Hopefully debt free before Mortgage renewal in June 2026

Spendless

Tezzadp said:

Spendless said:

Hi- Your diary caught my eye this morning so I read all the way through. You're doing really well.

Feel free to not want to wish to explain as it may be a very personal issue, but I notice you are paying child maintenance though your daughter is 21. Just wondering if this has also got a stop date for you paying which will help towards your  other debts/bills.

Thank you.

Thats well spotted, my CSA payment for my daughter have already stopped, helping me save money already each month. But i also have a younger son (by another partner), which unfortunately i dont see anymore, he will be 17 later this year and is in his last year of school. Ive been wondering about this payment for a while, im not sure when i will be able to stop making this payment. it used to be after they turn 16 but i think it has changed now to upto 20 years old IF they continue in full time education. But can stop IF they are no longer in education after their 16th birthday. but as i pay this direct to his mums bank account via direct debit, i wont know when to stop this payment as i wont know when/if he is in education or not as i dont have any contact at all. So i may have to pay this until he is 20 as i dont want to stop paying it early and have a bill of back dated payments to pay come thru my door at some point. 

Thanks for explaining for what might be a sensitive topic and I hope given time that you are able to reconcile. My understanding of CM is it's less to do with when a birthday falls  and more to do with the end of an educational year and when child benefit stops being paid to the resident parent.

From your info I think your son is currently 16 and will sit his GCSE's next term. After that if they find an apprenticeship I'm not entirely sure what happens. If your son is going onto further education (college/sixth form) then Mum still receives child benefit and you still need to pay maintenance. A levels or equiv are usually 2 years long, but child can take an additional 3rd  year and some do because they need to repeat a year, get additional qualifications or change their mind after their first year to a different course. I've known several kids take the 3rd year of FE (it was even offered to me as a route I could take back in the day so has existed for a long time). I've linked the Government website about it below but I've no idea how you find out if you are still required to pay or who lets you know if there's no contact. 

https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service/when-child-maintenance-stops

Maths not being my strongest point - I'm unfortunately unable to help you with your query on the loan but fingers crossed someone else will be along shortly to give some help. 

MFWannabe

Tezzadp said:

Ive been thinking today about when my 0% rates come to an end on my Credit Cards in August/September time and found that NatWest offer 0% balance transfers for upto 12 months with a 0% transfer fee also. Im already a Natwest bank account user and according to my natwest app, im "highly likely" to be accepted for this card, which could be very useful to me in the coming months to transfer my CCs to and save money on the transfer fee. 

But i have a few questions about this.

As the above Natwest CC is only a "balance transfer" card and not a money transfer card, could i use my current credit card (Tesco or Virgin) to pay my Hastings loan off and then transfer the balance to the Nat west card? thus saving me interest that i pay on my Hastings loan (12.7%) and also with no transfer fee to pay and giving me 12 months (or min 10 months - if not approved for the full 12 months) to pay the balance of the hastings loan and credit card combined before any interest will accrue. 

Also, on my Hastings loan management website, i can repay payments towards my loan anytime (which i do daily) but it says if i want to repay the loan in full i have to get a settlement figure and pay interest accrued during the settlement period. As you can see from the picture below, when i got my settlement figure on 16th March, to see how much extra i would have to pay, the extra interest in full was around another £80.

I dont have extra interest to pay when i make a partial payment towards the loan, so my question here is, if i wanted to pay it in full, to avoid paying this interest that gets added with a full settlement quote, do you think i could pay all but £1 of my outstanding balance, which would simply bring the next monthly and final payment to £1 and i wouldnt have any extra interest to pay? would that work if you know what i mean? 

If both of these are possible then i think i could be tempted to get them done and save on the interest payments. 

Let me know what you all think and i will have a think about it and see what im going to do. 

So you accrue approx £29 per month interest 
Calculate how
much that would cost you over the length of the remaining term I.e 12 months left x £29= £348
if you settle early it will cost you £58.37 so a lot less 

Spendless

Something to consider is if the CC provider will allow you to BT the whole balance.
We werent able to BT the whole lot into a 0 % CC when we were on our debt free journey. 

Tezzadp

No money spent today
No direct debits today

Debt payments

Virgin CC weekly payment £37.00 (I add an additional £1 every week to this payment until the debt is paid) Outstanding balance is now £752.00

Hastings loan daily payment : £1.97 (Total paid so far this month* £9.75  - leaving a final payment of £86.64 in APRIL 2027    (25 monthly payments) = Balance outstanding now £1957.73

*This month refers to 31st March to 29th April (the day before pay day)

Tezzadp

..............

Tezzadp

Spendless said:

Tezzadp said:

Spendless said:

Hi- Your diary caught my eye this morning so I read all the way through. You're doing really well.

Feel free to not want to wish to explain as it may be a very personal issue, but I notice you are paying child maintenance though your daughter is 21. Just wondering if this has also got a stop date for you paying which will help towards your  other debts/bills.

Thank you.

