,6 years and then one of those CC companies gets a judgement against you. If you owe 10K now and don't pay for 4-5 years the additional fees, penalties, collection costs, legal costs, court cost etc could easily result in a judgement for $15K+. What happens if 3, 4, 5 creditors seek garnishment and your employer fires you over it? What if you need to seek employment for another reason? Any employer who pulls your credit sees and employee who is a substantial risk. Forget all the posts about ethics and moral responsibility. The cold hard truth if your credit report is more important than your criminal report in America. Trying to "walk away" will bury you. Unless you plan on not having a place to sleep, no having a car to drive, never seeking employment where they check credit, never buying a home or other major asset, never having bank account, constantly living in fear of judgemets & garnishments you need to rebuild your credit. You can either do it now or you can do it in few years when it is even more expensive and has ruined your life. TALK TO A LAWYER. See if you can seek a judgement against your wife for charges she rang up. See what you options are for credit payment plan. See what your options are for bankruptcy. You need a plan. Just saying you won't pay anything is denial. You WILL pay and it WILL hurt. Debt gets sold off many times over. If the original creditor can't get their money they cut their loses and sell debt and the nightmare starts all over.
