do you think i did the right thing?

hi, my situation is that i'm a mature student in her 3rd year who had existing debts before studying. because i had a huge overdraft my bank lloyds tsb refused me ANY student facilities, and ordered me to pay my overdraft now. yeah right.

which resulted in me getting a credit card. But halifax have come to the rescue and with my new account, i'm on my way to managing my money again.

my situation is this, i owe £650 to egg at an apr of about 17%. i dont like the debt, but i do like egg so i'll stay faithful to them.

i owe lloyds tsb 1470- paying back 60 quid a month- ouch!

i owe capital one 500 (gone over my credit limit- i dont know how! and they didnt even notify me!!) i'm paying a whacking 33% apr and repaying about 30 a month, with a charge pending.

i owe ebay 23.00 for sellers fees.

So after reading martin's tips for students, i realised he was right- i have a right to interest free facilities and i should use them. with a whacking £3 in my bank account and all my wages due to be eaten by direct debits, today i asked the halifax for £200 interest free student overdraft, which they gave me straightaway as an overdraft.

So, today, i paid £50 to capital one- and i have £30 coming out on the 26th, so i'm down to about 400. i cut the card up.:j i plan to pay more off that debt when i get my student loan in october.

i paid ebay off, so theyre off my back.

i'm due to pay egg another installment and i am due to pay lloyds another 60 this week, so i'm down to under £1410. mum says she will pay my overdraft off and i pay her instead of paying lloyds back to try and rebuild my credit before i go into teaching. (lloyds have put me in debt collections)

i feel positive about what i've done- a student overdraft is better than a high interest credit card that i'm tempted to use.

i told my friend and my boyfriend and they had a go at me and said that i was stupid to take out another overdraft and i was robbing peter to pay paul, but the upshot is that i wont have to pay anything from this overdraft yet. the payments to my cards and to lloyds are what's crippling me. i work a saturday job solely to make repayments and i'm terrified of checking my bank account in case a dd has gone through or bounced. my plan is to keep my "dirty" lloyds account to pay things off and keep my halifax account studenty and interest free and clean. i thought id done something positive today, but now i feel that ive been stupid again in taking out an overdraft. but i will try and discipline myself with it. i had a fulltime job before and was living alone when i ran the big one up, and i was 19, but now i'm more wary.

What do you think? Am i being foolish? thanks for your opinions x