3 Months in

[Gazsun]

Hi All
My wife and I have now been in our joint IVA for 3 months and I just thought I would share my (our) thoughts on where we are now.
A little background, we are both on our 2nd marriage with 5 kids between us ranging from 28 all the way down to 10 so run the full spectrum of problems and joys of having children.
Run up a huge bill for the wedding but had a plan to pay it back. Along comes the recession and bang all our choices are gone and we start the robbing Peter to pay Paul syndrome that many of us know all about on this forum .
Decided on the IVA route in late spring after working my way through this website (a God sent) and using Melanie and her team who we are very happy with.
We then knuckled down and sorted the paperwork out for our proposal. What a shock that was, it really hit home how much in denial we were!
At this time my wife started having reservations about could we actually do this, how would we cope and still have a life?
I showed her this site and all the positive comments people have put on here on how they survive in an IVA.
We had our creditors meeting in September but just before this we both had a real crisis of confidence and nearly decided to jack it all in and go for Bankruptcy! We both had a very long chat with Melanie who went back over everything with us and we decided to stay on the IVA route. Just as a side issue Melanie could have quite easily tried to keep us in an IVA as she will make her money from it but she didn’t! I work in sales and would like to think I would see that coming. Melanie basically said that in the end if you don’t think you can do this then don’t and become BR. I personally felt much better and more confident.
Our proposal was accepted after a bit of haggling and I was over the moon! My wife though was totally the opposite, she told me she could not ever see us making it through the next 5 years, what about Christmas, birthdays everything! My reply was if we fail we fail and go BR but at least we tried.
For the next 3-4 weeks lots of arguments due to all I could feel was relief that we had actually done something and there was a light at the end of the tunnel while my wife was very down, much more so than in the Summer.
Not sure if that is a man/woman thing or was just us? Would like to hear your stories.
Cut to beginning of October we are really struggling to budget I get paid 2 weeks before my wife and we just couldn’t get our heads round how much money to have in our account at certain times of the month.
We finally sat down and my wife did an excel sheet which we refined over the next couple of days. At the end of it was how much money we had left at any given day.
We kept every receipt and once a week my wife will go over everything and balance the books.
Suddenly we see we can do it! It has changed my wife’s attitude to our IVA completely. The shopping budget has settled down and we actually have some (small) savings at the end of each month.
It feels like a 2nd honeymoon the relief is tangible and our friends have commentated on our happy we are. The kids know this Christmas is tight this year (without knowing why) but actually know one seems to care, as the house has a real buzz about it.

Sorry I have gone on for far too long, just wanted to put our story out there as I’m sure there are plenty of couples going through the same thing?

[Gazsun]

Oops just realised I have put it in new questions!
Can I move it or is that something admin has to do?
Thanks
Gazsun

[:)] moved to 'success stories'
Admin

[karen]

Hello,
being in an IVA is like a rollercoaster ride, you feel terror and fear, exhiliration and apprehension. Now that you are a few months in you see you can do this, of course there will be challenging times christmas being a major difficulty for some people.There is no doubt that your lives have to be different none of us could have continued the way we were but for me the relief of someone taking control was a godsend. I would suggest you try and share your difficulties with your grown up children it makes things much easier.
Do you have the opporutnity to work any extra hours certainly earning overtime makes it a lot easier as you can keep 50%. I wish you luck in your IVA and I hope that you can stay strong and focused for each other the forum is always here to help you through any difficulties.
Karen x

[Pandy]

Hi Gazsun,
What a nice post I am pleased you and your wife can see a way through, I am not sure it is a man / woman thing as it was the opposite for my hubby and me, I was confident he was the pessimist although we both feel now, it was the best thing we have done our only problem is that 5 years seems such a long time, I am hoping once we have year one under our belt it will feel better. Keep posting to let us know how you are getting on

[orange]

we seam to worry at different times we both get down about once a month(pay day) and then it goes.its not easy on the iva but if you stick to your budget and go without(which is hard) it ok .

[Imhotep]

Excellent post! Really looking forward to handing over our first payment.

Out of curiosity, what haggling was encountered to get your proposal accepted?

[TomThumb]

This sounds so typical of our story, sticking to the budget was and still is a huge challenge, we find that taking the alloted cash out weekly is the best way rather than using debit cards. 5 years still seems an awful long way away for us (our IVA term was extended to 69 months)

[Hammie1]

Hi Gazsun

Our situation was very similar to yours. We have two children 10 and 7. I decided to tell our eldest son about the IVA as he was always asking what I was doing on this site. He know understands that Christmas will be tight, but we will make it the best ever!! It's the best step, I believe, so far that we have made. Things are quite tight some months, but we have taught ourselves to spread the money out in a different way. I also keep the receipts, like your wife, and constantly looking on the internet banking to check balances. We had to close of bank account that we held with Natwest as they were one off our creditors, but for anyone reading this post, and many others, will recommend the co-op cashminder they have been brilliant. I also find that doing online shopping is easiest. I know that it is difficult for a family of 4 but our allowance is only £380.00 a month which I think is not enought, so what I do is a huge shop online and then just bread etc.., from the local shop.

Good luck to you both.
Sam

[kallis3]

Gazgun - why don't you start a blog? People love reading them and you stand a chance of winning vouchers.

It's quite therapeutic as well. Threads disappear - a blog remains.

[MelanieGiles]

I remember dealing with your case Gazsun, and it is great to see that you are both settling into your stride. Clients always tell me that the first year is the worst, so when you get through the first lot of Xmas, birthdays and summer holidays, I hope that you will begin to see that the light at the end of the tunnel gets a little brighter at the end of each month.

[Gazsun]

Hi all thanks for the kind replies. Thanks again Melanie, I remember you saying the same things too us when we talked about IVA/BR. I was defiantly at my lowest ebb that day, been on the up ever since!
Imhotep the haggling was over the running costs for my wife’s car. One company wanted £10 off our expenses the other debtors were all fine. This company just wouldn’t budge, we agreed in the end!
We are with the CO-OP and very happy we are, would thourally recommend them, there online banking is a piece of cake.