Small student debt problem and questions

serendipity08

Hi there,

I'm a student about to enter my third year of university. I currently have two accounts with Natwest. A student account, in which i am £1400 overdrawn and a student credit card to which i owe £200. My student loan comes in on Monday and obviously the first thing i am going to do is pay-off the remainder of my credit card. However this will only leave me with £900 of my loan left. I can easily extend my overdraft to 1600 freeing up an extra £200 cash but i just wondered if anyone had any better ideas on managing my money and increasing the amount available to me.

Aside from obviously being more frugel with my money which i plan to do by absorbing as much of this site as possible! I wondered if anyone had any other tips.

I just applied to the halifax for their student account and was accepted after 20 minutes of questions and checks and was hoping to transfer to them. There £3000 overdraft is very appealing! However in order to do so i need to cancel my natwest account. In order to do this i would need to temporarily free up an extra £500 (to pay off the account overdraft of £1400) and have looked at the Capital one Platinum card as a possibility. I have reservations with this though, especially after reading in the student section about halifax sometime being reluctant to grant the full amount (and thus leaving me in no better position that that which i was in with Natwest). However i have had an ISA with them for four years, would have my student loan being paid into the account, a small parental contribution each month and also a part time job once secured.

Is this a good idea? i am basically looking to free up as higher interest free overdraft/as much available cash as possible. Not just to go and spend it but just to make sure i dont run into any diffculty at the end of term which usually happens. I work in the holidays and usually pay off the majority of my overdraft but i have the problem after a heavy summer of holidays, 21st birthdays and not as much paid work as planned!

I'm quite attracted to the moving money around option and tryinng to get the most out of the banks and have also looked at the co-ops student account which is pretty appealing. Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.