Dear Mary: My husband and I are getting divorced. The divorce is amicable, and we have come to an agreement on how to divide up our assets. The main problem is my mother-in-law. To hear her talk about it, she should be the main consideration in our divorce negotiations!

Her main beef is that my husband decided to leave most of the furniture and the house with me in return for a higher cash settlement. Some of the furniture was a gift from her five years ago. She says that she still is paying for it and therefore it still belongs to her. She also says she is going to stop paying and that the creditors will come and take it away.

I told my husband that her debt most likely is unsecured and the only thing that will happen if she stops paying is that she will destroy her already rocky credit. Am I right? -- Michelle L., e-mail

Dear Michelle: OK, let me get this straight. This woman thinks that MasterCard and Visa have fleets of trucks and big warehouses filled with stuff that people bought on credit, used for five years and then decided they didn't want after all? That would be some kind of return policy. I'm not sure there are warehouses big enough to accommodate such a crazy notion. Trust me; no furniture store in the universe carries five-year contracts on depreciating goods, such as furniture. Clearly, she has a screw loose. You are absolutely right. If she defaults on this unsecured debt, they won't come after old, used stuff. They'll come after her, trash her credit score, and even sue her for the outstanding balance. Something tells me this is not the first time she's tried to manipulate you. Sadly, there are no winners in this scenario, but it seems to me that she's the biggest loser.

Dear Mary: My credit score is 750. The report says my score would be higher if I didn't have extra credit cards. They are cards for smaller stores that I do not use anymore. I have heard that you should not cancel credit cards because it will hurt your score. In this case, would it be OK to cancel these small credit cards? -- Cindy G., Illinois

Dear Cindy: Yes, you should cancel those extraneous cards, provided they have $0 balances. This credit score thing is really crazy. If you cancel all of them at once, that could lower your score. I suggest that you cancel them one at a time over a period of six months to a year to preclude a shock to the system. Canceling a credit card account is not as easy as you might think, so make sure you follow the steps outlined in "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," a column I wrote in my Debt-Proof Living newsletter last year.

Do you have a question for Mary? E-mail her at mary@everydaycheapskate.com, or write to Everyday Cheapskate, P.O. Box 2135, Paramount, CA 90723. Mary Hunt is the founder of DebtProofLiving.com and author of 17 books, including "Debt-Proof Living." To find out more about Mary and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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