Thats well spotted, my CSA payment for my daughter have already stopped, helping me save money already each month. But i also have a younger son (by another partner), which unfortunately i dont see anymore, he will be 17 later this year and is in his last year of school. Ive been wondering about this payment for a while, im not sure when i will be able to stop making this payment. it used to be after they turn 16 but i think it has changed now to upto 20 years old IF they continue in full time education. But can stop IF they are no longer in education after their 16th birthday. but as i pay this direct to his mums bank account via direct debit, i wont know when to stop this payment as i wont know when/if he is in education or not as i dont have any contact at all. So i may have to pay this until he is 20 as i dont want to stop paying it early and have a bill of back dated payments to pay come thru my door at some point. 

Thanks for explaining for what might be a sensitive topic and I hope given time that you are able to reconcile. My understanding of CM is it's less to do with when a birthday falls  and more to do with the end of an educational year and when child benefit stops being paid to the resident parent.

From your info I think your son is currently 16 and will sit his GCSE's next term. After that if they find an apprenticeship I'm not entirely sure what happens. If your son is going onto further education (college/sixth form) then Mum still receives child benefit and you still need to pay maintenance. A levels or equiv are usually 2 years long, but child can take an additional 3rd  year and some do because they need to repeat a year, get additional qualifications or change their mind after their first year to a different course. I've known several kids take the 3rd year of FE (it was even offered to me as a route I could take back in the day so has existed for a long time). I've linked the Government website about it below but I've no idea how you find out if you are still required to pay or who lets you know if there's no contact. 

https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service/when-child-maintenance-stops

Maths not being my strongest point - I'm unfortunately unable to help you with your query on the loan but fingers crossed someone else will be along shortly to give some help. 

Thank you. i hope so at some point in the future things might change and i can see him and things work out. I dont think my son will go on to higher education, but i think they either have to do further education or a training scheme/apprenticeship until they are at least 18. But if they do an apprenticeship the payments should stop when they start this course. 

I think because i dont/wont know what or if he will be doing further education or not then i will pay it until he is at least 18 and then see where i go from there.  Thanks for your help with your link, i was looking at that when i replied to you last time, it is a little vague and unclear. I may contact the CMS after he has turned 18 and see where i stand at the time. 

Thanks for all your help   

Tezzadp

MFWannabe said:

Tezzadp said:

Ive been thinking today about when my 0% rates come to an end on my Credit Cards in August/September time and found that NatWest offer 0% balance transfers for upto 12 months with a 0% transfer fee also. Im already a Natwest bank account user and according to my natwest app, im "highly likely" to be accepted for this card, which could be very useful to me in the coming months to transfer my CCs to and save money on the transfer fee. 

But i have a few questions about this.

As the above Natwest CC is only a "balance transfer" card and not a money transfer card, could i use my current credit card (Tesco or Virgin) to pay my Hastings loan off and then transfer the balance to the Nat west card? thus saving me interest that i pay on my Hastings loan (12.7%) and also with no transfer fee to pay and giving me 12 months (or min 10 months - if not approved for the full 12 months) to pay the balance of the hastings loan and credit card combined before any interest will accrue. 

Also, on my Hastings loan management website, i can repay payments towards my loan anytime (which i do daily) but it says if i want to repay the loan in full i have to get a settlement figure and pay interest accrued during the settlement period. As you can see from the picture below, when i got my settlement figure on 16th March, to see how much extra i would have to pay, the extra interest in full was around another £80.

I dont have extra interest to pay when i make a partial payment towards the loan, so my question here is, if i wanted to pay it in full, to avoid paying this interest that gets added with a full settlement quote, do you think i could pay all but £1 of my outstanding balance, which would simply bring the next monthly and final payment to £1 and i wouldnt have any extra interest to pay? would that work if you know what i mean? 

If both of these are possible then i think i could be tempted to get them done and save on the interest payments. 

Let me know what you all think and i will have a think about it and see what im going to do. 

So you accrue approx £29 per month interest 
Calculate how
much that would cost you over the length of the remaining term I.e 12 months left x £29= £348
if you settle early it will cost you £58.37 so a lot less 

The amount of interest i have to pay decreases each month, and is now less than £20 a month, as shown in the pic below. I did a calculation not that long ago, that if i transferred my outstanding balance to a 0% CC with a 3% transfer fee and i calculated that i was due to have it all paid by Sept this year. I would actually pay more in fees and interest by transferring it than i would by paying the loan off. 

I think im likely to get the whole balance paid off by Sept this year (around 6 months) meaning around £100 in interest, but if i paid it off early i would have to pay the settlement figure in the pic above of £2316.05 which is £76.68 more than the actual balance owed, PLUS i'd have to pay the 4% transfer fee i was quoted at the time +£92.64  giving a total of £2408.69. Meaning it would cost me more to pay it off early by transferring with a 4% fee than it would just to pay it off within 6 months...........but my questions were : 

- Can i pay this off with a credit card? if so i can pay this loan off with my Virgin or Tesco CC and then more then likely get a 0% balance transfer CC with 0% fees and transfer the balance of the virgin/tesco card to the new 0% CC and pay no interest on it and no fees for 12 months (but hopefully have it all paid off in 6 months anyway).

