Nice problem to have. Check to see which will have the higher interest rate after your “grace” periods expire. Sometimes interest free overdrafts have other fees and can be like a cash advance. I would be careful with that one. Good luck to you!

Yep, I agree with rbaustin3d… check out interest rates and all other fees associated and choose the one with higher fees/rates.

It depends on your situation, but student loans usually have a low interest rate or low payment plan.

Keep going!!!!

So let me see if I’ve got this figured out: if you wait too long to pay off your student loan, the grace period will expire and you’ll have to pay extra interest. But if you don’t pay down your overdraft before they lower the limit, you get hit for at least $600 all at once (plus fees, i’m assuming), and probably your credit rating will take a hit as well. Is that right?

You don’t say how much you can put toward paying down your debt each month. Is it possible for you to pay off both debts within a year? Or if not, are you able to do another interest-free overdraft once this one is paid off? If so, I would definitely pay off the overdraft first, and then start making payments on the student loan. That way, if you need to, you can do a new overdraft to cover whatever you still have left to pay on the student loan at the time the grace period is expiring.

Some things to keep in mind: first of all, you should be aware that in the eyes of a loan officer looking at your credit report, all your debts are NOT created equal. Being a little late on paying off your student loans, your credit card or even your car payment is not as big a deal as you’d think, especially if your report shows that you always caught up within a month or two, and eventually paid off the debt without defaulting. However, unpaid “loans” related to your banking accounts can really hurt you, depending on how it is reported to the credit bureaus. Even if you have never bounced a check, a deposit account which is “overdrawn” for more than 30 days will often send up a red flag to the loan officer. If you don’t know, you should get a copy of your credit report and check up on how your overdraft is being reported—whether as a conventional loan, or as a negative balance, and whether it is showing as a “delinquency” or not.

One other thing to keep in mind: If your student loan is a “Direct Loan” from the US gov’t, fear not! for you can pretty much always call them up and get them to lower your monthly payment, or even extend you a forbearance for a few months, though interest will still accrue. It’s only if you got your loan through a private lender that you need to WATCH OUT. You really want to avoid getting behind on your payments with the private loan companies, because at that point they can and will sell your debt to a collection firm, who will then jack up the fees and interest as much as they can, and attempt to get a judgement against you for the entire amount.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck to you. It’s going to feel so-o-oo good when you’re finally debt free. You can do it!

I followed the Dave Ramsey method to pay off debt. He says pay the one off with the lowest balance first.

I agree with rgremill. Dave Ramsey’s method of the debt snowball, paid off smallest to largest, really worked for us.

It depends on how much you have available to pay off the debts. I’d go with rgremill and KalykoKatt and follow Dave Ramsey’s method – pay off the smallest debt first.

I used this method and it worked really well for me.

dave ramsey all the way! It’ll help you keep motivated : )

We used the snowball effect and it works awesome for us. We are now on our second last debt. It’s easy to follow this method & the motivational effect really “pays” off!! :) Bless!