<prompt> Human: I have a decent paying job and am contributing to my 401k regularly. But I have debt. Between car loans and student loans, I owe about 100k. I have mortgage payments too. If I make only the minimum payments required by these loans, I will barely make a dent into these loans. Lets say I dont care, I will keep swiping my credit card and keep myself saddled with this 100k debt and just make the minimum payments, will there be any negative effects down the road? Will it affect my credit score or anything? Im in the US BTW.  <response>: -The interest you pay on the debt-The inability to take on more debt house, grad school etc, or, the increased cost of taking on additional debt-You need a job to continue paying the minimums, what would happen if you lost your job tomorrow? -and, for me this was a big one, the mental toll of knowing in the back of your mind every day that you have that debt 