- Also to avoid any extra early settlement fees or interest could i simply pay all but £1 of the outstanding balance as i am allowed to make partial payments towards this loan with no extra interest or fees added. Then the following month i would simply be left with a £1 balance left to pay. Then i could just pay it off like that with no extra interest added by requesting an early settlement and having extra interest added to the outstanding total.

hope all that makes sense? 

Tezzadp

Spendless said:

Something to consider is if the CC provider will allow you to BT the whole balance.
We werent able to BT the whole lot into a 0 % CC when we were on our debt free journey. 

Thanks for your comment. I think most CC companies will let you pay (BT) the whole balance off your credit card. Where they sometimes restrict you is that they sometimes say you cant use the whole of your available credit limit on your CC for a balance transfer, they restrict you to say 95% of your limit for Balance Transfers thats all.

MFWannabe

Tezzadp said:

MFWannabe said:

Tezzadp said:

Ive been thinking today about when my 0% rates come to an end on my Credit Cards in August/September time and found that NatWest offer 0% balance transfers for upto 12 months with a 0% transfer fee also. Im already a Natwest bank account user and according to my natwest app, im "highly likely" to be accepted for this card, which could be very useful to me in the coming months to transfer my CCs to and save money on the transfer fee. 

But i have a few questions about this.

As the above Natwest CC is only a "balance transfer" card and not a money transfer card, could i use my current credit card (Tesco or Virgin) to pay my Hastings loan off and then transfer the balance to the Nat west card? thus saving me interest that i pay on my Hastings loan (12.7%) and also with no transfer fee to pay and giving me 12 months (or min 10 months - if not approved for the full 12 months) to pay the balance of the hastings loan and credit card combined before any interest will accrue. 

Also, on my Hastings loan management website, i can repay payments towards my loan anytime (which i do daily) but it says if i want to repay the loan in full i have to get a settlement figure and pay interest accrued during the settlement period. As you can see from the picture below, when i got my settlement figure on 16th March, to see how much extra i would have to pay, the extra interest in full was around another £80.

I dont have extra interest to pay when i make a partial payment towards the loan, so my question here is, if i wanted to pay it in full, to avoid paying this interest that gets added with a full settlement quote, do you think i could pay all but £1 of my outstanding balance, which would simply bring the next monthly and final payment to £1 and i wouldnt have any extra interest to pay? would that work if you know what i mean? 

If both of these are possible then i think i could be tempted to get them done and save on the interest payments. 

Let me know what you all think and i will have a think about it and see what im going to do. 

So you accrue approx £29 per month interest 
Calculate how
much that would cost you over the length of the remaining term I.e 12 months left x £29= £348
if you settle early it will cost you £58.37 so a lot less 

The amount of interest i have to pay decreases each month, and is now less than £20 a month, as shown in the pic below. I did a calculation not that long ago, that if i transferred my outstanding balance to a 0% CC with a 3% transfer fee and i calculated that i was due to have it all paid by Sept this year. I would actually pay more in fees and interest by transferring it than i would by paying the loan off. 

I think im likely to get the whole balance paid off by Sept this year (around 6 months) meaning around £100 in interest, but if i paid it off early i would have to pay the settlement figure in the pic above of £2316.05 which is £76.68 more than the actual balance owed, PLUS i'd have to pay the 4% transfer fee i was quoted at the time +£92.64  giving a total of £2408.69. Meaning it would cost me more to pay it off early by transferring with a 4% fee than it would just to pay it off within 6 months...........but my questions were : 

- Can i pay this off with a credit card? if so i can pay this loan off with my Virgin or Tesco CC and then more then likely get a 0% balance transfer CC with 0% fees and transfer the balance of the virgin/tesco card to the new 0% CC and pay no interest on it and no fees for 12 months (but hopefully have it all paid off in 6 months anyway).

- Also to avoid any extra early settlement fees or interest could i simply pay all but £1 of the outstanding balance as i am allowed to make partial payments towards this loan with no extra interest or fees added. Then the following month i would simply be left with a £1 balance left to pay. Then i could just pay it off like that with no extra interest added by requesting an early settlement and having extra interest added to the outstanding total.

hope all that makes sense? 

You cannot pay a loan off with a credit card, it would need to be money transfer credit card, fees are normally higher for this 
If you plan to pay the loan off b6 September this year I would leave it and continue overpaying to achieve this 

Tezzadp

It seems other people have been able to pay a hastings loan with a simple CC payment. I could get a money transfer CC but that would come with a 3.5% fee which wouldnt be worth it in my case, id be better off just paying the loan off before the end of Sept. 

I may try a daily payment with one of my CCs at some point over the weekend to test out if the payment goes thru or not, if it does then im in luck and will apply for the 0% CC and pay it all off and then transfer it over to the new 0% card.