My Dad sold his company, the deal is done! I’m now the owner of a bunch of shares that are worth a fair amount of money. The only problem is I’ve already spent it. It equates very closely to the amount of debt I have, almost to the penny.

At the moment I’m torn between clearing out my student loan or instead using the money to travel. The student loan is the cheapest loan I’m likely to get so it doesn’t make total sense to clear it. However, the amount of money I can gain by selling shares is limited by my liability to capital gains tax. I have an allowance of £7900 before I have to pay anything, but this covers my more pressing debts and leaves very little for travel. If I want to have a decent bit of travelling, I will have to either pay a bunch of tax or wait until April next year. Tax will be either 10 or 20%, I can’t quite work out which. In addition, I probably won’t have to declare the gain until this time next year, meaning I will be liable to pay the tax in 2005. God only knows what my financial situation will be then!