Catching up on catching up

[fragiletender]

Since the show went up I've been doing lots of resting and catching up with household and family stuff (my goodness, the state of the downstairs loo - sheesh

Comments

[aldabra]

I *think* that if you're below the repayment threshold you do better putting the money in a savings account, because the ineterst it earns is higher than the interest the loan is accruing. Then if and when you hit £15K income you put the savings into the student loan, and you end up with less loan than if you'd been paying it off as you go. But I Am Not An Accountant.

[fragiletender]

Yep, that was my pretty much my reasoning, although I was thinking I'd pay off annual chunks but your way might be better.

I'm actually planning to start putting money into my savings account from next month. I can't afford anything other than very small amounts right now and I know that all the books suggest you pay off debts before you start saving but I feel that I need to get into the habit of putting a little bit into a savings account every month, even if it's only £10. Apart from anything else it will help me budget for things like Christmas so that I don't have to use my credit card like I did this year. It's all about working out my financial patterns and how I actually operate around money.

[avad]

thanks for sharing all this. I'm looking into that booklink you gave.*hug*good luck kiddo

[fragiletender]

Thanks, the book is really very good and quite environmental/socially responsible too, which a lot of money books aren't.

[lucybond]

I covet your Jasmine cardigan, but I'm rather glad I was never a student. My debt is less than £7000.

[fragiletender]

Yeah, taking out the student loan is something I shouldn't have done in retrospect. If I'd managed my money better at the time, I wouldn't have needed to but hey, we're all wise after the event.

money

[la_pasionaira]

i m terrible with money ,have two students loans , overdraft etc etc
will look into book ,
good news is that after ten years of deffering student debt, they actually give up on you....as they consider you a failure. ha

i have been forgiven twice , 2 visa cards gave up on me and stopped writing to me so i gathered that they have written me off ......how many times can you take somebody to court?

[radiosilents]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about money. I am HORRIBLE with money, but made some progress in paying off debt for a couple years doing a credit counseling thing... but dropped out and now... um, I don't know. And I also tend to not include my student loan debts either because it is considered "good" debt. Alas.

I have heard good things about that book and I think now that I will actually go and get it from the library and see what they have to say.

Good luck to you! Isn't being grown-up weird? ;)

[fragiletender]

It took me a long time to get to it and at the age of 38 I'm still not completely confident about my ability to cope with money. But in a year I've gone from never knowing where my money went and being in a slow spiral of debt to knowing where almost every penny goes, working my way out of debt and slowly getting more competent at it all. The first step I took was just buying a little notebook and writing down every single penny I spent. I still do that and find it completely invaluable. You don't have to judge yourself about what you're spending either, just write it down. I found that I naturally started to spend less.