Should I open a new account?

stardust-girl

Hi all,

I have a Natwest current account with a £2000 o/d, which I'm fully up to the limit on. In Sept., I'm going back to Uni for a year to do a postgrad, and all my loans and grants will add up to roughly £11000. As I'm living at home I can easily pay off the debt with that.

At the moment I'm on JSA which I have paid into my First Reserve account, and that seems to work out fine. I've put my First Reserve as my account to have the loans etc paid into. But I'm getting worried reading about people having money transferred to pay off debts, because while I can pay off the overdraft, I won't be able to do it with the FIRST lot of money I get. I don't want to be left without money for transport, books etc, because Natwest have transferred it to pay off my o/d!

How likely do you think that is? Am I worrying over nothing, or should I open a basic account somewhere else to use just for the first term til I get the o/d sorted?

cbassno3

I would get a seperate account maybe a basic account without the overdraft facility and pay off your overdraft bit by bit which will still allow you to concentrate on paying for all your uni gear. You would stay in complete control on paying your overdraft and general living expense.

Starrystarrynight

Part of my job when I worked for NatWest was moving money between peoples' own accounts to pay off overdrafts. Not sure if they still do that now but I'm pretty sure that Martin has advised not to have an account with the same bank so they can't do that.