Interest on student overdraft

dorrian22

Hi All,

I hope everyone is well.

My partner has a student account with NatWest containing an overdraft of £1750 which is all used (around 98%). She pays off £60 per month and is hit with the interest fees of £46~ each month, so making slow progress at £14 per month. My questions is whether we can use the history of her paying £60 per month for 19 months as reason to ring NatWest and ask them to pause the interest as they can see a pattern of payments? It is not putting her into extreme financial difficulty but is causing a bit of a squeeze having this extra, very slow, debt each payday.

We don't believe a 0% credit-card is possible due to NatWest not accepting a credit card as a payment method, and due to little credit in the past, it is unlikely she will get a loan that is of reasonable value here.

We are aware she should have tackled this a few years ago and also should have been paying more off previously, but those opportunities have gone. Therefore, we were just after a bit of support and advice for our options from this point onward.

Many thanks in advance!

RAS

Has she actually checked if she can get a very low or 0% credit card, for a year or more? 

May not be able to do a balance transfer but a couple of months spending on the credit card could transfer the whole sum across? Although if she'd only be paying £60 per month, she wouldn't clear it all before the rate reverted. So the reversion rate would be important.

Alternatively, does she have anything to sell? £200 would start making a dent in the OD. Combine with one very strict month, keeping spends to an absolute minimum. Look at store cupboard challenges for example.

Mark_d

Are you saying your partner's income is only £60 per month?

dorrian22

RAS said:

Has she actually checked if she can get a very low or 0% credit card, for a year or more? 

May not be able to do a balance transfer but a couple of months spending on the credit card could transfer the whole sum across? Although if she'd only be paying £60 per month, she wouldn't clear it all before the rate reverted. So the reversion rate would be important.

Alternatively, does she have anything to sell? £200 would start making a dent in the OD. Combine with one very strict month, keeping spends to an absolute minimum. Look at store cupboard challenges for example.

RAS - We've not checked, but not sure how that'd help as NatWest wouldn't allow us to pay off the debt using a credit card as its sat within a current account - not sure if I'm missing something obvious? (not being sarcastic, genuinely asking).

Mark_d said:

Are you saying your partner's income is only £60 per month?

Mark_d - no its not just £60, but what she can continuously allocate to this debt is £60 per month. We have other ongoing costs that we feel are more important to allocate more towards and have done to this point.

Emmia

dorrian22 said:

RAS said:

Has she actually checked if she can get a very low or 0% credit card, for a year or more? 

May not be able to do a balance transfer but a couple of months spending on the credit card could transfer the whole sum across? Although if she'd only be paying £60 per month, she wouldn't clear it all before the rate reverted. So the reversion rate would be important.

Alternatively, does she have anything to sell? £200 would start making a dent in the OD. Combine with one very strict month, keeping spends to an absolute minimum. Look at store cupboard challenges for example.

RAS - We've not checked, but not sure how that'd help as NatWest wouldn't allow us to pay off the debt using a credit card as its sat within a current account - not sure if I'm missing something obvious? (not being sarcastic, genuinely asking).

Mark_d said:

Are you saying your partner's income is only £60 per month?

Mark_d - no its not just £60, but what she can continuously allocate to this debt is £60 per month. We have other ongoing costs that we feel are more important to allocate more towards and have done to this point.

(Depending on those other costs) because most of her payments are going on interest I would probably look at how you can get rid of this debt more quickly, selling things, additional work e.g. a part time job or more hours, reduced spending generally...