Secured loan, worth paying off half early?

sazziecee

Hi!

I recently took out a secured loan of £17000 to buy a new car. I was going to go for car finance but to keep payments low I went for a secured loan with the facility to overpay so that when I was having a more "flush" month I could overpay, rather than being tied to a fixed monthly car finance payment.


But.... I then changed jobs for personal reasons and have taken a £400 a month pay decrease. So I didn't get the car in the end as it would mean I was leaving myself only just managing but with no cash for emergencies etc. The funds for the secured loan had already been released so I paid off a £4000 credit card bill (as virgin wrote to me and told me my APR was going up to 29%!!) and paid a £6000 unsecured loan off as the payments on it were almost the same as my secured loan and it was hard to afford both.

So with the remainder of my loan plus some money I had in my savings account I have £11000 in my savings account. I am unsure whether to just pay it off my secured loan or just keep saving it?

I don't want to have to keep paying it over the full term (is over 19 years) and that was never my intention, but I also never expected to change jobs so soon after taking it out. I may get a better paid job in a year or so (currently studying to retrain) but still can't decide what to do.

I think it was a bad decision to take a secured loan, but it made sense to me at the time as it let me borrow the full amount over a longer period.

Will I end up paying off more than I borrowed if I pay off so early? as they are losing out on loads of interest so they will whack me with a load of charges?

Thanks

Sarah