Wanna try to be a Debt-free Wannabe

Bengeo

Ok - lets' get serious. Can someone motivate me on this please?
I've got £9K on unsecured loan @ 7.9%, £6K unsecured car loan @11% + £3k on a interest free period balance transfer. In savings I've got £7.2K (although £4.3K is with Icesave).
Am I really supposed to pay off as much as I can off the debts with my savings? Am I supposed to do this ahead of adding voluntary payments to sort out my pension (I'm 53 at present). I can set aside £500 a month at present as savings.
Please someone shout at me and I'll get cracking.
Thanks if you reply and best wishes to all

dancingfairy

Generally the amount of money you will be earning on your savings will be less than the amount you are being charged on your debts. Therefore you will be paying out more so it would make sense to pay off the debts, starting with the one charging the highest interest ie the car loan.
perhaps leaving a little in a savings aco!!!! in case of dire emergencies would be prudent though.
ALso not an expert on the pension situation so maybe head over to the pension board and see how much you need to top up your pension by.
I imagine a combination of putting money into your pension and paying off debts would be the best solution.
Good Luck.
df x

Numpty_Monkey

:hello:Hi Benego

Before the great and good can help, can you post a full SOA use this link
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

When you do that maybe we will shout at you

If your savings aren't paying you more interest than your debts are costing then really you are not saving:o

Maybe a check on the snowball debt calcutor ,, have a play around with the numbers you will be surprised pay your debts off quicker leaves more money to save

hth

tyllwyd

About the pension - I would definitely get some advice from a proper financial adviser about the best way forward. Paying into a pension plan might be inflexible, especially since you've got a relatively short time before you retire. With the stock market & all the rest of the problems in the financial world, you can't afford to be putting your money into the wrong type of product. You need to get advice from someone who understands the pros & cons of all the options.

Bengeo

Thank you dancingfairy. How about if I drastically reduce the car loan and then see if I can get a good deal for a loan for the remaining balance to lessen the pain of penalty charges, or have I missed the point again.

Bengeo

Thank you Numpty Monkey. That making sense of cards website is brill. I'm getting the all the accurate figures together and then I see it will format it in a way suitable for MSE