Still paying off bank interest years on….

Longoverdue

Hi first time on the forum

Amazed I haven't written in before but now I'm retired and have a bit of time to think, I'm really hoping someone can possibly come up with a solution to finally get rid of years of paying bank interest on a very old loan.

It must have been about 11 years ago, when I was finally told I was too skilled/ too old etc. for any other job, that I was inevitably forced onto unemployment benefit. Luckily I was helped out by my existing bank with an overdraft of I think £500 but rather than sit around I used the time and money to start up an interesting part time research project I had always wanted to do for years, eventually finishing with a very satisfying academic achievement in 1999. All well and good yes but it then made it virtually impossible to get any job at all from then on.

Eventually and thankfully I came onto my current state pension, but all the time the overdraft has gradually got bigger and bigger. Nevertheless I've always met the monthly interest payments on time and am still doing so today, however the overdraft is now standing at £2900 with as far as I can tell no end in sight. I've started thinking about a personal loan as it might be cheaper and would eventually clear the debt, but wondered if there were any other solutions that might be worth trying beforehand ?

Any advice would be very much appreciated indeed !

Thanks in advance.

Longoverdue

GeorgeUK

First we would need to see what your income and expenditure was before we could comment on how to possibly increase payments. There is a very useful SOA calculator that you can list all your expenses on and we'll also see if there is anything you may be able to make savings on.
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

I'm not sure how banks are at giving credit to pensioners, but depending on the amount you can throw at the debt each month, we should be able to come up with something.