Dilemmaemma

I've been accepted to university next year for a one-year postgraduate teaching degree. My LEA have calculated my student finance.

Next year Haringey council are giving me:
£3000 fee loan
£2765 grant
£5485 maintenance loan

My uni are giving me:
£9000 bursary

Wipe out the fee loan, and I'm left with £17250 (how much I'm being paid to work as a teacher at College now...). Tax free.

Divide that by the ten months I'll be training for and it's £1725 take home every month.

That's obviously ample to live off, so here is my dilemma, what to do with the excess cash?

Option 1
Live off the grant and bursary (£1176 pmth) and use the loan to pay off my two highest interest debts (credit cards). I currently live off £1050 per month, so that's more than I'm getting at the moment.

Option 2
Live off the grant and bursary (1176 pmth), take out a savings account and invest the student loan. Student loans are charged at lower interest than your average savings account, so no money would be lost.

Option 3
Live off all three (£1725 pmth) and increase my payment to Payplan (debt management charity who are helping me sort out my debts) to a whopping amount per month.

FYI - Student loans are only paid back when you are in employment and earning over £15,000 a year. If you do not earn that you do not have to pay them back. Repayments are linked to your earnings, whether you owe £1000 or £20,000 you make the same monthly repayments. If you have not paid them off in 25 years they are written off.

Which option is best guys? Which would you do? (I have one in mind but I want to see if you lot agree with me first!) Email me or leave a message on my myspack.

Ta'.