Hi guys, I am a 32 year old who recently moved from Northern Ireland to the Republic.
I have outstanding student loan debts from my studies at Ulster University when I lived in the North. This requires a monthly repayment of £77 and the debt (currently around £18,000) doesn't get written off for 25 years, so I will have these monthly repayments for another 17 years until April 2038 when I will be approaching 50 years of age.
I looked into the idea of potentially paying it off early, but it would use up about two thirds of my current savings (approx €30,000) and general financial advice seems to be that those savings would be better spent elsewhere since my student loans is such low interest rate of 1.1%
I am in the process of buying a car, but since I have no credit history here in the South I am likely to have to buy a car outright with cash which will likely cost me in the region of €10,000 for a decent reliable car. I am currently living temporarily with my girlfriends parents but will soon be looking at buying a house here in the South so will have mortgage to consider and a deposit to keep saving for.
If I paid these £77 monthly repayments to the SLC (Student Loans Company) through my KBC current account, they will incur a non-euro transaction fee each time. These aren't big fees but I will have these repayments on a monthly basis for another 17 years (or 204 months) so these costs can add up over time.
I still have a UK current account in the North, so perhaps the best course of action is to pay these repayments from it instead? This would enable me to avoid any non-euro transaction fees, but would require me to use something like Wise (formerly TransferWise) to transfer money from my ROI current account to my NI current account and there is an additional admin fee every time I'd need to do this too. So perhaps additional fees are unavoidable? Perhaps my best bet is to transfer a lump sum once per year to cover me for 12 months of student loan repayments, that way I am only charged an admin fee by Wise once per year instead of doing a transfer each month.
But, I am am also wondering if it would be worth putting up with non-euro transactions fees and paying the student loan back from my Irish bank account in order to help build up a credit history for myself down here rather than kind of hiding these debt repayments in a NI bank account?
I would be interested in getting some opinions and advice on this please.
I have outstanding student loan debts from my studies at Ulster University when I lived in the North. This requires a monthly repayment of £77 and the debt (currently around £18,000) doesn't get written off for 25 years, so I will have these monthly repayments for another 17 years until April 2038 when I will be approaching 50 years of age.
I looked into the idea of potentially paying it off early, but it would use up about two thirds of my current savings (approx €30,000) and general financial advice seems to be that those savings would be better spent elsewhere since my student loans is such low interest rate of 1.1%
I am in the process of buying a car, but since I have no credit history here in the South I am likely to have to buy a car outright with cash which will likely cost me in the region of €10,000 for a decent reliable car. I am currently living temporarily with my girlfriends parents but will soon be looking at buying a house here in the South so will have mortgage to consider and a deposit to keep saving for.
If I paid these £77 monthly repayments to the SLC (Student Loans Company) through my KBC current account, they will incur a non-euro transaction fee each time. These aren't big fees but I will have these repayments on a monthly basis for another 17 years (or 204 months) so these costs can add up over time.
I still have a UK current account in the North, so perhaps the best course of action is to pay these repayments from it instead? This would enable me to avoid any non-euro transaction fees, but would require me to use something like Wise (formerly TransferWise) to transfer money from my ROI current account to my NI current account and there is an additional admin fee every time I'd need to do this too. So perhaps additional fees are unavoidable? Perhaps my best bet is to transfer a lump sum once per year to cover me for 12 months of student loan repayments, that way I am only charged an admin fee by Wise once per year instead of doing a transfer each month.
But, I am am also wondering if it would be worth putting up with non-euro transactions fees and paying the student loan back from my Irish bank account in order to help build up a credit history for myself down here rather than kind of hiding these debt repayments in a NI bank account?
I would be interested in getting some opinions and advice on this please.