The Salary Calculator

Student Loan over-repayment

As you might have heard on the news or read in this article, £15 million has been overpaid this year by former students repaying their student loan – because the repayments have continued to be taken even after the full amount of the loan has been paid back.

The problem occurs because although the Student Loans Company (SLC) has informed your employer through HMRC that you should have student loan deducted from your payslip each month, the SLC doesn’t know how much is being repaid until the end of the tax year when your employer files its tax return. As you’ll see on the About page of The Salary Calculator, student loans are repaid at a fixed rate of 9% of anything you earn over £15,000 – no matter how large (or small) the balance of the loan. If you are close to repaying the total of your loan, deductions may continue for some time until the SLC realise that you have overpaid – and even then, they have to communicate to HMRC who then pass the “stop” message on to your employer.

There are things you can do to help prevent overpayment, however. The Student Loan Repayment Portal (which appears currently to be unavailable) will show the last known balance of your account, and allows you to enter information from your payslips to estimate how much is outstanding. If you are close to repaying the full amount, you can contact the SLC directly and pay off the remaining balance by debit card over the phone. When you do this you will need to make sure that the stop notice makes its way from the SLC through HMRC to your employer – if not, you will find the deductions continue to be taken even though you have repaid the loan. You may be able to get the SLC to fax confirmation of the stop directly to your employer, making sure it arrives in time for your next payslip – if you speak to the SLC about repaying your loan, you can ask them about this and discuss it with your employer.

Alternatively, you can arrange for your remaining balance to be taken by Direct Debit rather than by PAYE deduction – meaning that when the balance has been repaid in full, the debits stop automatically. Again, the SLC need to send a “stop” note to HMRC and your employer, but this happens before the amount is repaid and therefore if something goes wrong you are less likely to be trying to get a refund.

If you are repaying your student loan and you think this may apply to you, check out the Repayment Portal I linked to above and see how much is still outstanding on your loan. I repaid my loan earlier this year and I can tell you it is a good feeling!

Tags: debt, Loans, overpayment, Pay As You Earn, SLC, student loan company, student loans, The Salary Calculator

Mortgage availability continues to rise

Since the collapse of the housing market and plummetting property values filled the mortgage companies with fear of taking on the risks of buyers defaulting on the their home loan, the number of mortgages available to buyers also fell. But over the last year the trend in both house prices and mortgage availability has been promising.

More mortgages are now available with lower deposits (higher loan-to-value) than a few months ago, and some lenders are prepared to risk more with first time buyers. All of this is good news if you are looking to buy a house, and although prices have recently fallen slightly, the overall trend is still for prices to increase. Increased mortgage availability should help more buyers into the market, increasing demand and pushing prices up.

But a note of caution – with house prices returning to the value current occupants bought at, more and more owners will feel ready to sell up – more houses on the market increases supply and therefore lowers the price. Some analysts think that this effect will start to work harder against the increasing demand, slowing growth in house prices, but not actually pushing prices back down.

Tags: Economy, house prices, houses, Loans, Mortgages, recovery

Debt consolidation loans

I’m sure you will have seen adverts on TV and online for debt consolidation loans, which are meant to make it easier for you to handle debt. But could such a loan help you? Is it worthwhile? Fortunately The Salary Calculator can help you find out.

If you have multiple debts, like credit card balances, overdrafts, car loans or store cards, it can be difficult to keep track of them all and to make sure you make the right payment each month. Some of these debts may have high interest rates which mean it will take you even longer to pay them all off. A debt consolidation loan is designed to put all of those debts into one overall debt, with one interest rate, and one monthly payment. If the interest rate is low enough, your total monthly payment can be lower than it was when you were paying separately. How low does that interest rate have to be? The Debt Consolidation Calculator can help you work that out.

Enter the details of your outstanding debts, like the amount you owe and the interest rate you’re paying on each debt. Then choose how quickly you’d like to pay them all off, and click “Go!”. The calculator will work out what your total monthly payment would be if you were to pay them all off individually – and also the overall interest rate you’re paying. This means that if you can get a debt consolidation loan at a lower interest rate, it would save you money each month (please note this does not include any charges the loan company may apply).

There are other things to consider, so before finding and using a debt consolidation loan, talk to an expert advisor like those at thinkmoney. Their website has plenty of useful information like debt consolidation pros and cons, and the first consultation with them is free. With a bit of help, you could save yourself a lot of money!

Tags: credit cards, debt, debt consolidation, Loans

Time to make some changes

2010 beckons and the start of a new year is for many people the time to sort out their career or their finances. The Salary Calculator is here to help you if you want to make some changes to your financial situation.

It might be time to look for a new job – the Christmas break gives one time to consider career plans, and you might think that in January you’ll start looking for new employment, or talk to your employer about a promotion. Use The Salary Calculator when comparing salaries so you know how much extra it would make to you each month if you got that pay rise.

If you need some extra money each month, to save up for a holiday or a new car say, then use the Required Salary Calculator to work out what salary you need to look for to get that extra take-home. There’s hope that early in 2010 we’ll hear that the UK has finally left recession and things will start to pick up – including the job market.

If you’re not interested in a new job, you can consider sorting out your finances. Use the Mortgage Repayment Calculator to get an idea of the effects of remortgaging in 2010, or the Debt Consolidation Calculator to see what you could save by taking control of all of your loans. Why not try to get debt free in 2010?

Here’s to a great new year for everyone, I hope that The Salary Calculator will help you with your money in 2010!

Tags: 2010, careers, debt, Economy, job hunting, Jobs, Loans, Mortgages, Pay As You Earn, pension, recession, recovery, tax rates, The Salary Calculator

Tougher checks for borrowers

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) have today released mortgage reform proposals which are designed to regulate mortgage lenders and help prevent a repeat of the house price bubble that burst at the end of 2007. The approach they have set out is to prevent “reckless” lending to borrowers who can’t afford to repay the loan, which leads to foreclosures and repossessions and ultimately declines in the housing market.

The proposals seem to be designed to protect the borrower, by making it the responsibility of lenders and mortgage advisers to check that the mortgage is indeed affordable. There are proposals to prevent lenders charging the borrower for being in arrears, as long as the borrower is trying to reduce those arrears. However, as the BBC are reporting, there are fears that these measures would make it even harder for people to get a mortgage as lenders (who are already limiting the mortgage options available and the ease with which they can be taken) will insist of tough checks to make sure that the applicants really can afford the repayments.

Some commentators think that this might hurt the housing market, which currently needs all the help it can get, because it will mean fewer people buying houses. However, we should bear in mind that at this stage they are only proposals by the FSA, they may be modified or relaxed before they are introduced, and they are unlikely to take effect for 12 months or more. We may find, therefore, that a number of borrowers will try to take mortgages out before the new rules come in and lenders may be tempted to take advantage of this crowd by offering more and better deals. It’s not all bad news for those looking for a new mortgage, and we may see that this helps (in the short term) both house prices and the mortgage market. Long term, the reason behind the proposals is to make house prices and the market in general more stable, instead of the boom and bust that we have seen in recent years. This will mean house prices are unlikely to increase at the rate they did in the mid-2000s, but should manage a steady climb that is more reassuring for borrowers and lenders alike.

Tags: banks, Economy, house prices, houses, Loans, Mortgages, recovery