what's the best thing to do for my girlfriend?

tucbiscuit

My girlfriend has an old student account with roughly a £1,450 overdraft in it, while she was a student it was interest free, but now it is 19.9%apr, finances are fairly tight for her so she can't pay it off in 2 or 3 big chunks, but at the moment she is making small contributions every month yet every month as the interest get added on these contributions are pretty much wiped out.
Things I have though of; 1. asking the bank to freeze the interest (but does this affect your credit? like if we were to go for a mortgage would this count against us?)
2. opening another account elsewhere with a 0% overdraft, paying one off with the other then paying that off.
3. getting a credit card with 0% on new purchases or balances and paying it off with that then paying that off carefully and methodically



any advice much appreciated, thanks

bobbadog

Hello someone more knowledgable will be along in a moment i'm sure - I had the same problem with Natwest - I had a £2100 overdraft (£100 of which was purely charges) that i couldn't clear quick enough. They let me pay it back at £60 a month and froze the interest. No reason why that'd affect your girlie's credit history x

justruth

I would suggest either of those options, if you go for one of the new accounts you often get a 0% overdraft for a year, and it doesn't have the fees like with a credit card, however it might not be enough to cover it, but if you say you're interested in a credit card when you apply for the new account they will just use theone credit search.

I like the alliance and leicester but that's entirely up to you and your girlfriend.

lynzpower

she could try and get a 0% super balance transfer card ( mbna/ virgin or barclaycard - there maybe more) they take overdrafts and loans

tucbiscuit

right, thanks to all, she is not so good with money (not terrible, but has a tendancy to ignore it), I am tempted to use my savings just to pay it off, then allow her to pay me back slowly, but that would set my investments back

ktb

I had exactly the same problem tucbiscuit so I applied for an Egg card and did a balance transfer from my overdraft at 0%. I then set up a DD to pay it off so I didnt have to worry about it. When the 0% ended I just applied for a card with a longer 0% balance transfer and moved the DD over to that.. Even if she is bad with money its not as complicated as it sounds. Bailing someone who is bad with money out ususally isnt the best way to help them in my opinion.